I was small at 5 foot 4 inches and my little Paint horse, Comanche, was well suited to my size as I could just look over his back when standing beside him.
I rode bareback 95% of the time. Early on I learned that there wasn’t always something to help me climb back on when I had to dismount for whatever reason. I had seen trick riding at rodeos and even a lot of the westerns would show a rider grabbing hold of the saddle horn and vaulting onto the back of their horse. I already did this with my ponies because they were much shorter, so I decided to try it with the taller horses.
Comanche’s huge brown eyes gave me accusing, disgusted looks as I carried the saddle to him and buckled it on – he disliked saddles as much as I did, but this was important. I scratched and talked to him, letting him know it wasn’t his fault. Not too much surprised my horses and ponies. Out of my protective mother’s eyes – I did quite a bit of tricks. Two of my ponies could rear up now and I had even tied a bucking strap on little Prince once, but that’s another story.
I stood by Comanche’s neck, grasped the horn in my hands, jumped off the ground as I pulled with my hands, throwing my right leg over his back as I jumped. Crack!!! My shin hit the back of the saddle. Great, another bruise to add to the collection of cuts and scrapes I was always getting. Comanche pushed me with his nose impatiently as if to say, “C’mon, idiot! Let’s go already!”. His sole goal was to run – he lived for it and was very fast considering his size. So standing there while I was trying to vault on was not making him happy.
After a couple more tries, I figured out that I needed to hold the horn in just my left hand, using my right as a pendulum to get just a little more momentum in my lift. The right leg had to be thrown very high in order to clear anything on his back, and prevent additions to my bruise collection. I routinely ran in our hilly pasture, jumping over creeks and logs. My legs were very strong – so the vaulting was mastered after only a few tries and it became the way I always mounted. When bareback, I grabbed a lock of Comanche’s long mane in place of the saddle horn.
Comanche liked that I mounted this way. I mentioned his impatient personality before. When I vaulted on, he was often running before I hit his back. I learned to never let go of the reins – if I missed (and sometimes I did) I didn’t want to have to chase him down.
I worked at a riding stable one summer, and my vaulting became a topic of discussion because none of my coworkers mounted that way. So for fun, horses were dragged out and everyone took turns trying to vault on. I got a lot of laughs that evening, and I’m certain that a couple of the poor horses ended up with bruised ribs.
Most failed the vault exercise, so then the challenge was to find a horse that I would cause me to fail. They brought out a large Appaloosa that was half draft horse. I don’t know what you know about horses, but draft horses are VERY large and Appaloosa’s typically have one hair in their mane and two on their tail. He was a big baby but I was certain no one had ever tried jumping on him. I pet and crooned to him to let him know I meant no harm so he wouldn’t get startled.
He was tall, I had to stretch to reach his mane … and he didn’t have one. My coworkers were laughing at my anticipated failure. Honestly, I wasn’t certain I could vault onto this horse. I was always game for a challenge, so I stretched way up and grasped his withers. This is the bump at the front of a horse’s back where the shoulders, back and neck meet, took a deep breath and lunged.
It was a thing of beauty, a quick movement and I was on his back looking way down in triumph – as I pet the big Appaloosa’s shoulder. I had met their challenge – height and lack of mane was not an issue!
