Horse Illustrated Magazine

I come to you all in shame this week as my loyal adherence to no-stirrups November took a serious hit this week. It’s not that I gave up and took my stirrups out of their resting place in the tack room to use them again. It’s that I didn’t ride at all (almost.)

The week started off with a bang. At my Monday evening lesson we did, as usual, ride with stirrups, but with good reason. We went out to do some schooling on the farm’s cross-country course! My lesson cohorts are all eventers, so this was somewhat routine for them, but unless you count catching a few isolated logs and coops at various points during my riding life, this was a first for me.

I asked a lot of really thoughtful and articulate questions, like, “Wait, but so like how do I ride to a ditch?” I found the tiny, starter-height obstacles to be scary but the cantering in between them to be quite exhilarating. But mostly, I had fun and I can say I did feel balanced on my safe-and-reliable-but-narrow mount. Score one for no-stirrups November.

Again, that was Monday. The week went downhill after that, riding-wise. On Tuesday, I went to my regularly scheduled evening group run. On Wednesday, heavy wind and rain came through the area throughout the latter half of the day. On Thursday, my dog and I tackled the Southern Lights Stroll 5k at the Kentucky Horse Park. On Friday, I kept having “just one more thing” to finish at the office and didn’t get out before the pitch darkness of a November evening. On Saturday, I had an early holiday party that I spent most of the day preparing for.

All of these are lame excuses, friends. If I really embraced The November Project mindset, I would have gotten out to the barn in the early morning hours on Wednesday and Friday to squeeze in a ride. But I didn’t. Snoopy went a week without being ridden and I went a week without practicing no-stirrups riding.

Epic fail, as the kids say. Do they still say that? Probably not.

Anyway, Sunday rolled around with steel-gray skies, frigid wind and temperatures below freezing. I dug out my fleece-lined breeches and a pair of winter gloves and ended my inadvertent break. I opted for the bareback pad instead of the stirrupless saddle (heated seat!) I kept my fleece headband on under my helmet to cover my ears, which made the world sound as dull and gray as it looked. Within a few minutes of starting my ride, the exposed skin on my face started to sting in the wind.

And you know what? It was great. I felt so much better after a simple ride around the farm. I can’t say I accomplished much, and I don’t feel like I get as much of a benefit riding bareback as I do with a stirrupless saddle, but at least it broke the streak of not riding.

For me, Thanksgiving week is a quiet one, and our forecast here in Lexington is favorable. No excuse for not making the most of this last full week of no-stirrups November. I intend to end strong.

Let me know how your no-stirrups November is going in the comments!

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Leslie Potter is Sr. Associate Web Editor of horseillustrated.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LeslieInLex.