Taking the liberty of an adventurous trail ride
“Liberty” riding – or riding a horse without a bridle – is considered a difficult and dangerous feat. But now, four local riders believe they have completed an Australian first expedition.
Equipped with a neck rope, Alla Keogh, Kim Dyer, Kadence Bodard, and Maree Young set off on a 10km trail ride in Giffard, near Seaspray.
It took days of preparation and hundreds of hours of training to consider the ride, where they would have limited command over their animals.
“The difficulty goes up because you’ve got to have complete trust in our horses on top of being able to be on top of such a big and powerful animal,” Kim Dyer said.
Dyer operates Hartland Equestrian, where she specialises in working with horses without any equipment, like saddles and bridles, after discovering liberty riding about 10 years ago.
“I wondered why no one (in Australia) was doing it because of what it created with my horses, a really great relationship and really strong bond with them.
“It’s so awesome to have my horses come up and want to be ridden, whereas in the past I was a really big competitive rider, my horses didn’t really want to know me,” she said.
It’s a lesser-known discipline in Australia but has more traction in overseas, where competitions are held.
“The longer you have with the horse, obviously the better bond you’re going to have, and it does take a lot of training but it also depends on the personality of the horses, some are more trainable.
“And no one wants to fall off a horse, so we always just have to make sure that if we’re not 100 per cent confident with our horses then we don’t even attempt something like this,” she said.
After seeing it done in Europe, she planned a group ride.
“I’ve always done individual and private riding but I’ve never done a group ride, so that was always my dream.
“It was a really big achievement for everyone,” she said.
The group first practiced in an arena before taking to the trail.
“We’ve never done anything to this level, so it was really good to have done finally,” she said.