i hate it when people ride in trainers the best way to break you/ankle/toe foot!!
im 12 and do you have a horse called Capri? xx

I will take a look at those, thanks! 🙂

I love love love my cowgirl boots!

I have a very thin gel insole slipped into mine to absorb shock on cement; I wear them all the time.

They also need to have a smooth top–no large ridges and laces, these get caught in stirrups & under hooves–both on horseshoes & barehooves, alike.

That also need enough thicknesses to protect from road rash, enough support in the ankle to keep from straining/spraining them, and enough “hardness” in the top & toe to protect from being stepped on.

That’s called a riding boot. 😀

Safety isn’t a matter of comfort, ultimately; but you can still have very comfortable, safe, riding boots. They need to be Properly fitted. You can go into a shop & have your correct sizing done, find a brand/style/shape that works, then check Amazon & eBay for an affordable pair (not heavily used though! A riders foot shapes the boot to their own anatomy).

I’ve ridden since I was 2–that’s 33 years–and have only been thrown once. That’s statistically extremely fortunate. I also suffered no more than some dirt in my face–also extremely lucky. But I know how to jump & roll when landing. I have had to jump clear more often–both as required by my instructor, and in a couple situations where I didn’t want to wait and see if I would be thrown.

Riding boots are intentionally slippery so you can get your feet OUT of the stirrups quickly.

The rubber soles of sneakers are designed to grab for traction–exactly what you don’t want when having to bail from a flailing horse weighing a ton. You want to be off & clear as fast as humanly possible.

It isn’t just about being dragged–its also about being stepped on, being crushed under a falling/rolling horse, or being knocked off by a low branch on a runaway horse–I’ve seen these things happen, they ain’t pretty.

I don’t begrudge people their choices–as long as they making them from an educated place.

“I know it’s dangerous but I still ride as I prefer” is a respectable standpoint; I ride barefoot & bareback whenever I can, though no stables here will allow me to pay to go out riding like that. Their insurance won’t cover it! 😆

I learned to ride from the age of 2, bareback, on an Arabian mare. By age 9 I was bareback on a thoroughbred stallion. I loved his spirited readiness to run; but I also could jump-off and roll away at a moments notice–something I had been trained to do & required to demonstrate randomly.

Young girls are fine on any horse as long as their training is robust enough to handle whatever may/can/does come up.

The real problem I see is in the lack of well-rounded safety training in general; when learning to sky-dive you are required to jump off of a 6 foot high wall repeatedly, to practice your landings. I was taught the same with horses. People are left injured, crippled or dead from horse -related accidents all the time. Jumping off–and landing correctly–is just soooo important! 😯

Bareback & barefoot, sure. I do sometimes also run with scissors, too.

(I’m not being ficicious, either. I do! But it is a major risk you take every time you do it. If you know this and still choose to, well, I do too. But the majority of the time I’m saddled & in riding boots, because the stables I ride at now absolutely will not allow anything but proper boots. Insurance is why. Accidents without boots are more common, more serious, more expensive, and more prone than you can ever imagine. My comment below has more on boots.)

Condone it with a disclaimer, at the very least.