Riding bareback does put more concentrated pressure on your horse’s back compared to using a well-fitted saddle. That doesn’t mean it’s always harmful, but the difference in how your weight is distributed matters, especially over time or at faster gaits. How much it affects your horse depends on how often you ride bareback, how balanced you are as a rider, and your horse’s overall fitness and back health.
Why Bareback Riding Creates More Pressure
A well-fitted saddle spreads your weight across a larger surface area through its tree (the rigid frame inside). Without that frame, your seat bones, thighs, and pelvis concentrate your weight into a smaller area of the horse’s back. A study published in the Equine Veterinary Journal measured the forces on horses’ backs during bareback riding and found that even though the total force was lower without a saddle (since the saddle itself has weight), the average pressure, maximum pressure, and the area experiencing high pressure were all greater during bareback riding. In practical terms, less total weight was hitting the back, but it was hitting harder in specific spots.
Think of it like standing on soft ground in hiking boots versus high heels. You weigh the same either way, but the heels sink in because your weight is focused on two tiny points. Your seat bones work similarly on your horse’s back when there’s no saddle tree to spread the load.
The Role of Rider Balance
Your skill level amplifies or reduces the impact of bareback riding significantly. A balanced rider with a quiet, independent seat moves fluidly with the horse, keeping weight distributed as evenly as possible across both sides of the spine. An unbalanced rider tends to lean, grip, or bounce, which shifts weight unpredictably and forces the horse to compensate.
This compensation puts extra strain on the longissimus dorsi, the large muscle running along each side of the spine that does most of the work supporting a rider’s weight. When a rider can’t follow the horse’s motion smoothly, they essentially become a “passenger” whose body works against the horse’s natural movement rather than with it. The horse may hollow its back, tense its muscles, or alter its gait to cope. Over time, this can lead to muscle soreness, tension, and even injury.
Bareback riding removes the stabilizing tools that help less experienced riders stay centered. There are no stirrups to help you recover from a balance shift, and no saddle structure keeping you positioned over the horse’s center of gravity. For a skilled rider with strong core muscles and a well-developed seat, this isn’t necessarily a problem during short sessions. For a beginner or someone who grips with their legs and bounces at the trot, the horse’s back absorbs every mistake directly.
What Frequent Bareback Riding Can Do
Occasional bareback rides at a walk or easy trot are unlikely to cause lasting damage to a healthy horse, particularly if you’re a balanced rider. The concern grows with frequency, intensity, and speed. Sitting trot and canter generate significantly more force than walking, and without a saddle to buffer that force, every stride sends concentrated pressure into the muscles along the spine.
Horses that are ridden frequently with excessive back pressure, whether from bareback riding, a poorly fitted saddle, or an unbalanced rider, can develop a condition where the bony projections along the top of the spine (called dorsal spinous processes) begin to crowd each other. This condition, commonly known as kissing spines, can cause a range of problems: soreness to the touch, bucking, hollowing the back, resistance during transitions, hypersensitivity to grooming, and general performance decline. According to UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, kissing spines are likely acquired rather than purely genetic, and contributing factors include improper training that allows the horse to carry itself with a hollow back rather than engaging its core muscles.
A horse that’s regularly ridden bareback by an unbalanced rider is more likely to travel in this hollow, disengaged posture, which compounds the pressure problem. The horse drops its back away from discomfort, the rider bounces more as a result, and the cycle worsens.
Do Bareback Pads Help?
Bareback pads provide grip and a thin layer of cushioning, but most don’t contain a rigid tree, so they don’t spread your weight the way a saddle does. They can reduce friction and offer some comfort for both horse and rider, but expecting a foam or gel pad to replicate what a saddle tree does isn’t realistic.
Research on saddle pads (used beneath fitted saddles) shows that the material matters. A study testing gel, leather, foam, and reindeer fur pads found that only the reindeer fur pad significantly reduced the peak forces on the horse’s back, dropping them from about 1,005 newtons to 796 newtons at the walk and from 1,650 to 1,437 newtons at the trot. The other materials didn’t make a statistically meaningful difference. This suggests that simply adding padding doesn’t automatically reduce pressure. The material’s ability to distribute force matters more than its thickness.
Signs Your Horse’s Back Is Bothered
Horses don’t always show obvious pain. Many with mild back issues perform normally and only reveal discomfort through subtle behavioral changes. Watch for flinching or dipping when you run your hand firmly along the back muscles on either side of the spine. Resistance to being groomed, especially over the back and loin area, is another early signal. Girthiness (pinning ears or nipping when you tighten the girth or cinch) can also indicate back soreness.
Under saddle or during bareback work, a horse with back pain may hollow its back and refuse to round into contact, buck or kick out during canter transitions, cross-canter, rush fences, or simply feel stiff and unwilling. These signs overlap with many other issues, from dental problems to hock pain, but if they appear or worsen after you’ve been doing more bareback riding, the connection is worth investigating.
How to Reduce the Risk
If you enjoy bareback riding and want to keep doing it without harming your horse, a few practical adjustments make a real difference. Keep bareback sessions shorter than your typical saddled rides, and stick primarily to the walk and a gentle posting or rising trot. Limit sitting trot and canter work, which generate the highest peak pressures. Make sure your horse is conditioned for the work you’re asking. A horse with strong back and core muscles tolerates rider weight better than one that’s out of shape.
Work on your own fitness and balance independently. Exercises that strengthen your core, inner thighs, and hip flexors help you sit quietly and follow the horse’s motion rather than bouncing against it. If you notice yourself gripping with your calves or thighs to stay on, that tension transfers directly into the horse’s back and ribcage.
Finally, pay attention to your horse’s feedback. A horse that moves freely, swings through its back, and relaxes under you during bareback work is tolerating it well. A horse that pins its ears, tenses its back, or tries to rush forward is telling you something. The answer to whether bareback riding is bad for your horse isn’t a universal yes or no. It depends on how you do it, how often, and whether your horse is telling you it’s a problem.