For curiosity’s sake, I sat down and started tallying up how many horses I’ve ridden. Taking into account everything from test rides of sale horses to endurance competitions, in over 25 years of riding, I’ve ridden 80+ different horses, and just in endurance alone, I’ve been fortunate enough to have the chance to compete on over a dozen different horses.
That’s a lot of different sets of ears through which I’ve viewed the trail, and a lot of “other people’s horses.” And I’ve learned something from all of them.
AM Star Reward
Kodaakhrom
AM Loves Tempest
The Habibah RA
Liberterra
Skip Me Gold
AM Magestic Dean
JC MacKay
Rocco
AM Ruwala Land
RMC Flash Gordon
(And several others that I never got any ear!cam shots.)
Go Pony • Go the Distance 
You are so lucky to have had those opportunities. I bet if you ever go horse shopping again you will know exactly what you want.
For sure. It’s been a really good experience in helping me dial in what I want, and figure out what my hard-line requirements would be and what I’m more flexible on.
It’s the best thing ever to get to ride so many horses and learn from them all! I’m kind of grateful I didn’t have my own until I was out of college because I wouldn’t have learned as much otherwise (but shh, don’t tell my younger self that or she’ll murder you with one evil look lol).
I also used to have a list of every horse I’d ever sat on/ridden. I quit keeping it when I got my own. I wonder 1 – where it is, and 2 – what the number would be up to now. It was ~80 about 8 years ago.
I wish I did a better job keeping track of this. I do an annual tally, but never did a running total, and I wish I had! I was averaging 120 horses per year in my rescue days. Last year I think I rode 75 (?) I’m betting the total is over 1000, and I’m not sure where I’d even begin trying to figure it out!! The endurance numbers are much smaller than that…