Th
e Beginning
Melanie Ferrio started riding at the age of five. She didn’t come from a horsey family, but her best friend at the time wanted to take riding lessons, so Mel tagged along. Her family couldn’t afford regular lessons, so she had to get creative and quickly became your typical barn rat. She would do anything to be around horses!
Fast forward through adolescence and early adulthood, and Mel is still her happiest when she’s around horses. She owns a beautiful farm in Fallston, Maryland, where she has built a stellar reputation for training and selling superior sporthorses. But over the years, she became known for something else – bridleless riding.
Boyd – The horse that started it all
Fast forward through adolescence and early adulthood, and Mel is still her happiest when she’s around horses. She owns a beautiful farm in Fallston, Maryland, where she has built a stellar reputation for training and selling superior sporthorses. But over the years, she became known for something else – bridleless riding.
And she was right. In 2014, a small, black Warmblood, whose registered name was Wings, was given to Mel, and she gave him the barn name of Vlad. She had just lost Boyd, so she decided to put her time and energy into Vlad. Her plan was to get him sound in mind and body, restart him under saddle, and then sell him. But Vlad was a challenge from the start and gave Mel a run for her money – until she started to jump him. Then all the pieces came together. As Mel and Vlad began to take on the jumpers, she realized exactly why he’d been given his show name of Wings. He came alive in the show ring, and they soon began to chase dreams Mel never thought were possible.
When they weren’t in the show ring, Mel and Vlad performed at a variety of horse expos. She’d been playing around with bridleless riding with Vlad, and after a bit of trial and error, everything clicked, and their audiences fell in love with the daring duo!
After a stretch of performances, it was time to hit the show ring again, and Mel put the bridle back on – only to find out that Vlad wasn’t having it! He made it clear that he wanted to ridden bridleless, and Mel, in tune to her horse, listened. If he wanted to be ridden bridleless, she would ride AND show him this way!
Mel and Vlad made history in October of 2017 when they entered the ring at the Washington International Horse Show – bridleless. They competed in the High Adult Jumper 1.15m and successfully completed the course. Vlad was cool, calm, and collected as they showed the world that anything was possible. Mel remembers leaving the ring that night completely overwhelmed by what they had just accomplished together. And the next morning she woke up to articles all over the world showcasing their bridleless trip at Washington.
Vlad is now twenty years old, but to him, age is just a number. He hasn’t slowed down at all despite the fact that he’s a senior citizen. Crowds can still find him and Mel performing at a variety of horse expos across the country under her brand, Unbridled Wings. She hopes that when people hear Vlad’s story, it inspires them to chase their dreams!