Brendan Wise

The beginning of Brendan’s career started with world renowned clinicians and teachers: John Lyons and Josh Lyons. Becoming a Certified and Accredited Lyons Legacy Trainer gave Brendan the foundational skills and knowledge he needed to start working with young horses, problem horses, bridleless riding, and all around general horsemanship. For the first season of Brendan’s career he honed in on understanding how to communicate as effectively as he could both with horses, and also with people. Being an effective teacher of people was a big priority to Brendan, as well as being an effective trainer. Both John and Josh Lyons are such incredibly gifted communicators and teachers, and Brendan believes he owes his abilities as a teacher and presenter to studying with them.

After spending many years consumed by working with the toughest problem horses he could find, starting horses under saddle, and pursuing Western Performance disciplines such as Reining, Brendan started to discover a new path: Classical Dressage. Through the influence of his own personal horses, Brendan began to crave more knowledge of the horse, its mechanics, and the systematic training of the horse’s body and mind. It was only a short period of time before he was head over heels, taking a deep dive into the world of the classical dressage, studying every material he could find from the old masters. This revolutionized Brendan’s approach to the horse, and greatly influenced the course of his future.

After spending years developing himself as a classical rider, blending this new knowledge with what he had already learned in the area of horsemanship, Brendan found that a large majority of his students became jumpers and venters who desired to learn more about dressage and their flatwork in a deep and practical way. After helping these students further their horses so much, many began asking for jumping lessons as well. At this time jumping was merely a low level hobby, and Brendan did not feel qualified to teach it. Out of necessity for his students, and the sales horses that were in his program, Brendan began taking jumping more seriously, and worked hard to become proficient in the jumper ring. That sparked a new love and passion in Brendan, and he began to feel that jumping might become a large part of his future in the horse industry. A few short years of applying himself diligently, and Brendan found himself jumping at the National Grand Prix level, and having a lot of fun along the way. Jumping re-ignited the “fun” of riding for Brendan, and he is extremely grateful for it!

All throughout his career Bridleless riding has been present, front and center. From his early days of western horsemanship running bridleless reining patterns, and performing at expos, rodeos, and country music festivals, Bridleless has always been something that Brendan was passionate about. As his focus shifted to a more classical approach to the horse, his development of the bridleless horse adapted along with everything else, taking it to a much more technical degree and a higher level of schooling. At this time Brendan’s bridleless work was showcased in exhibitions and performances. However, a particular horse changed all of this. The dutch warmblood “Wings” entered into Brendan’s life, as Wings became the main competitive jumper is his now ex-wife, Melanie Ferrio-Wise. Wings was a very difficult horse, but a very talented jumper. Melanie and Brendan discovered that Wings preferred to ride bridleless, and was a much more relaxed jumper that way. Brendan and Melanie then dedicated themselves to developing a bridleless system that went beyond just tricks and exhibitions. They developed a system that would be taken by Melanie and Wings into competitive riding against bridled horses in the Show Jumping Ring. This thrust Wings into the international spotlight, and the phenomenon “Unbridled Wings” was born. Up until this point in English disciplines, Bridleless riding had not been presented into competition. However, Wings showed that it could not only be done, but could be done successfully and competitively at the lower levels. 6 years later, Lyric came into Brendan’s life as a full time jump partner. Lyric and Brendan bonded very quickly, and worked their way into upper level show jumping fairly quickly. Brendan was also working with Lyric bridleless, and was performing with Lyric in exhibition. Because of the way that Lyric came into the Bridleless work so attentively, it sparked an idea: could bridleless be taken into the upper levels of showjumping?! This became a new goal and mission for Brendan and Lyric. Over the winter of 2024, Brendan and Lyric competed up the the 1.40m National Grand Prix level Bridleless, proving that it can indeed be taken into open competition against bridled horses successfully. Brendan feels that he and Lyric have just barely scraped the surface of what is possible, and look forward to proving themselves in competition even more in the 2025 season.

Brendan looks at competitive horsemanship and believes that in many cases we can find a kinder and softer way to achieve results. His mission is to use bridleless riding to inspire others to seek a softer and kinder way, and show that there are alternatives to stronger and more harsh methods of control. Right now, in most competitive English disciplines, a bit is required. Brendan is not at all anti-bit! But he would like to see riders be given the option of using the tack that they believe best fits and communicates with their horse, as long as it is safe and kind to the horse. Bits, bitless bridles, hackamore, and even bridleless can all be used to achieve good results, and be competitive. Brendan would like to see these all be presented as legal options for riders to choose from. He hopes that if he can show the world that bridleless can be safe and competitive at a very high level, then maybe the governing bodies will make considerations for riders to have more freedom in what tack they choose.