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 with horses, and also with people. Being an effective teacher for his students 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 body 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 piece of 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 were jumpers and eventers who desired to learn more about dressage and their flatwork in a deep and practical way. After helping these students further their horses so well in these areas, 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. This endeavor 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. After merely 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 still extremely grateful for it!

Throughout Brendan’s 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 his bridleless riding to a much more technical degree and a higher level of schooling. At this time, Brendan’s bridleless work had been showcased at equestrian expos and in performances, but hadn’t found its way outside of the exhibition arena until a particular horse changed all of this. The dutch warmblood “Wings” entered into Brendan’s life, as Wings became the main competitive jumper of his now ex-wife, Melanie Ferrio-Wise. Wings was a very difficult horse, but a very talented jumper. Brendan and Melanie 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, an Argentinian Warmblood, came into Brendan’s life as a full time jump partner. Lyric and Brendan bonded very quickly, and soon found themselves competing together in upper level show jumping. 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 in Brendan’s mind: could bridleless riding be taken into the upper levels of showjumping?! This became a new goal and mission in their partnership. Over the winter of 2024, Brendan and Lyric made their competitive bridleless debut on the show jumping circuit in Ocala, Florida as they competed up the the 1.40m National Grand Prix level with no bridle, proving that Bridleless riding can indeed be taken into high level 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 seasons to come.