How could a triton be ridden?

Question

The tritons are a species of aquatic animal with a rather unique appearance. Their upper body is mostly humanoid, apart from the following features:

• They have equine ears, that are positioned at around eyebrow level
• They have gills, which are covered by an operculum and are situated across the temple to the angle of the mandible
• They have a wide mouth with carnivore-like teeth
• They have a mane of leaves instead of hair
• They have upwards-facing lobster legs and chelae coming out of the calvaria
• They have heavily ornamented shell-valves on the shoulders and hands
• They have no pelvis, with the legs being bovine forelegs with the shoulders where the pelvis should be

Behind the upper body is the tail, which is akin to a dolphin's rear half and bears feathered wings just behind the legs. It also has no fin. Apart from the wings, it has shark-like skin. They live at (and are ridden) on the water's surface

What equipment would be needed to comfortably ride and control them?

Answer 1

I can't say how this would be perfectly applied to the biology of your creature, but I can think of some important things - you need something first of all, to direct the triton. This would be, to my knowledge, like the bit in a horse bridle.

The big question here is what is riding these tritons - are they humans? Merfolk with a traditional single tail? Two aquatic legs?

This will impact how your saddle looks. If they are aquatic people with two legs like humans, I think you could have a fairly traditional saddle. A merperson with a tail however would probably require some sort of harness to hold them onto the triton.

In that case, you might want additional things - like a way for the harness to be turned, as riding with your tail on one side of the animal for a long journey might get extremely cramped and sore, so you'd want to be able to shift to the other side for a while.

Then you might also want a way to quickly release the harness on the chance that the triton starts getting uppity - I have experienced horses going nuts before, and it is not fun.

All in all, it sounds like you can have a familiar bridle and saddle system, it'll just change depending on the biology of the mount and the rider.