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[RC] Falling off - Kathleen

Personally, I HATE falling off.  It happens once every 4-5 years.  When I was younger I was more forgiving of a horse that was spooky and dumped me.  Now that I am older I have NO tolerance for a horse that might dump me on a regular basis.  I recognize that odd events can happen that cause a spook and dump (last fall 4 years ago a big black cow literally JUMPED out of a bush onto the road in front of us…it even startled me) but a regular spooker is not going to stay at my house.  The older you get the less resilient your body becomes and the longer healing takes to occur.  One of my training partners was injured so badly in a fall from a horse that repeatedly bolted that she has a leg several inches shorter than the other, no knee and is in severe pain.  She can no longer do endurance.  Her entire life has been impacted and she is in pain all the time.  There are lots of nice horses in the world … I am not going to put up with one that might seriously injure me.  Our sport has enough built in danger without adding an undependable horse to the equation. 

To prevent falls, I take riding lessons and go to clinics to keep my skills up and prevent bad habits.  I work my horses on a very regular basis and keep them in the arena if they seem tense or silly.  I ride with partners (horses are less spooky when with company) as much as possible.  I try to keep my horse’s minds occupied when out on the trail…work them off my legs, change leads, change from one track to another on the trail, change pace…sort of like arena work on the trail so they are too busy thinking about what I want to look for things that might be spooky.  And I thank my mom and dad in heaven for all those years and years of riding lessons and time in the saddle.

Kathleen