Heheheheheh. I had the third fall in my
life a few weeks ago when Molly shied at a root... but won't be so happy to
tolerate being thrown when I'm a bit older!!! My mother still rides (hunt
seat!!) at 70 years old... I worry about her...
At any rate, Molly hadn't been ridden away from
home all summer and we'd just started off from the trailer. She was
spooking at EVERYTHING and finally got one over me.
Thank Heavens for sandy South Carolina
trails. The drag mark my butt made in the sand was there a week later when
my wife and I rode the same trail!
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.
