Thursday, September 3, 2009

My Helmet Saves My Life Again

So now this is the second time this year I have been extremely thankful that I always wear my helmet. On Monday I decided it would be a brilliant idea to ride my mare who had not been ridden all weekend in a bitless and bareback saddle in the back path behind the paddocks. She was hyper from having days off and wanted to go every time I asked her to canter so I let her go a little and she was fine. Then when I was cantering her again later she started pulling and wanting to go again so I decided to let her get it out of her system. I let her run down the path and through the grass field. She was really booking it and she went to take a sharp turn between paddocks. I tried to slow her down and widen out her turn by pulling her right. Unfortunately it did not work and the bareback saddle is not the most stable thing so me and the saddle went right and she kept going left.

I landed about an inch from the paddock fence and saw her hooves gallop past me. Apparently from the eye witness accounts I got some pretty good air and really flew off. I hit my leg on either the fence of just hard on the ground not sure, but it swelled up and turned pretty colors. The swelling has gone down but it is still colorful. The next day my neck and back were a total mess as was most of the rest of my body parts. I was very sore and definitely got some good whiplash. My helmet definitely prevented me from breaking my neck or cracking my head open with that fall. My mare just ran right into the barn to wait for me and when my friend reached her (since she was moving a little quicker than I was) she trotted herself right out to her field and waited for us there with the bareback saddle on sideways and reins hanging around her neck. I put a real saddle and bridle on her and got on and rode her another ten minutes taking that turn at a hand gallop to make her do it wider and stopping her before turn to prevent that happening in the future.

Afterward I cowgirled up and rode three more horses, which may not have been the best thing for my leg, but I survived. We were on an unlucky streak at the farm with L falling off at the show Sunday, me falling off Monday, then my friend E fell off at barrel racing on Tuesday and my barn owner had a horse rear up and land on her when trying to back him off the trailer.

So that takes me to Tuesday. I finally got to go barrel racing. We did well. We got our usual barrel time of 20 seconds, our dash time was a little slower than normal at a 9.2, but still good and we won some money in 3D. We had one of our fastest poles times at a 29 when we usually do a 30. My trainer R came and rode my barn owner D's horse Jewel. She did great and it was funny to give her riding advice instead of the other way around, but as with all things involving horses she was a natural.

The past 2 days we just schooled in the ring since we have a western pleasure show next weekend. I started school on Tuesday, which is depressing thinking of homework and reading coming and the absence of freedom. I am also trying to rearrange my schedule which is extremely annoying, but hopefully it will work out.

No comments:

Post a Comment