Unlimited access >

Anyone have any stupid falls they’d like to share? I fell off and it was entirely my fault, anyone relate? 🤣

I fell off recently and it was 100% my fault, anyone have any funny/embarrassing stories they’d like to share to make me feel better? :rofl: Anyway hope everyone is doing well.

1 Like

I was mounting my gigantic TB using a pipe rail fence, so I climbed up and threw a leg over. I somehow managed to land myself behind the saddle instead of in it, and about the time I thought ‘hmm, this is a bad place to be, I should get off’… he bucked me off. No injuries, though I almost died of embarrassment.

That was about 10 years ago. There were witnesses. And it was the only time that horse ever made a point of unloading me :joy:

6 Likes

Lol! I’m glad you were alright!! Thanks for your response! :rofl:

Oh, so so many.

First most embarrassing was when I jumped off of my horse and my pants ripped. Not a fall, but it was a super busy boarding barn and the seam was completely ripped. I didn’t have anything to tie around my waist. It was pretty horrible. Possibly not Coincidentally, that was the last time I purchased tailored sportsman’s :joy:

Got a new saddle pad. It was pretty thick. I tacked up and thought ‘wow, my horse is kinda fat today’ but didn’t think more of it. Until I got on, and the saddle slid under his belly. I ended up on the ground, he ended up bucking around thinking he was being attacked by a scary belly monster.

Riding along on a trail ride and we are all cantering. I’m at the back. Horse jumps sideways and I tumble off. He immediately stops and looks at me like ‘why are you down there?’ By the time I get up, my companions are long gone! They didn’t see me fall. Plus because I’m short I had to do the walk of shame back to the barn because I couldn’t find anything to mount from :joy:

I have more stories, many that I probably don’t remember. I have a real doozy that happened to someone else.

But my most recent fall my horse went to stretch his head down and kicked himself in the face, buckled at the knees and fell flat on his face. All of this was at the walk. Now that was embarrassing for him.

6 Likes

The worst fall I ever had resulting in a broken arm, was before a hunt. I lead my horse to the mounting block while talking to another rider behind me. I walked right off the mounting block landing on my arm! Being young and tough, I did hunt out by putting my hand into my jacket between the buttons. I even loaded and drove horse home. Only the following day when I could not lift chalk to write on the board in my classroom, did I go to the DR. Clearly broken! Got a cast and went back to work.

8 Likes

Bareback, tried to jump a snow drift. He made it, I didn’t.

Thought it was cool to slide down my horse’s neck. Went to go show someone what a cool person I was, horse threw his head when I was right at his ears. Who knows how many backflips I did before I hit the earth.

8 Likes

Horse swished his tail just as I was swinging my leg over, got my foot caught through his tail such that I got my leg over his rump but couldn’t get all the way into the saddle. Young OTTB did not appreciate his tail being pulled. Dirt bath ensued.

13 Likes

I was told to get on a little kid’s small pony because the pony was being herself, which meant refusing to canter. I was 20 and over confident so of course I elected to ride her without stirrups instead of lengthening them. I got on and kicked her hard. She obliged and we cantered precisely one lap around the ring. When we got back to where everyone was standing, she immediately slammed on the breaks and put her head down - and over the top I went, right onto my ass. Pony had a look in her face that said “See! I cantered. Now we’re done. Goodbye.” It was both embarrassing and hilarious.

9 Likes

I was riding in a field one day and pony was a bit spooky. She spooked at a chipmunk in a bush while we were going up a hill in mid posting trot and completely just ducked out from under me. I fell right on my tailbone - ouch!!

One week later I was still sore but determined to ride anyway. Completely forgot to tighten the girth before getting on. I was coming down from the canter and bracing myself because any little bounce hurt my tailbone from the last fall, accidently put more weight in one stirrup than the other and then slowly and helplessly slid off her side along with my saddle. Ugh!

3 Likes

At a show in St Louis this time last year… forgot to walk the last fence in the course walk. Saw the rider befre me do it and realized my error. Made a TERRIBLE turn to it, saint horse jumped it and somehow I landed in the dirt about 6 inches away from the finish line with my horse literally looking at me like “WTF”. I popped up and drug him over the line (why- I have no idea).

Judge gave me an A for effort and an E for my landing. Everyone laughed, I laughed, trainer eye rolled, laughed .

When I went into the ring for my last class the judge goes “try to stay on” . It was hysterical.

8 Likes

I was taking a lesson on my previous horse, working on a position issue through a gymnastic, with my coach watching from behind the line. After several attempts, we nailed it, and cantering away I cranked around to say to my coach “DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!” My mare, a lovely sensitive TB, interpreted my sudden move as “turn 90 degrees RIGHT NOW” and literally turned out from under me. She went left, I stayed hovering in the air and just plopped down onto the ground.

Coach lost it laughing at us (I was fine).

8 Likes

Sure, my most embarrassing “fall” was more of a hang…I was mounting a horse in a western saddle, I did the classic “too much umph!” on the up, went over the other side and managed to snag my bra on the saddle horn. Horse was big enough and my bra was twisted enough that I Could Not get down on my own. Two other people in the ring had to come save me as I lay plastered on the side of that saint of a quarter horse.

17 Likes

Not really a fall per se but I literally chipped my tooth in highschool by just simply dismounting and not paying attention to where my face was in relation to the metal rings on the saddle… somehow something happened and I hit the crap out of my tooth and it still has a chip in it to this day :frowning:

2 Likes

Almost every fall I’ve ever had was the result of my failure to exercise good judgment. Twice I can think of they were the result of an instructor failing to exercise good judgment.

I’m not including the multitude of falls I had as a young child running wild across the countryside on an evil pony because I’m not sure there is any real blame to be placed there. It was the '60s. Standards were different. :slight_smile:

The only funny one was more of a dismounting mishap than a fall. I was on a very tall young draft mule that I was just starting under saddle. I was riding in a western saddle and an old baggy T-shirt. I went to dismount and caught the hem of the shirt over the horn, so I ended up dangling off the side of the mule. My feet weren’t even close to the ground.

Then, the saddle began sloooooooowly rolling off to the side, in incremental movements, while I continued to dangle in the air, until my feet finally touched the ground. Thankfully, the mule never moved an inch through the whole event.

6 Likes

I was trying out a horse and after jumping a line, his steering went out and he ran to the end of the arena and slammed on the brakes. I went over his head and splatted against the wall. He just stood there all innocent and I waved my crop at him and said “bad horsey, bad horsey” as I was laying in the dirt. He was not impressed. I wasn’t hurt and made him jump the line again and he did it perfectly. I ended up buying him.

4 Likes

About a year ago, I led my old, trusty gelding to the mounting block. Climbed up, put left foot in stirrup, heaved myself up…lost my balance and went face first off the right side. My horse just walked off like, “I can’t associate myself with you.”

In 9 years of owning that wonderful horse, it was the only time I ever fell off him!

7 Likes

Thousands of years ago, riding out in the field, I was walking on a long rein after a good schooling ride on my OTTB at the time. By that time in our relationship he was well-mannered and would just walk along quietly, so I had my feet out of the stirrups, slouching in the saddle, thinking of other things and doing nothing about riding the horse.

He spooked suddenly and shot sideways to the right what seemed like a goodly distance. I just slid right around the saddle to the left, still in sitting-up position.

Instinctively as I was sliding off to the left I grabbed the pommel with the right hand and hooked the back of my right heel on the cantle. So then there was a pause in the fall while I was still in sitting-up position, but upside down (or felt like it) alongside the horse, hanging by just my right hand and heel. Left foot out of the stirrup and useless, left hand still had the rein buckle, also useless.

I vividly remember having a detailed view of the ground right in front of my face and a trail of ants marching along. The file of ants marched busily as I was trying to figure out if I could pull myself back up on this horse and not drop and land right in them. God bless the horse, having created this situation with the spook, he now stood like a rock waiting for me to – well, do something.

I think my right arm and leg holding me on were just too extended to get a bend going and pull back up, although the horse would have cooperated by staying still while I struggled with it. I finally let go first with the heel and then the hand … landing in those ants, dammit. But by then it was a short drop.

Unhurt, really not even bruised from such a short drop, quickly on my feet hoping no one saw this. We were not that close to the barn and no one was looking our way, so I decided to quietly remount and pretend this never happened.

But it was a moment when I realized just how nice to a rider this horse had become! He could so easily have kept going with his spook with a rider hanging onto one side - things could have become difficult with a danger of landing under his feet. He probably would have done that just after I got him.

Can’t fault him for the spook, just being a horse. If I hadn’t been so sloppy in the saddle none of it would have happened.

5 Likes

There was the woman at a former barn who saddled up her saintly horse, went to get on at the mounting block, and she and the big Western saddle landed on the ground because she had forgotten the cinch entirely.

The falls I’ve had haven’t been for especially stupid reasons.

4 Likes

Youngish chestnut thoroughbred mare, started this after jump party thing. 2 strides after landing, dead stop, porpoise with her butt, head/neck/shoulders disappear. Sat this activity…fell off whacking her when she whirled in a circle LOL

2 Likes

My most embarrassing fall was when I got too close to the 5’ post-and-rail fence while riding. Somehow I got the top of my boot hung up on a nail that was sticking out. Horse kept going and I was left hanging upside-down on the fence post until my foot came out of the boot. Horse came back to see how come I suddenly disappeared! Lol

10 Likes