Done that… My mare clearly thought it was a stupid thing to do. I don’t count it as a fall, because I was never really on her. But thankfully she has this thing… if I end up where I am not supposed to be (e.g. underneath her) she just stops and stares at me while I get myself sorted.
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I did this too! Trying and failing to jump onto my mare I went and got a stool - failed to adjust for effort and went right over the other side. She was a tolerant mare, and I’m pretty sure she just rolled her eyes at me.
Later, I was riding her bareback in a halter, like I always did, and I had just sort of relaxed my legs because we were in a big field on our way home, when she got spooked and bolted for home. I stayed on almost the whole way to the barn at a dead run, when she swerved at the last minute and I got dumped.
Another - I was a teen - my friend and I were trail riding. My gelding always went first. She said “I want to see if my horse will canter away from yours”. So she did, and my horse was getting antsy and jigging. Instead of letting him trot out, I thought “boy, I’ll bet he looks fancy” and kept up the jigging until he exploded - went straight up into the air, bent his body left in the air and I came down on nothing.
I was a bold kid, but I’m paying for all of that now!
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I love everything about this.
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I have fallen off more times than I can count, but the “stupidest” ones were back in the 1960s, when I was a teenager, riding my palomino TB x QH, Golden Rocket.
The first was on a hunter pace that was held on trails we frequently rode on. There was one loop of trail that was permanently blocked off. But for the hunter pace they had unblocked it , and it was part of the course. I knew he wasn’t expecting to make that turn, so I slowed right down, and and gave very strong turning aids. But he was ignoring me, and going straight. Finally we were past the turning, and I needed to pull up and turn around. At that exact moment he realized that the trail was open and did a greater than 90 degree turn. But I had just shifted my focus to pulling up. He turned, and I kept going straight.
He quickly stopped after I came off, and I remounted without problem, and ended up placing tenth (light blue ribbon). But there was also a bad luck / booby prize, which was a stuffed toy skunk. Someone had seen me, and I won that prize too.
One of the thing we did (being teenagers) was to ride sidesaddle in our regular jumping saddles (adjusting the stirrup appropriately). We even jumped small jumps that way. One day I was walking home (on my own) riding sidesaddle. I was less than a quarter mile from home, walking on the buckle, when one of the neighbor kids set off a pop gun. This startled Rocket, and he broke into a trot. If I had been riding astride I would have brought him back to the walk in a couple of strides. But I wasn’t. My first response was to grab the pommel with my right hand (also holding the buckle of the reins), and the cantle with my left hand, as he broke into a canter. I dared not let go with either hand to shorten the reins and bring him back. So he kept cantering, and I kept holding on. We were on a dirt road, and luckily there were no cars coming.
He kept cantering, and I kept holding on as we went over the hill with a blind corner, and turned into our driveway. When we got the the stable he made a sudden stop, and THAT was when I fell off. My riding hard hat came off, and I ended up with Rocket standing on my hair. But luckily neither of us were hurt.
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