So in the three and a half years that I’ve been riding I’ve fallen off 13 times… is that bad? I just feel like my confidence has recently taken a hit and was wondering if falling off is bad?
It depends. How old are you? How long have you been riding? How many of those falls occurred in supervised environments and how many occurred when you were out by yourself? How many different horses/ponies have you fallen off of?
If you are a wild child, running unsupervised across the countryside with a gang of pony girls on half-trained ponies, like I did in my early years, then 13 falls in 3.5 years probably isn’t unusual. If you’re riding mostly in lessons in supervised environments, then I see some big red flags waving.
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I was a wild child and I never actually fell off 
though I did fling myself off several times when half trained pony was bolting for the highway. Then I got a hackamore and put a whoa on her.
As a re rider I have come off 3 times in 12 years. Once when an older lesson horse tripped in deep footing and twice when current horse bucked at a standstill. One of those times I could have saved myself but chose to slide off ( and regretted that choice).
I can however sit a spook well enough.
I am an older adult, and I’ve come off once this year (stop at a fence…no impulsion, wise mare). I average one fall every 3 years or so. I am pretty sure, OP, you are an adult. Your rate of falls does seem a bit high to me-- either overhorsed or ahead of your ability might be the cause.
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I ride around 3 horses a day minimum and if I can get another horse to ride then I’m not afraid to get on. I ride in lessons and I have yet to fall off a buck but everytime I’ve fallen in these 3.5 years is because the horse I’m riding stops right in front of the jump and well I get caught by surprise and off I go. I’m 19 currently and I ride daily, except on mondays.
Also I fall off like once every couple months but I’ve never fallen more than once in the same month except for today when I fell off twice, each time on a different horse
I don’t know. Multiple horses for decades. I don’t know. Does it matter?
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@Denali6298 I’ve just heard that falling off makes you a bad rider and since my confidence has taken a hit I’ve been wondering if I suck at riding
We fell off pretty frequently - voluntarily (e.g. playing cowboys & Indians in the winter and “shooting” each other off into the snow banks) and involuntarily (bucked off, scraped off against trees, spooked off…)
My early experiences with ponies resembled a Thelwell pony cartoon book a little more than they probably should have. :lol: My sister and I used to joke that we would kill our kids if we caught them doing the things we used to do because they could get killed doing that stuff.
Fortunately, the ponies were small and we didn’t have far to fall. Once I started taking riding lessons when I was 9 and my parents replaced my evil pony with an old, safe, horse, falls became much more rare.
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If your falling off multiple times a month I would reevaluate. With falling off when a horse stops at a jump, that tells me you need to sit back more and pay attention to the horse on approach. I can feel my mare suck back and I’m terrible at not jumping ahead. So it works for me because I forget myself (not jump ahead) because I feel her suck back.
Now if this is frequent the problem is you. That’s okay because we all have been there. What’s not okay is not learning from it and blaming the horse. Again, are you falling every refusal?
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I just have a very wicked horse that is mine mine, the other two my trainer lends them to me but he has like 6 hoses so I rotate. But anyways, my horse, even though we win a lot and we have really good rounds and he is amazing, he is such a hard ride at times. You have to add leg and get a perfect distance or else he will not care and not jump, but he fakes you out so it unseats you so easily and if you don’t come off when he fakes it he bolts to try to get you off. Usually, I can sit it but today he just caught me by surprise, and he also bumped me against the jump so by leg got hit and it unbalanced me, but its rare that he unseats me. I’ve owned him like, maybe 8 months? And he’s gotten me a total of 4 times.
This is a specific situation.
Are your falls happening in lessons or are they happening when you jump unsupervised?
Do the horses you ride often stop or runout from jumps and you don’t fall off? Or do you fall off at every dirty stop?
If you are riding horses that runout or stop alot, whether or not you fall off, then I think you need to do some problem solving in regards to the jumping training program you are following.
Horses stop for a variety of reasons. A major one is rider error. You don’t have impulsion, you don’t have the right stride length, the distance between fences is wrong, rider checks horse on approach to fence or is clocking horse in face over or after jump. Or the problem could be in the horse. Horse is over faced, tired, saddle hurts, hocks hurt, is green and hadn’t had proper schooling to jumps.
If the horses stop alot for you my first question is do they stop for everyone including the trainer? If so you need a new trainer. If they only stop for you then you need to figure out what rider error you are making.
If the horses rarely stop but you come off every time they do stop then you need to work on your seat. Going down a grid with a coach can be really useful.
I’m not surprised you came off twice in one day. One dirty stop wrecks your confidence and then you are sucked back on the next horse and you cause it to happen again.
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Scribbler I never ride without supervision from my trainer, here in Mexico it’s rare to find riders riding alone, but I don’t fall off easily in bucks or rears, and one of the horses I ride is 17.4 hh, a young horse, and a rearer and bucker (still getting used to riders on him and asking for different movements) and he has yet to unseat me but I only get unseated when a horse stops then runs out in front of jumps, you know what I mean? Like they stop, you end up on their neck and then they bolt, and well I get flung off if I can’t recover in time.
Most of the horses I ride are very nice and easy-going, mine is a butt head but he’s quite an amazing horse himself, but if I do mess up at the height I’ve been jumping (1.10-1.20) they rarely forgive me so they stop or they simply run out, today I was riding a stallion that is so gentle but we were heading towards a 1.30 vertical and i messed up my strides, got distracted for a second, and he just went ‘nope’ and stopped. I got caught completely off guard, he had never stopped since I’ve ridden him, and I slide off but luckily I fell on my feet and just got back on and finished the lesson pretty well.
I don’t fall off every time my horses stop or run out but today, after finishing up with the stallion and one more horse (who was very happy today and was just jumping around and bucking), I got on my horse and we were about to finish when suddenly he decided he was done, even though we were at the right distance he tried to run out but I held him and tried to still make him jump (my mistake, it was a 1.20 obstacle so of course there was no recovering) and he sort of jumped to the side and he ended up slamming my leg against the fence and I got unbalanced and I tried so hard to stay on but he spun around and off I came ;-; Got the air knocked right out of me.
Ok, so this is rider error that you can identify. And it sounds like your own horse is difficult.
I think the takeaway here is that the jumps are getting bigger and you need to be on your game 100%. It may also be that your own personal difficult horse is maxed out or has some pain issues.
Really at this point it depends on your taste for risk.
What you are describing is called a “dirty stop” in jumping and some horses certainly learn how to deliberately unseat a rider. My understanding is that a dirty stop is considered a big fault in a jumper.
Do the horses do this for your trainer?
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Yeah XD I get distracted at times and since I’m moving up ranks well I need to concentrate harder than before and when you get to 1.10 it’s so rare that a horse will forgive rider errors so you’re right, I gotta be on top of my game. My own horse can be difficult but wow, when he’s in a good mood or when I concentrate and ride him well he is a rockstar, we have yet to leave a show weekend without a first-place it’s just that he has taught me that if I don’t ride him… well, I get to taste a bit of dirt.
He has no pain issues, thank God, but he can be an ass sometimes. The jumps get bigger so I need to ride him better or he won’t help me out when I need him.
Yeah, dirty stoppers are 100% bad in jumpers but since my horse does it only when I mess up during practice or he’s in a very bad mood, luckily he’s never done it during a show.
The stallion wasn’t at fault so I don’t blame him for me falling off but my horse does put up a fight whenever my trainer gets on and he’s in a bad mood but my trainer quickly fixes it and i just jump right back on and try to imitate what my trainer does.
Well, you are already jumping higher than most people ever achieve and you know what you need to do to move up: focus, concentrate, and ride with decision at every moment.
It sounds like you are in a high risk environmental bit accept those risks at least for now.
I would not take the falls per se as evidence that you are “not a good rider” in some overall sense. I would however approach the dirty stops as something you need to minimize happening because every time a horse runs out he is learning that is a possible solution to the problem of jumping. And it doesn’t only happen at high levels!
So I would suggest concentrating on figuring out how to minimize the dirty stops. I don’t have any good tips but maybe if you started a spin off thread about how to stop dirty stops there might be some good advice from people who aren’t interested in a thread on falling off. It sounds like that’s the source of your problems.
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You’re right, decision is the most important.
I just get really anxious, I feel like falling off means I’m a bad rider and my confidence has so taken a hit. I just don’t know why but I feel like i don’t ride well and it makes me a bit sad to say the least.
Yeah, dirty stops are something we are working on with my horse ' He didn’t stop like that at 90 cm but at 1m and up he has been telling us basically that he wants and NEEDS a rider to ride him or he won’t care and refuse.
That sounds like a definition of a horse that is maxed out. “I won’t jump that height unless you force me.”
I think you are right to feel anxious in the situation you describe because it is objectively dangerous. You are riding a horse with a dirty stop who is telling you he is maxed out at this level. You are coming off alot and you are going to get hurt eventually.
You are not really comfortable with the level of risk involved in this specific situation.
But instead of allowing yourself to recognize that this is a dangerous situation , you are internalizing the anxiety and thinking that you aren’t a good enough rider.
Maybe you aren’t a strong enough rider yet for this horse. Maybe he is a true “pro ride” or maybe no one can safely take him up above 1 m.
Now it is in your trainers interest to have you doubt your own skills rather than the trainers ability. Obviously at 19 as you move up in height there are going to be lots of things you need to learn. It is possible you are currently over horses. It is possible your trainer isn’t actually very good and just rides by force, doesn’t bring the horses along correctly. But having things still to learn doesn’t make you a bad rider. And if you aren’t learning how to fix things from your trainer then they aren’t a great trainer either.
You need to look critically at your whole training program and perhaps other options.
Ok, I went back and looked at your previous threads. And yes your first thread was about your previous horse, entitled “Help I think my horse will kill me” with his bolting. Then you replaced him with this horse that seemed a lot better. But now this horse is ducking out and bolting too.
You are still with the same trainer, correct? Then something is really not working. Sounds like you are still over horsed and your trainer is not able to help you fix these problems.
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i don’t know what the options are in Mexico but if you were in North America Id say find a new trainer and barn
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@Scribbler
Oh no, he isn’t forced at all, he gets excited to jump but he’s what people in mexico call ‘caballo de trucos’ which is basically a horse that likes to jump but need direction and a firm hand. My trainer has ridden him up to 1.30 and the horse doesn’t even break a sweat. He’s also not a pro ride, he just requires you to ride him well and he will help you but he isn’t going to save every bad thing you do. I am comfortable with the whole situation and whenever I get on my horse I feel super confident, I jump around a 1.10 course like its nothing and I have a ton of fun but I just always doubt my abilities and I feel like i look ugly while riding, like my eq might be effective but it doesn’t look pretty.
I understand where you are coming from but I think you took it to a very big extreme '^^. My trainer is amazing and I have yet to see him struggle, actually struggle, with a horse for real, here in Mexico he was chosen to go to the Olympics and everything so he knows his stuff and he does his best to teach me, I just feel like I’m a bad student.
And yes, my old horse used to be terrible, horrible, and honestly I suffered a lot, but my trainer has never been the problem and right now my current horse is perfect for me. Sure, he can be a bit difficult but I have never been afraid on top of him, i have never had a lesson where I went home angry, I have never thought I wanted to give up with this horse, he’s just a horse with a bit of personality. He doesn’t duck out every time, he does it only when i RIDE HORRIBLY, he doesn’t help me when I get a real bad distance or when I goof up. Also that previous horse, the one from the thread, was not sold to me by my current trainer, he was sold to me by a previous horrible trainer.
Also, I have never had a problem with my current horse and the future looks bright with him considering my trainer made me national champion with him, so he isn’t a problem. The problem I’m talking about on this thread is how I don’t know if falling off so many times means I’m a bad rider
All right then, you are comfortable with the situation.
So what kind of advice were you wanting from us?
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Simply to know if falling off is wrong? Or if falling off means someone is a bad rider and how many times other people have fallen off.
