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Let’s hear your tales of getting hurt NOT falling off!

I was riding a green TB belonging to a friend. On one day we had been walking on a long rein with no big problems, so I shortened up the reins a bit to trot. Instead the mare threw her head down forcefully. I didnt let the reins slip quickly enough and was thrown forward. She then whipped her head back up, hitting me in the face with her neck! She reared several times without rein contact, with me just trying to stay on and see through the blood spattering in my eyes. When she stopped I jumped off. (we never did figure out why she did this. If she was stung by something we couldnt find any evidence)

The owner was distraught and provided ice and tea (yes, she was English!). I then drove myself with a Sesame Street washcloth holding ice on my nose. The folks at the walk-in clinic took a look at me and started treatment even before I did the payment paperwork, so I looked pretty bad! :smiley:

I had a broken nose and three stitches. By the time I went to work the next day I also had two black eyes.

But I didnt fall off! :roll_eyes:

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While in college I took a lesson on the Eq Team’s Coach’s youngster and he bucked his way through it for reasons I still do not understand. I sat them all, but kicked my feet out of the stirrups and was unlucky enough to have one of the irons crack me RIGHT on the medial malleolus of my right ankle. It was horribly bruised and swollen for weeks.

When I came off in 2017 and broke my right leg in three places, the xays showed a healed fracture in that same medial malleolus–from that ride on Timer circa 1992.

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I was trail riding one summer and my horse decided to run under a low hanging branch, not the kind that would sweep you out of the saddle, thin and pointy. I tried to grab it to push it up and out of the way but missed and it scraped down the length of my back. Tore a hole in my favorite riding shirt and had a 6" long x 2" wide scratch in my back. Hurt like the dickens. It healed without too much incident luckily.

I got a concussion on horseback without falling off!

My then 4 year old and I were having a discussion about going forward. He decided to stop and do a mini-rear in protest, which had me leaning forward to balance. When he came back down on his four legs, he threw his head up in the air. As I was still sitting forward from the rear, his head met my nose, violently. My nose started bleeding uncontrollably, with blood pouring all over me, the saddle, reins and horse, while I continued riding on and concluding that discussion. The next day, yep, concussion. Without falling off!!

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Uh, yeah :thinking:
What part of “Off” did you not do, OP?

But, I can contribute:
Cleaning stalls for my Free Access To Them horses, the TB was in my way.
I shooed him out, and as he left he aimed a kick at me.
Which grazed my wrist, leaving it tingling.
Horses can not only aim a kick, but also “pull the punch”.
What I got was the Next One’s Gonna Hurt! warning kick.
Still could have easily broken my wrist.

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In college, had a horse stop with me and I went straight up his neck, ended up sitting in front of his wither. Pulled a groin muscle trying to get back in the saddle. Even jumped another jump or two before I thought, hmmm, something’s NQR. By the time I got back to the barn it hurt so bad I couldn’t walk across the crosstie.

Just last year, I ended up my horse’s neck & off to the side. I managed to grab mane and pull myself back up, but I think I separated the top joint of my pinky with the chunk of mane I was using as a handle.

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I badly sprained or more likely broke my pinky while NOT falling off a pony. She did the duck and spin as a jump refusal and I was heading off right over her shoulder but managed to stay on. It took months to feel normal again.

I tore the ulnar collateral ligament in my thumb while landing from a jump. I came down I guess with my thumb out and used it to brace against the neck on the landing, and…snap! (this injury is commonly known as skier’s thumb since it happens with ski accidents and ski poles). I had to have surgery for this one.

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The injury didn’t come from the fall, it came from staying sort of in the saddle. The fall was after.

I had that injury, luckily not bad enough to need surgery, when I reached into the oat box to reach that last little scoopful and fell in head first, well, thumb first. :upside_down_face:

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:Explanation accepted.
I can’t think of any injury (in 40yrs riding) that occurred before I parted ways with a horse.
Maybe the bloody nose I got as a 14yo from jumping a schoolie who seriously inverted, whacking me with his neck.
Jump was 4’, so he had some power invested :roll_eyes:

I also sport 2 fingers - middle & ring - with permanently-crooked top joints.
Result of not quite letting go of a longeline attached to a jet-propelled pony :persevere:

I remember decades ago when a rider with a lot more experience than I had at that time told me of one time where she nearly fell off her horse, tearing a few muscles in the process.

She told me that sometimes a person can end up with fewer injuries by just falling off, and years later after that incident she still wished she had fallen off then instead of “successfully” staying on her horse.

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I broke my thumb like this. Horse left long for a decent size xc fence. We landed normally except for my left hand holding me back—landed with fingers on left side and thumb on right side of his neck. Ended up with an avulsion fracture.

ETA: @Mango20 I guess this isn’t very uncommon!

I had a horse get a little bronc-y with me. He leapt and bucked, then twisted in midair. As my weight came back down in one of the stirrups, my leg was twisted juuuust right to dislocate my knee and sprain my ankle. Thankfully the horse’s antics stopped at that point and I could slooooowly slide down from the saddle and limp my way out of the arena lol

At first I was thinking it was when the horse I was on decided to take a short cut under a branch that was about 1’ above her back; pushed me back in the saddle and I had nice road rash across my neck from the branch. But that wasn’t it.

When I was a teen, I did some riding for other people at the barn. I was riding a pretty green Arabian mare, and went on the little trail behind the barn with some other barn rat kids who were riding broke horses. The trail section just off the property was a narrow trail cut into the side of a steep hill in the woods. On the way back the other kids took off running, and I probably should have just let my horse follow, but I didn’t, and she tried to spin around and fell off the narrow trail. So I was sitting on her and she was stuck with her feet uphill. I don’t know how long I was pinned, but the other kids came back and I realized that if the horse was to get up, I needed to fall free, so I had the presence of mind to have them get my feet out of the stirrups and undo the cinch. Just after the BO arrived, the mare suddenly made a big effort and got herself up, somehow without stepping on me, though I saw lots of hooves flashing over my head. My main injury was my leg that was stuck under the horse was stiff and too swollen to fit into my skinny jeans (this was the early 90s) for about a week, so I got to limp around and tell my war story.

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Missing thumb? Let me guess, the guy was a dally roper and didn’t get his thumb out of the way in time? I heard that happened to George Strait too.

The first time my younger horse bucked he broke my tailbone. I came off on the fifth or sixth buck. I know 100% that the tailbone break happened before I hit the ground because I landed on my front (I have video). That was nine years ago and I still occasionally have tailbone pain if I sit too long on the wrong seat.

There were many days I’d sit in the saddle after a ride and wish someone would come and push me off because swinging that leg over was so painful…

My first time at pony club as a teen (and Fathers Day…sorry dad!), on my then half wild pony. She took off, I attempted a one rein stop, it was on wet grass, she went over…I ended up with the inside bit of my elbow bone floating a good inch or two down towards my hands. Surgeon reckoned as the horse fell, she’d attempted to rebalance by wrenching her head around, and the tendon that attached my wrist to that bit of elbow literally pulled the bone off. Technically I never came off…and the injury was not caused by hitting the ground! That required a screw in the elbow and 3 months of physio. Screw came out a year later, I found out many years later that they left the washer lodged in the soft tissue…which is still there. There’s a teeny bit of nerve damage, and it hurts like the devil if I whack it but otherwise fully functional and no one sees the scar unless I show them.

Same horse, same year, leapt up a 3-4ft embankment, smashed my left hand into the saddle. Pinky was sore and swollen for weeks but I didn’t think anything of it. Only realised years and years later when comparing my hands, that the first knuckle on my left pinky got shoved down into my hand. Works fine, I just have a really short pinky!

Same horse again (I always tell people she’s so solid and safe…I swear she is) objected to having a travel boot on one back leg…I knew she was prone to a bit of a kick so I was off to the side. She looked around, aimed sideways and slammed the side of my knee. With a shod hoof. Luckily no serious damage beyond a wicked bruise and we went on to have a great dressage day. She’s never tried again, she knew straight away she’d crossed a line.

As someone who is getting back in the saddle this month after a few years off, this thread is not helping my anxiety! But I have a few from my younger days:

  • My first horse and I fell over during a lesson. The footing was not great in that part of the arena and we ended up turning a bit too sharp. It happened super quickly. Once second we were up cantering around, the next flat on our sides covered in arena footing. Luckily we both came away unscathed aside from a few minor scratches. Gave my trainer a heart attack though.

  • Jammed my lower back riding out the bucks on a young exuberant horse. It happened multiple times and resulted in a compressed disc, which I’m dealing with the consequences now years later. We used to joke that we should sell him to the rodeo :sweat_smile:

  • Same horse also took off once while I was trying to bridle him. The reins were around his neck and I tried to hang on to him (who knows what I was thinking), so he spun and kicked me in the thigh, then bolted while I was incapacitated. Left a nice bruise that turned into a hematoma. We really should have sold him to the rodeo :roll_eyes:

  • Also rolled my ankle pretty badly stepping in a hole outside my horse’s stall at a show. Spent 4 hours in the ER waiting for an x-ray because I couldn’t move it or put weight on it. It ended up not being broken, but I couldn’t ride for the rest of the show (my mother was p*ssed!). Unfortunately I rolled the same ankle again last year (non-horse related) and it hasn’t been the same since. I’m hoping it won’t protest too much when I’m back in the saddle but it doesn’t flex the same despite mobility and strengthening work.

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On time at a horse show on the line up from a flat class the horse I was riding went to itch and got it’s bit stuck on the safety stirrups. The mare got super spooked and reared up, and since she was stuck on the bit so couldn’t find her balance and flipped over. I was stuck under her for about 90 seconds as she was trying to find her balance and get unstuck from the bit. When she stood up and stood up right on my leg. Everyone was convinced I was going to become jelly as I was ambulanced away, but I got super lucky and only had severe bruising that lasted a couple months.

I know I technically fell, but I was fallen onto instead of falling off :rofl:

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We have half walls in our barn so the horses can socialize or pick on each other. I was haltering my horse in his stall and as I had his nose in and was starting to fasten the crownpiece he had his head lowered so I was a little bent over. The horse next door reached over and poked him in the butt. My horse swung his head around and bashed me right in the face. Luckily it was my brow bone and not my cheek bone. I seriously saw stars and staggered a few steps and sat down on the edge of the feed trough. My horse was looking at me in alarm and I reached out and patted him. I could feel my eye swelling up and went out to the shop where DH was working and told him he needed to take me to the emergency room. Without turning around he asked “why”? Then he did turn around; his face went white and he got a bag of frozen peas to put on my face.

Luckily nothing broken but I sported a big black eye for weeks. My one eye completely swelled shut and it turned all kinds of pretty colors. I even scared a small child at the grocery store. She took one look at my eye and started crying! I still have the scar.