Yes we have all made all the mistakes.
We bought Pepper sight unseen.
Mum’s first mistake was not letting me have the day off from school. I have never forgotten or forgiven her for that. Didn’t she eprealise that getting my own horse was THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF MY LIFE.
I was lucky that Mum was experienced and would not let us get a horse until we had our own property, said to me when we were living in a caravan.
So now I have a horse who has never been off a farm before and has been trained to go into the leg not away from it. Mum found this out when she put her leg on to move him away from a barbed wire fence. She eventually hated to pull him off with the reins. He jumped 6 foot if Mum banged a pot in the kitchen. He had been used to muster cattle when they had an extra man. He hated men and didn’t know how to canter a circle or jump.
MISTAKE THAT COULD HAVE HAD BAD CONSEQUENCES I had already missed one pony club muster that all the kids on our property had ridden to. There was NO WAY I was going to miss the next muster. So I went with them on my traffic shy horse, without Mum’s permission. I was okay as while he was snorting and going backwards he was also watching and realising that the other horses were not scared. I did arrive unscathed and no I would never allow anyone to do that. Poor Mum in hindsight.
Next Mistake was to go riding with other kids with no sense. They started galloping for home. I tried to stop but couldn’t. I tried to turn but he just turned his head and went down in a ditch. I landed on my head.
Next mistake was to feed a heating feed to Pepper because everyone else was. It caused him to bolt. I told Mum he could go back I didn’t want him. She asked what I was feeding him, he was taken off the feed and stopped bolting.
Next mistake I then fed the heating feed to Major as he was hard to get going so I figured it would make him faster. Nope, still slow in walk and trot but now every time you went to canter he bucked instead.
Big Mistake Because I could jump a Showjumping course and trail ride for hours I thought I could ride. All those years on Pepper with a 6 foot long carpet snake neck with me riding him on the forehand. He stumbled went down, came up and flipped sideways. My helmeted head hit the ground first and he ploughed me 6 foot across it. I was unconscious. Mum apparently kicked me and told me to get up! I didn’t. When I did I threw a tantrum, only ever time I threw a tantrum as a kid, because they wouldn’t let me finish the showjumping phase. I eventually was taken to Hospital with concussion and had to call and apologise for my behaviour the day before to everyone.
Next mistake was to be impressed by the instructor we chose who would get on Pepper to do the Spanish walk. This is where you can not tell a good instructor from a bad instructor. There was a lot of us who would ride to the ponyclub to have a lesson with her. I was fiercely loyal to her.
So I was upset the day we rode there and there was another instructor instead. The first instructor had broken her leg. As we had ridden there, Mum said I had to let it go and have a lesson with the instructor there.
One lesson from Lorna Fisher- Watkins and nobody went back to the first instructor. I realised that Pepper was doing the Spanish Walk with her out of anger. He never did the Spanish walk again.
Big Mistake Never tie your horse solid in a float with nothing behind it. I did with James. He felt the pull and freaked. He stretched the lead, it wouldn’t break. When they freak like that all their muscles go rock hard. He slammed into the round catch for the ramp and it went right into his neck. He ended up upside down hanging from the halter outside the float. I ran inside and yelled James is killing himself. I grabbed a large knife and with the taughtness on the rope it sliced through like a hot knife through butter. Blood everywhere. He went straight back on the float and I drove to the vet. An idiot pulled in front of me and went slow. I never slowed, I lent on the horn. He got out of my way.
6am Sunday morning and he had a reaction to the sedative and went down. Suddenly there were vets surrounding him. I was sent inside and all I could hear was him trying to breathe, I knew if he couldn’t breathe he would die. Nope a dog who had had its bark removed trying to bark.
He survived.
We all make mistakes. But at a place where there are other people making mistakes, the consequences always seemed to affect me. Now I am on my own property where I only have to worry about my own mistakes and now the mistakes of hubby as I have taught him to ride.
🫣
. You ought to write a book. That was great.
