I’ve always volunteered myself as tribute to ride anything rank. I enjoy the challenge. I have more than a handful of near misses. As I get older, I’m beginning to realize I’m not invincible and am a little more selective of what I’ll swing my leg over. With age comes the realism of what’s happening/what happened and the respect seems to linger a little longer now.
A few years ago I was riding my Thoroughbred in the indoor at the boarding facility I was at. He’s always been hotter than a frying pan but I was finally to a point where I could recycle his energy and put it to work. We were gearing up to go out for the season. He was cantering around quite lovely until all of a sudden he went down to his knees and flipped on top of me. He fell into a groundhog hole and flipped over. I was pinned under him and against the wall. Poor guy carefully crawled to his feet to check on mum. I probably would have had a pretty terrible head injury had I not been wearing a helmet.
A year or so later I was “gifted” a cute little grey mare. The catch was that she had a terrible work ethic. She’d been known to rear on the track to avoid being worked. She had flipped on me once, I got the wind knocked out of me but was otherwise fine. I was able to get back on her and work her through it. I decided I didn’t want to deal with it though and scheduled for my boyfriend to come out and grab some videos of her under saddle so I could move her along. I had just got on her and she was throwing a fit because her best friend was back at the barn. My boyfriend left something in his truck so he ran to grab it, leaving the gate open. She thought about rearing but realize the implications so instead she took off broncing towards the gate. It was once of those Priefert walk thru panels. I didn’t want to be clotheslined so I took my chance to dismount mid buck. I landed on my feet, but as soon as I hit the ground I heard a pop in my foot and couldn’t get up. Boyfriend refused to put me back on so he untacked her and carried me to my truck. I drove home and put myself on the couch for the night. I got up and grazed my heel on the ground and nearly feel to my knees in pain. I crawled to my truck and drove myself to the hospital. They brought the x-rays in to review and my calcaneus looked like the outline of the swiss alps. I had to wait 10 days for the swelling to go down for surgery. They put me back together with one plate and five pins. That was early October. They told me it would be a full year before I would recover well enough to be able to ride. I was back in the saddle in February. It’s not 100% but i’m not terribly limited. I’ll never run a marathon, but I wasn’t planning on it anyway. A calcaneal fracture is no joke though, I’ll rethink landing on my feet next time!
. First strike…she didn’t really groove on the stall. She lived in a pen w/shelter at home and hadn’t been stalled much at all. Strike 2–I was a little late for AM prep and warm-up. I had been at this venue before but apparently forgot that the warm-ups were small and maybe not the best place for a green youngster. I should have been there an hour earlier and done a bunch of hand walking.
). He had to open up her chest and flush out the about 1/4 cup of gravel and sand that had embedded under the skin. She ended up with about 6 big fancy stitches in her chest and several areas of gnarly road rash.
. That was the only time she ever reared. Never tried before that show and although she got a bit sticky a couple times after, I was on top of it and reinforced forward.
