This Horse Dumped Me!

You know those horses that we see advertised all over the place that we think the horse must actually be a unicorn? Well, not only was this horse said to be that and purchased for a beginner girl, but man did I eat it! Over a damn jacket!!!!

I hopped on this pony as we believed there may have been some MINOR holes in training and it needed some finishing. I worked with it under saddle around the arena for about 10 minutes and it was going okay. I got hot and needed to take my jacket off. I asked this pony to stop and relax for a minute while I stripped a layer. I placed my 10’ (yes, 10 foot!!!) reins over the horn and unzipped my jacket. Nothing was off at this point and his head was low and relaxed. So, I reached behind my back and started to pull my left sleeve off of my arm....that’s when the pony’s head went straight up. I saw it. I felt it. I knew it wasn’t good. I was stuck. I told Scott that it was about to go bad but it happened so fast and both of my arms were behind my back with one of them only half out of my sleeve. BOOM! There I was, sitting on the ground watching the pony run around the arena. Man, that whole thing happened so fast!

I felt it. I just couldn’t be fast enough for the position that I was in physically. My position and set up on the horse worked against me on this one! After this happened, I did the exact same thing that the majority of other equestrians do. I questioned it all and replayed it in my mind. I questioned the horse, the signs, my timing, my judgement, etc. The benefit to this fall, I had THREE witnesses! You know what was said to me? “Wow! That happened so fast!” “You couldn’t have stayed on that with the position you were in even if you knew exactly what he was going to do!” “That’s happened to me before!”

See, those that don’t know me, probably don’t know that I’m a perfectionist. This means that whenever something doesn’t go my way, particularly something that I believe I should have had control over, I beat myself up worse than anyone else could do for me! So, with this, I started to beat myself up until people came to talk to me. That’s when something else set in though. A smile. Then a laugh. I had just been reminded. It had been a while since I had eaten it, but I was just reminded that I am only human. Reminded that I work with prey animals that are bigger, faster, stronger than myself and have a mind of their own. Reminded that every so often, all horsemen need humbled. You see, it isn’t a loss. It’s simply a fact that no matter how good you are or think you are, you’ll be humbled again.

Stay humble, my friends.

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