Personally, I HATE falling off. It happens once every 4-5
years. When I was younger I was more forgiving of a horse that was spooky
and dumped me. Now that I am older I have NO tolerance for a horse that
might dump me on a regular basis. I recognize that odd events can happen
that cause a spook and dump (last fall 4 years ago a big black cow literally JUMPED
out of a bush onto the road in front of us…it even startled me) but a
regular spooker is not going to stay at my house. The older you get the
less resilient your body becomes and the longer healing takes to occur.
One of my training partners was injured so badly in a fall from a horse that repeatedly
bolted that she has a leg several inches shorter than the other, no knee and is
in severe pain. She can no longer do endurance. Her entire life has
been impacted and she is in pain all the time. There are lots of nice
horses in the world … I am not going to put up with one that might
seriously injure me. Our sport has enough built in danger without adding
an undependable horse to the equation.
To prevent falls, I take riding lessons and go to clinics to
keep my skills up and prevent bad habits. I work my horses on a very
regular basis and keep them in the arena if they seem tense or silly. I
ride with partners (horses are less spooky when with company) as much as
possible. I try to keep my horse’s minds occupied when out on the
trail…work them off my legs, change leads, change from one track to
another on the trail, change pace…sort of like arena work on the trail so
they are too busy thinking about what I want to look for things that might be
spooky. And I thank my mom and dad in heaven for all those years and
years of riding lessons and time in the saddle.
