Wow, I had the same injury
with a fractured tail bone added to increase the misery. That will be 2
years ago this Christmas day. It has taken over a year and a half to heal
from that. Yes, the coccyx fracture was really bad as I had neurological
complications, but the pelvic suture subluxation was worse by far. It
took 2 weeks to get that sucker back in place! I hope to never see that
bad boy again, ever.
As far as riding alone, I
never did it until about 6 months ago. My horse, Jazzi is now 7 and
finally mature enough to not spook at every little thing out of place on the
trail. She has also stopped the spinning, catapult maneuver too. I
am so happy she can go alone as day 2 of the Fort Tejon Fandango (in the
pouring rain) we rode over half of the ride alone. This ride while very
difficult with thousands of feet in elevation change was magic for us as a
team. The bound we formed while slip sliding has made all the
difference. Yes, Jazzi can still be a real pill, but she is now bonded to
me and is listening to me, something she did not do before.
Yesterday we were out doing
a long trot before the rains moved in we spooked a really big red tailed hawk
from the side of the tail were it was feeding. The wing span was at least
6 feet wide. Jazzi did a sedate little half hearted jump to the side and
clamed as I told her,” it’s OK girl.” Before she would
have done a 180 degree spin in a nanosecond and try to run home.
Don't let anyone make you
feel bad for not wanting to ride alone. I, too had an incident once that caused
me to avoid riding alone if at all possible.= I ran into a bear while on
a very rarely used trail. My horse spun back up a very steep hill, I ended up
doing an unplanned flying dismount, landed o= n my water bottle that was on my
waist. I could not get back on my horse. There is a suture in your pelvis that
had "slipped"..I could not stand on on= e leg, could not raise my
other leg. Thankfully my horse stayed with me, an= d also knew how to tail. He
pulled me out of a canyon in 105 degree heat on= August 25th.
When I got to civilization,
I flagged down a passerby. She later said that = as soon as I handed her the
horse's reins, I passed out.
I only ride alone when I can
tell someone where I am going and when I will = be back. Then I stay on the
Tevis trail, or the Folsom Lake trail where the= re is a reasonable amount of
recreational use.
It takes a bit of work to
build a network of local riders, but it is worth = it, IMO..
