When I first started doing endurance, my wife
insisted that I wear a helmet. All my life. I have avoided wearing even hats, as
my hair is thick and my head gets too hot and sweaty. But as a compromise for
being allowed to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a hobby, I have
agreed to wear a helmet whenever I ride. It is a fair trade, and I have
done so for a couple of years now.
So this past Monday, a couple of local riders were
coming over to my place for a training ride. (We adjoin 2900 acres of State
Conservation Land). I got to the barn a little late, so they headed out on trail
ahead of me. I saddled up my 4 year old, General Lee, who is showing a lot of
promise to become an Endurance Horse. We went to my round pen to do a
little warm-up, and when I went to get on him, disaster struck.
In an effort to improve my posture, I sometimes
wear an elastic back brace, ( like a Wal-Mart employee type thing). When I first
mounted, the darned velcro came undone and it fell off. So I dismounted and
started to get on him again. Perhaps the focus was too much about keeping the
gut sucked in, so the darned belt didn't fall off again, but anyways, my right
foot didn't clear the saddle cantle and instead bounced off and onto General
Lees back. Being a sensitive horse he tucked his back end down a bit and took a
step forward. This of course led to my leg/foot sliding a bit further down his
back, which encouraged him to take another step forward. As a natural
consequence of these moves, I wound up hanging off to the side, with my
legs trying to do the splits on a moving horse. As a 58 year old male non-yoga
practitioner, this did not work well for me.
As this point events seemed to speed up quite
a bit. After flying off and hitting the ground flat on my back, (note to self:
quit putting off getting sand for the round pen to cover the rocks. It
really hurts when you land on them), I was dragged a few feet before getting my
left foot out of the stirrup. (This happens when you instinctively yell loudly
upon hitting the ground. The horse is likely to quickly move on out). At some
point in the festivities, General Lees rear hoof and my head made contact .
My helmet has scrapes and scratches, but no cracks. My head has no cracks that
were not there previously.
I wound up with a good sized raspberry colored
bruise on my face and scrapes and bruises all down my shoulder and back.
Every back muscle on my left side is swollen and really sore, but x-rays showed
no broken bones. Guess this extra flesh I've been carrying is good for
something, like cushioning bones from breakage.
Of course even though it wasn't General Lees fault,
you still have to show a young horse that they can't get away with things like
this. So after washing the blood off my face, I put a halter on him, tied him to
the fence and got on and off him a half dozen times to ensure he understands the
importance of standing still while the rider is mounting or dismounting. Usually
he does this very well, but it was good to reinforce this. After that, we rode
about 5 miles until my muscles tightened up too much. It will be a couple of
weeks until I can get on a horse again, but without the helmet, it would have
been longer.
It is ironic that I have ridden some of the most
rugged trails in the country with out a problem, and get stoved up getting on a
well broke horse in my own round pen. As soon as the swelling goes down, I will
laugh about this. Right now it hurts too much to laugh.
Thank you Sue Crewes, (who nagged at me for years
about helmets) and Thank you to my wife who demanded it.
Paul N. Sidio
Piper (Yippie , two more weeks off before the Old
Dominion)
