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Stupid fall....
Topic Started: Sep 29 2007, 06:06 PM (412 Views)
TatteredDaydreamer
Off visiting Candy Cave, be right back.
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So I haven't came off in quite a while....until the other day. I was schooling my favorite mount, misjudged how long/the angle to turn to complete the circle, gelding went one way, I went the other way and came off. Not hurt, just bruised and body sore as all get out today....my ego took the biggest beating!;) :brickwall: I feel so silly, so sharing is caring....let's hear the tales of your "goofiest" dismounts. :one:
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Fish Cheeks
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I will tell you my stupidest and most embarrassing "fall", if you could call it that.

Last year I broke my hand and had most of the year off from riding (I broke it during my first jumping lesson of the spring). Once I finally got back in the saddle, I decided to sign up for a horse trials before the end of the year.

I rode in a Brian Sabo clinic in September and got grouped with the Training Level folks, and I'm a Novice rider. I was super scared, but Paddy was a super star and took such good care of me (we jumped everything - one strides to a drop into the water, coops on an angle, a coffin, a trakehner, a huge log going downhill, etc...!! :cloud9: ) that I felt confident going into the HT the following month.

The HT comes around and I have my best dressage score ever. I felt like I really rode every step and Paddy was right there with me. I was nervous about jumping, though, because there had been a deluge the day before the show and it hadn't rained since earlier in the year so the footing seemed iffy and a little slick. We had our stadium after dressage and it started out well, but I lost my focus and then so did Paddy - we missed our last fence and had a rail down. Yuck.

So XC is on Sunday and the footing is better so I'm feeling hopeful. We go out and jump around...the beginning of the course has me saying to myself "I think I'm going to barf while riding - why am I out here?!" But then we're truckin' along and doing really well and I'm riding the best I ever have - yeah! We're almost done and I take a moment to look at my watch. Which breaks my concentration - and Paddy's. The next jump is a log into the water and Paddy takes a look at it and steps sideways and I just...hop...off. Totally weird. I saw the video and am like "why the hell did I do that!" I think I was worried about my hand which hadn't totally healed and that's how I broke it - he did a zig and I did a zag and just slammed my hand into his neck. Since I landed so gracefully on my feet, I still had the reins in my hand and ran over to the log and got back on and jumped and finished my course. But I felt so stupid - of course I got points off for a refusal AND a fall and ended up second from last. I was mortified! :jaw: :jaw:

I guess looking back on it I can now have a sense of humour about it, but it was a really stupid thing to do! :brickwall:
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OnyxThePony
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I once came off at a walk/halt. Mare took a little 'breath' at a shadow, barely spooked at ALL, just grew a little taller, and I just went "tumble". The ironic thing was this was the buckingest, crabbiest, shoulder-droppingest, nastiest mare ever, and this one time wasn't even her fault (although I came off her a LOT).

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Casey1
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I came off once when I was walking out a horse. We were done and I was loosening my girth, I had loosened the first billet, was in the process of loosening the second when my horse spooked. Still with my leg up, I let go of the girth to have 2 hands on the reins, then the girth swung down and slapped the horse in the leg (guess I missed the hole on that first billet :teehee: ) well the horse side stepped and my saddle started slipping off. Now how am I supposed to stay on when my saddle is coming off! I hit the ground, my feet were still in the stirrups.

Unfortunately I knew I was falling so I put my hand out to break my fall, I ended up dislocating my elbow. I have been told I would have been better off breaking it. It is a pain injury that causes me problems to this day 20+ years later.

Ann
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OpticalIllusion
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Couple of weeks ago my moms little greenie did the jump the fence, slam on the breaks, drop head to ground and buck move. I came right off. I havent fallen off in a while (knock on wood) and was laughing pretty good at myself. My mom was on the rail doubled over in laughter at me, lol. Filly was looking at me wondering why I was sitting on the ground.
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SnackPack
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As a kid I spent a lot of time on this HUGE (tall and wide) QH named Frito that couldn't jump. He had one of those terrible canters, short strided and eggbeater and just plain uncomfortable...Although I attribute that canter to the decent seat I used to have...if I could sit Frito's canter, I could sit anything.

Anyway, we were cantering around the ring when all of a sudden, we were doing a QH stop. We literally went from a nice canter to halt in about a step. The best part was that during this, Frito had put his head down until his neck disappeared. Welp, I got caught forward and with nothing to push back on to keep me in the saddle, I slid down his neck like a slide, completely upright and landed squatting on my knees in front of him. (geez, that's hard to describe.) :lol: It is one of my easiest falls...and funniest to this date. We think a bee or yellow jacket stung him in the nose as he had stopped suddenly to rub it on his leg
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MyGiantPony
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I've had two really stupid falls.

One...we were out trail riding. Stopped at a friend's house to get a drink, pick up a few more riders...hanging out at a complete standstill...out of the blue horse does one of those full-body shudders/shakes, which is really effective for ridding oneself of flies. And also, apparently riders.

When I was in high school, I was grooming my horse. Something caused him to freak out and rear up in the cross-ties, and I instinctivly put my arm up - he came down on it and broke my right wrist. A week or so later, I had a horse show. Got permission to ride without a coat, since it wouldn't fit over my cast. Last class of the day...having a fabulous trip...last line finished on a one stride in and out. In was OK...out - not so much. Cast got in the way, I came off, fell on my left arm and - you guessed it - broke my left wrist.

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Indy
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One of my stupidist falls was when I had my large spotted pony. This pony never stopped at a jump - ever. He'd run around like an entrant in the Kentucky Derby, but never stop. A trained monkey could get that pony over a jump.

I was at a horse show in Ohio, schooling in the ring before the show started. It was really early in the morning and my trainer & I were the only ones in the ring (thankfuly!). She was busy setting up jumps for me to school over and sent me to go trot back & forth over a little jump slooooowly to warm up (as mentioned above, said spotted pony was a bit of a runaway so sloooow was always our goal). Point pony towards jump and continue on at a slow trot...that continues to get sloower and slooower and sloooower. I apparently hadn't removed my head from my ass that morning and failed to do anything but thrust myself into my two point and shove my hands up his neck as we approached where "take-off" should be -- except that by this point, pony had come to a complete stop and I kind of launched myself over his his neck and onto my butt on the other side of the fence. Pony just stood there looking at me like "ummm....you're not supposed to jump with out me, you know that, right?." Had I decided to do anything at all (I don't know, say kick the pony or even just sat upright), I'm quite certain the pony would have jumped and I'd have stayed on but oh no, I chose to ride worse than a trained monkey and fell off. The good thing is that Ms Trainer missed the entire production so me telling her that Wink stopped & I fell off didn't sound nearly as stupid as the fall actualy was.
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Wayside
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Oh my, I have many extremely dumb/goofy dismounts I can share. I'll just bust out the first couple that come to mind.

Once was a fun day at the dressage barn I was lessoning at at the time. I had a horse of my own, but no trailer, so I was riding a schoolie. A huge lovely warmblood mare who was great in the dressage ring, but I'm not sure had ever been outside of it :lol:

The object of the game was to scoop up rings that were sitting on barrels with a little stick, and do something with them. I can't recall what, since we didn't make it past that point. Mare wanted nothing to do with those barrels, and turned into a snorting monster. Finally managed to convince her to get just close enough that I could lean way off to the side and just reach the ring with my stick. That was probably stupid move number one, but not the one resulting in the ground contact. The second my stick touched that ring, mare freaked out and made some sort of flying leap-buck maneuver. When I tried to get myself centered on the horse again, I WAY overcompensated, and threw myself clear off the opposite side of the horse :teehee:

Another case of rider error was in a group jumping lesson with my aged TB gelding. And this one was completely rider error. I had too much speed going into a turn and cut a corner pretty badly on the way to a spread. Horse had many miles on the circuit before coming to me in his semi-retirement, and was far too well trained to stop at any fence he felt he had a shot at making it over safely. He cleared it beautifully, with a jump that was far beyond my riding capabilities :lol: As he was descending from his arc, my trajectory continued onwards and upwards and ultimately landed me in the turf :oops:
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SnackPack
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Wayside reminded me of of pretty stupid fall from a few years ago.

I was doing a hack class on my new horse whom I'd had for a few months, but who was still very green. We were at the show for experience doing some crossrails classes and some of the other division flat classes. We were doing the pre-green hack (rules didn't prohibit me from going in it, so there I was), he's a decent mover and the class isn't too large. With a few errors (another horse exploded right by us and Show scooted a bit) we managed to get a third. I reached to get my ribbon and could tell as soon as my hand was on it that maybe that wasn't going to be a good idea. Show started running sideways from the fluttering ribbon, so I tried to do the right thing and drop it. Well, it got caught on the rein. :lol: He whirled around (he was VERY good at the spin and scoot back then) and off I came...although I did manage to land on my feet. :P

I fell off later in the day at the same show when he spooked at the "C" suspended in the arena fence for dressage. I DID NOT land on my feet that time. :lol: And to this day, he still spooks at those darn letters. At our most recent show at that facility, he spooked at "F", right before the turn for the last fence in what was otherwise a really nice round. :shoot:
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Circuspony
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I had a stupid fall fairly recently - I was getting done riding my trainer's TB, who can be a bit of a challenge. We had had a SUPER ride and I was giving him lots of pats and getting ready to dismount. It was a hot day, and I asked my boyfriend to hand me a water bottle. I leaned forward to grab it, but wouldn't you know, that water bottle was actually a SCARY HORSE-EATING BEAST! :rolleyes: Horse jumped straight backward, I rolled right off over his shoulder, and subsequently re-considered what the Pony Club says about the importance of proper dismounts. :duh:
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