Day 5- Your first fall

Day 05- Your first fall

I remember my first fall, but only some of the details. I remember that I was in my first riding lesson ever. I was 17 and in Sweden. They put me in a class with adults and we had gone out hacking. Big mistake on the part of the riding school. First mistake, they put me in a class with people who had been riding a lot longer than I had. Second mistake, Swedish horses don’t know that “HO” or “WHOA” means stop. Third mistake, they put me on a monstrous horse that had been retired from his show career because he had some sort of neurological problem where he would black out. It was my first time in an English saddle…

After a 5 minute lesson on steering and stopping a horse we were off. We went to a large open field, and all the students were riding around and jumping natural obstacles. Then there was me. Something happened that I’m not even sure what. My horse started galloping away, I was calling out “HO!” and “WHOA!” and pulling back on the reins…nothing. I lost my balance, slammed onto the frozen ground, and was dragged a few feet…After everyone saw that they came up to me and started telling me more in depth ways to ride a Swedish horse and the controls of a Swedish horse. Thanks guys, I appreciate the help AFTER. But I mounted back up on a different horse, a student swapped horses with me. As we were riding back to the barn. We saw too people riding quarter horses in western saddles. My riding instructor rode up to them and told them about me. They were at a barn about 2 miles away from the school I was at. They told me to swing on by the barn after my “lesson” and they would let me play with their horses. (their quarter horses were imported from America and had been trained the way I was used to riding). So after my lesson I limped the 2 miles to the barn. My riding instructor offered me her bicycle, but I can’t ride one…I’m strange like that. When I got there the owners of the quarter horses were interested in me riding their quarter horses for them a few times a week if I was interested. I told them I’d rather ride in an arena and they said that would be just fine. I limped all the way back home with a huge smile on my face and then basically collapsed at the dinner table at my host families. Trip to the ER was shortly after…