I know a lot of you have been waiting for this blog post for ages, so I'm finally going to take the time to do it. This happened a couple of weeks ago, right before Christmas.
Since September, I've mostly been riding Chachi, but he was getting so frustrating (he kept running me into things and just being annoying) that my lessons weren't very productive anymore. So I recently switched to Janie, who I like so far. The first time I rode her was a little weird since I'd been riding Chachi, who was tall and very swingy in his movements, and Janie is pretty small and not as big of a mover as Chachi. I don't really remember in detail what happened in the first two lessons with Janie, but I do remember the third lesson, which is what I'm about to write about.
I'd been able to trot on Janie fairly well - no cantering yet as I'm not that used to her - and I'd been trying to fix the problem of Janie trotting too fast. She would be trotting at a normal pace and then when we turned a corner she would speed up, making it really hard for me to post. I tried to post slower as my instructor told me but it wasn't working too well at the time. So as I was trotting down the long side of the ring - and Janie was speeding up a lot - I ended up leaning forward to try to slow her down. I wasn't intentionally leaning forward, it just kind of happened. The next thing I knew, Janie was cantering. I got kind of startled and leaned back to try to get her to stop and that's exactly what she did - she stopped dead in her tracks, legs splayed and everything. And as that happened, I flew out of the saddle and over Janie's shoulder, falling onto the ground. But I didn't just land. As I was landing I did a somersault, so I ended up landing on my back facing away from Janie.
I remember seeing the world spin and Janie go upside down as I rolled. What a weird feeling - and scary too. I was really freaked out so I guess that's why I was crying as I got up off the ground. I was just kind of scared and my back really hurt too because that's essentially what I landed on. It's a miracle I didn't hit my head though. I did break my helmet visor on the way down, but that's minor damage compared to what could have happened, like me landed straight on my head. I need to get a new helmet, as you're not supposed to use one that you've fallen on, but I haven't really had time to get out to a tack shop this week. I'll most likely borrow one at the stable until I can get a new one.
Anyway, as I got up, my instructor came over calmly (I guess she didn't want to freak me out even more by panicking) and she just kept asking me if I was okay while I composed myself. I was, of course, just merely freaked out - this was the first time I had ever fallen and it was really scary! But, despite that, I got back on Janie after a couple minutes. You're probably thinking I'm crazy, right? But that's the thing - I was scared, but it was over, I was okay, and I wasn't going to let it stop me from riding. I was a little more cautious afterwards though, and made certain not to lean forward too far.
Poor Janie though. She seemed freaked out herself and didn't seem to know what to do. Maybe she felt bad that I fell off, I don't know, but it was kind of slow going after I got back on. We were both uncertain and I didn't want to do anything to upset her, or myself. Eventually we did some trotting again because my instructor wanted my lesson to end of on a good note rather than a bad one, which it did. And I actually ended up laughing about all this afterwards and calling myself a ninja for rolling as I fell. I guess it was a learning experience as well - now I can say I know what it's like to fall off a horse!
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