The Confession Board

I plaited my horse for regionals yesterday. I always do 13. I had done 13 and had room for one more at the top of his neck. I could have done one more at the top and one more at the bottom and had 15. I plaited the one at the top intending to do 15. But I wanted 13. So I gelled the hair at the bottom so it would lie flat.

And as for the 14th plait...I took my scissors and cut it off. Right at the roots. Now my horse has a 4 inch bridle path. At least he looked smart for the day :D I have no regrets!
 
Only two particularily stand out for me, one being when I was a teenager competing my pony at the time in a SJ competition - he was awesome in jump offs but sadly on this occasion he literally landed and turned far too quickly and I tumbled off the side, landed at the feet of a bloke. Oh and I guess I should point out that that bloke shortly after became my OH and we've been together about 14 years now and have a 3yo son ;)

Other occasion was doing a BE Novice, windy day with trees blowing by side of dressage arena - did a very tense test, only to halt at the end for final salute but horse suddenly lost the plot, chucked me off so I was sat at G and he bogged off full pelt gallop out of the arena back into the warm-up, grinding to a halt at my mother! That was pretty embarassing...
 
NZJenny said:
Got horribly drunk the night before an endurance ride. In an incredibly hung over state I took a novice horse out, on what was supposed to be an easy 20 km, misread a sign and ended up very lost. Hadn't taken my water bottle, ended up on my hands and knees with my face in a stream drinking alongside the horse.

They had to send the search party out for us.
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This had me nearly falling off my chair with laughing.

My big confession was being at a small gymkhana, I was all dressed up in black jacket, long boots, pony plaited, the works for the Working Hunter Pony. Got to the first fence, pony stopped, put her head over and I rolled gently down her neck to be deposited on the ground the other side of the fence. Bet the locals loved it!
 
fattylumpkin said:
I have to pick just one?! :D

As a teen I was trying to impress a boy I really liked. He was riding his bike out with us on a hack in the hopes of impressing another girl on the yard, but I thought my far superior riding skills might win his affections over to me! One of the places we loved riding back then was a meadow that regularly flooded over with a layer of water, and me and my pony used to love going for a gallop through it. I had probably done that same run a hundred times, but just as we came flying over the water my pony stumbled a bit and I lost my seat and ploughed into the water while my pony bogged off back to the yard as fast as he could. The fall really hurt, but I was doing my best to grin and bear it and laugh, as was eveyone else, except I'd gotten really drenched and I was also on my period, and my panty liner swelled up like a giant nappy to quadruple its normal size inside my jods. I tried waddling back to the yard making squelching noises, but it was so shameful that the boy I liked offered me a pity ride on his bike back home. Needless to say we never really hit it off after that :D
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Haha! Oh dear!!
 
Red-1 said:
... Nearside was immaculately groomed, bright yellow reflective and bright bay horse, tack polished with boot polish for extra shine. Offside was.... mud. Pure and simple mud...
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I've had this happen! Except we came down in the warm up ring for SJ - and the horse was the lighest shade of grey :D (on one side, at least!).
 
Hmmmm do I tell the story about when I fell off in the middle of a dressage test at Hickstead? In the middle of the test, yep.

How about the one where I got off I the woods for a pee, then my horse thought it would be fun to go cantering through said woods while I had just one foot in the (very extended) stirrup?

Or the time that my horse absolutely refused to go past some donkeys, so my friend grabbed the reins and led me past them like a lead-rein pony (my horse is 17.2hh of solid hunter), and past the group of runners that had stopped for us, when one of the runners called out "Oh, Hi JB, how are you?".

I swear that my horse's main aim in life is the humiliation of me.
 
As a teenager working at a trekking yard, they had a new pony that liked to buck but wasn't very athletic so quite easy to sit to. Took out a small, fairly experienced group on him and I was showing off taking him round the field with him bucking like mad. The saddle came off right over his head and I found myself sitting on the saddle on the ground (feet still in the stirrups and holding the reins) staring up at the pony, who was staring at me with equal shock. Worse thing was YO's son and his girlfriend were riding past on the road exercising their SJ's and saw the whole thing.

About a year later in college doing XC training, we'd all been messing around in the river and were called one at a time to jump out and over another fence. I was far too busy laughing at another horse splashing and trying to roll, totally forgot to do any riding at all. Poor (very honest) horse cat leaped over the fence and I flew right off, right at the feet of a very un-impressed instructress.
 
Two for me.

Croome Point to Point, I did the fallen horse catching for decades. Came back to the paddock to use the portaloo, reins over head and threaded through the door, done it loads of times with my gallant old lad. Well something spooked the old lad and he pulled back, the door flew open and my breeches were round my ankles. I let go, he broke the reins by standing on them whilst I tried to hook everything back up. Embarrassing or what.

Second one was the Three Counties show. We had won the middles and had gone back to the lorry park, 4 of us handling one horse, untacked him with the 'you got him' chat to one another. Well as he cleared off into the distance he became apparent that no one had him, in fact all we had was his double bridle. He went straight through the day lorry park, over the road by the stables and into the collecting ring which was full of lead rein ponies with the yummy mummies in their finery.

I hid in the hedge, yes I know I own him but there was no way I was admitting it !, his rider legged it after him still clutching the double bridle and tripped up over the reins. The horse was caught by a random man in the collecting ring, several children had been removed from their ponies and there were a lot of skewiff hats on the yummy mummies.

Between the four us we were arguing who should claim the horse ! We did the amateurs later in the day and virtually hobbled him when we tacked him up. Four highly experienced horse handlers and we failed to hang on to what is a very mannerly horse !

The horse is retired now but the four of us still show and dressage together and often laugh about that day.
 
Some great stories in this thread!

My most recent one would be my old mare and I going out for a hack with a few of the younger girls in the yard. All round nice ride through the woods, plenty of cantering, having them gush about how comfortable my treeless saddle looked.
However, on our final canter, the leading horse decided to literally slam on the handbreak because 'OMG! A small, flat branch on the floor!'. My mare neatly lept to the side and into a ditch to avoid plowing into his backside, and we all came to a stop, looking at each other in relief that no one had fallen off or gotten hurt.

That is.

Until, slowly, ever so slowly... I started to slip off to the left. Or rather, my treeless saddle decided to slip off my rather round cob. Rather than grab hold of some mane to hold myself up and dismount, I for some unknown reason, threw my hands up in the air as the saddle picked up speed and swiftly dumped me off the side and onto my face. Mare was too busy eating ditch grass to be bothered by this, but the whole situation was entirely stupid. I wasn't too fond of my treeless for anything more than sedate hacks after that!
 
We were hacking out on New Year's Day and trotting down a road with lots of speed bumps. Now Monty is not always fond of road surfaces being different colours/having markings on them and likes to do a nice elevated trot over them. He'd been absolutely fine with the previous six or so speed bumps but as we were approaching the one with a nice family out walking the dog next to it, he decides it's a terrifying monster in the road, leaps sideways on the pavement (think Scooby-Do style) towards the mum and she fell backwards into a ditch, leaving the poor dog to fend for itself. I was MORTIFIED. Couldn't apologise enough!! I think I may also have called Monty an utter ****wit in front of them as well. Oh the shame.

Or in my teenage years, my best friend and I used to help exercise ponies for someone who did a bit of dealing in pony showjumpers. She also had cobs and one of them was the cobbiest cob you ever did see, with a serious aversion to coloured poles. Super posh and somewhat snooty family rocked up to try out a lovely Connemara mare that was easily jumping top of the wings height fences and I'm in the paddock whooping and hollering like I've just gone clear round the Hickstead Derby because I've cleared a cross pole approx 6 inches high on the world's scruffiest cob.
 
Hacked to my wealthy boyfriend's parents' house, rang the doorbell & just as Dr Dad answered the door, pony decided to have a wee all over their driveway. A very splashy, dangly wee. His Dad's face was priceless. (I think I was 17)
 
This is an excellent topic with hilarious stories! Thanks OP!!

My first really embarrassing story happened not too long after I bought my horse. At the time he was 10 years old, an experienced eventer, 16.2 TB who likes to do a fast SJ round... I joined another girl in the sand school after she set up a small course of show jumps. I had no intentions at all to jump that day - I just wanted my horse to get more used to the school and sharing it with another horse. But oh no, he had other ideas... We had a really good warming-up session for about ten minutes, and that's when he saw the other horse doing a few jumps... We were doing a nice canter at the time, which suddenly became a gallop. His decision, not mine. I did rather enjoy the gallop, even did one or two circuits in the light seat, and that's when he really started bolting. I still wasn't that worried as it was a 60 x 20 school so big enough to allow for a fast ride, but then he decided he'll do a bit of eventing too... He jumped out of the school over the 5 bar gate, came to a stop at the next 5 bar gate leading into the yard but bashed into that with his chest and it somehow swung open, and he then trotted through the yard as if he was the lord of the manor. I still don't know how I stayed on during all of this, especially when he jumped out of the school. I really wasn't expecting him to do to that.

I also have to confess and ask for forgiveness for doing an incredibly stupid thing. I bought a few feed bags, and carried the first one to the feed room but then for some reason decided to place it just outside his stable and then go and get the other bags. When I got back to his stable with the second bag, to my shock I realised he was able to reach the bag which I had left there, managed to tear it open and had a feast on the feed. Luckily it wasn't sugerbeet - I think it was grass nuts - and luckily I wasn't gone for that long, but I'll never again misjudge just how far he can stretch his neck.

Oh actually, the worse thing I've probably done was to leave him in his stable with the door open and the door chain undone (it was a winter evening). I went off and filled 5 haynets, prepared the next morning's feed, and only then went back to the stable. He was an absolute angel and just stood there eating his hay. How lucky was that that he didn't decide to go for a wander!
 
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I was jumping my old pony many years ago. She was a very whizzy arab X but could also go from 60 - 0 in a micro second if she didn't like a jump. On this occasion it was an indoor show with a bigger than usual crowd watching. We were in the jump off and she was always like lightening in a jump off. Sadly she decided to do one of her lightening 'stop 'n' spins' in front of a jump (She'd do this AFTER she'd taken off with her front legs so I'd already be in jumping position). Naturally I came off. That wasn't the worst of it though. I hung on to the reins so she wouldn't go pee-ing off around the ring. Moon decided me being on my knees hanging on to her was the scariest thing ever and pulled back, this was repeated about sic or seven times meaning each time I tried to get up she pulled me over flat on my face again until finally I gave up and let go of her so I could actually get up. Little madam she was LOL

Another time I was taking part in a Tim Stockdale SJ clinic with the same pony. He decided she was scopey enough to go in the big horse session. He decided we all needed to get our horses to stretch so put up a not hugely high but very wide parallel. Moon decided to do stop without the spin this time and I landed on the floor clutching only her bridle. She'd somehow managed to to duck out of a kimblewick with grackle. Tim said 'Does she do this often' I thought he meant stop, so I said yes until I realised that the reins I was holding weren't actually attached to my pony, just an empty bridle.

She did the same a few moths later when I was doing a Hunter Trials and pee'd off back to the lorry park with me doing the walk of shame with her discarded bridle.

She also once, when we were on a road hack managed to do a very squitty poo just as we rode past a car at the side of the road where the driver had his head under the bonnet trying to fox it. She splattered the poo right by the driver's door. Couldn't apologise to the poor man enough.
 
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Mine is definitely a xc clinic with Mary king I took my youngster to a few years ago. She was very impressed by my mare and I was feeling quite proud as I had trained her myself, until the steps. There were three steps, the first about 2ft the second about 2"6 and the third near to 3ft. We started out by walking and my mare was fine so we trotted and out of the blue she took off down the first step then jumped the second and third steps in one huge leap. Needless to say I was rather unseared and surprised but stayed on until she bolted off and jumped the 3" 9 duck in the water complex below. Fab jumper, just needed direction😂 I was utterly mortified
 
Oh my classic was when I had my first horse - a little cob with 2 speeds: dead slow and bolt. My husband didn't appreciate cob's quirky nature. Husband had just bought a fancy young ID x TB who was a head turner. So we're nannying fancy pants out on a hack. There were 2 things my cob didn't like: motorbikes and vintage cars (the ones with the 'put put' engines).

Everything was fine until I heard the 'put put' of an engine and an open top vintage car appeared on the narrow lane coming towards us. I soothed my cob and thought we'd got away with it, but just as the vintage car passed, my cob did a lightening spin and bolted with me... going after the vintage car. The lane was narrow and bendy and I remember seeing the passenger in the car waving her arms wildly in the air as we drew level. Something had to give and unfortunately it was the vintage car, which went off the road and into a deep Lincolnshire ditch.

I'm ashamed to say we turned tail and cleared off quickly, back to hubby and fancy pants, both of whom had a look of haughty disgust on their faces. My husband uttered the immortal words "That ***king horse" and I think the rest of the hack was ridden in complete silence.
 
I got stuck trying to dismount once. It was cold so my feet were numb and I was riding a friends huge shire. I was wimping out about the drop hurting my feet so I tried to just slide down his side slowly.

I got stuck. More specifically, my boobs got stuck on the saddle. I was just hanging there, laughing so much I couldn't free myself. My mum wasn't very helpful, she was in a heap on the floor, cackling. The poor horse just stood there, thank god. She eventually got herself together and had to physically pull me to get me free.
 
I vividly remember getting the safest, ploddiest, roundest cob ready for a lesson I was having on him once, walked him to the mounting block, put one foot in a stirrup and ended up round his tummy with other leg on the floor in front of my instructor, yard manager, senior instructor and stable lad. Muggins here had forgotten to double check his synthetic girth attached to his equally synthetic saddle. Been paranoid about checking girths ever since!

That and wearing union jack undies under what turned out to be very thin beige jods for a jump lesson and the instructor pointing it out to the rest of the group.
 
Polar Bear9 said:
I got stuck. More specifically, my boobs got stuck on the saddle. I was just hanging there, laughing so much I couldn't free myself. My mum wasn't very helpful, she was in a heap on the floor, cackling. The poor horse just stood there, thank god. She eventually got herself together and had to physically pull me to get me free.
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PMSL :D

This reminds me of an incident (which found its way onto You Tube - rotten *******) a couple of years ago when I was still riding western. With me here?

I got off and my shirt got caught on the horn and held me there until every button popped off in turn as I slid lower and lower, pop, pop, pop, pop :( I exposed myself to everyone in the trailer park at a County Fair. I have to say that if it had happened to someone else, I too, would have been on my knees crying with laughter, as they were :(
 
DappleGreyDaydreamer said:
Currently feeling sore after a stupid, embarrassing fall off my horse so I decided to ask you lovely people to confess your most humiliating and awkward horsey accidents for a little giggle :D

I myself have had several between my two boys, my previous horse was a big clumsy cob, and he did rather love to buck, and I was once bucked off into a muddy puddle after I had been trying to show off cantering bareback in front of the very attractive new farrier. It did not go to plan!

Another, courtesy of my current Connemara, would be the second day we were at our new yard, and I was just introducing myself to the yard owner for the first time, and he then decided it would be a good idea to smash his way through his stable door, jump over the electric paddock fencing and terrorize the YO's ponies... I made a lovely first impression eh.
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Mine was 3 weeks ago

went to hay a livery and did not step over his slip rail properly, went tumbling forward straight onto his treat ball ( not the round one this one )http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Faulk...hash=item20fe7ecbed:m:mSLOr-e3E4GZQ6_xl6kDmGg )

caused loads of pain almost passed out, dizzy and sick.

Still hurts now, ribs taking ages to repair.
 
I have got stuck in the saddle, twice!

First time, riding western in Jordan, had to get off to negotiate a hard bit of the path, I took both feet out leaned forward to swing my leg over the back and got the worst bruise on my stomach off the pommel. I just about fell off the side in pain :p Wasn't till after I realised you don't take both feet out to dismount western :p

Not so long later, I was trying a Friesian ( who I went on to buy!) I went to dismount but couldn't! I was in a very deep dressage saddle, with a friesian who was holding his neck very high. I was stuck! There was no where to lean forward, and had to get a proper swing to get the leg over the cantle. I sat there baffled!

He is now taught to lower his head so I can get off :p
 
I fell off in walk once, no idea how, that was pretty embaressing

Being dragged by a mini shitland as it *********d off full pelt across beeston car park infront of tonnes of people whilst i screamed for my friend to help! I don't know why I thought she would be able to if even she could have stopped wetting herself and I don't know what was hurt more, my pride or my knees and hands!
 
Being bogged off whilst on a *****land. I'm small & lightweight, so was asked to ride him by a friend whose kids' riding didn't help with his bad habits. He just tanked off at a horrible pace of a canter towards the arena fence and he was notorious for diving under fences and leaving riders behind. I just kept gathering the reins (which seemed to last forever!) and exclaimed in a loud, steady voice, repeatedly - "Gentleman, we've got a problem here!!!"

Everybody just laughed their heads off and didn't realize the graveness of the situation. :D Luckily, I managed to turn and stop him right before the fence, that little buggard.
 
forgetting my gloves before a lesson, soldiering on, I changed the whip to my other hand after a change of rein and somehow gave myself rope burn on my palm with the whip in the process!

I have a history of going brain dead when I'm trying to look smart. So a person who was not too nice to me back at high school out of the blue 7 years later contacted me asking me to help exercise her horses since she knew how much I rode as well. I said yes and went out with her a few times (had a MASSIVE fall, my first actually, off that horse too). Anyway, one day she had put the breastplate on my mount, got on her horse for the hack and asked me if I could put the martingale on the reins cause she forgot. Cue my brain glitching and undoing the rein from the bit TOTALLY forgetting the buckle at the far end of the reins, luckily the horse wasn't one to run if he didn't have someone on his back!
 
So many to choose from!
Hacking down the road past some cars and it starts raining.Chap gets into his car just ahead of me and starts his car. As I'm level with him he turns his windscreen wipers on just as my horse sneezes and a huge lump of snot landed on his windscreen and was promptly smeared everywhere by the wipers��.
Horses first intermediate at Ston Easton. We got to the bullfinch where he had no clue how to jump it so he stopped,ducked right and dumped me in a barbed wire fence ( wouldn't be allowed now!). I got hung up in the fencing and had to extricate myself with ripping sounds whilst horse and spectators stared at me in astonishment. I then proceeded around the rest of the cross-country with a huge hole in my breeches with one butt cheek on full view��
Oh and the time I fell off in the warm up at Moreton Morrell and the horse galloped about 50 circuits of the dressage arenas. The owner and I hid behind the trailer and sent her mother to get the horse who retrieved it off a very cross man and had to do the walk of shame through the warm up whilst saying loudly ' I'll see if I can find out who owns her'. There were some dire dressage scores that corresponded with the time I fell off. Oops.
 
I've remembered another!!.......

Hacking out as a teenager with a couple of friends. I had the smallest mount so I had to get off to do the difficult gates. Pony decided I was a good scratching post but got the curb hook caught on the bum if my jods, cue a load of ripping sounds and me being lifted up by my bum!! I ended up over the gate and pony pulled back and ripped a big flap in my jods. Friends wet them selves (one literally) and I had a breezy ride home!!
 
I was helping a friend out by picking poles and moving jumps for her, and trying to help her straighten up her approach. I went to jump one of the jumps on my own two feet, to demonstrate something... caught my foot on the top pole and WHAM! went flat on my face on the floor. I didn't even put my arms out to save myself. I then lay face down on the floor alternately crying with laughter and groaning in pain, while my friend sat with tears pouring down her face, clinging to the pommel, in hysterics.
 
Most embarrassing moment was when I got talked into going to a talk about the area as a church fundraiser. There was a slide show of local interest when up pops one of me on my knees looking like I was praying after just getting dumped on the river bank. Even better was the chap giving the talk had no idea I was there but all the church biddies knew who it was.
 
I took my first pony, Blue, to pony club for clear round jumping. He was a baby and we had only been out a few times so I was thrilled when we got a clear round at baby height and felt a million dollars. I thought nothing would burst my bubble. Ha!

Hacking home, we had to go across the common where he was used to having a canter. There was a rugby match on the common with a lot of spectators so, being the sensible 12 year old I was, decided to walk. This made Blue angry, and hell hath no fury like a Bluey scorned.

Not only did he have a huge bucking bronco fit in front of about 100 people, once he'd dumped me, he ran onto the rugby pitch and put his head down to eat. None of the 30 big burly men out there would go anywhere near him so, plastered in mud, I had to walk onto the pitch to retrieve him.

He did get his canter. For some strange reason, as soon as I'd leapt back on (luckily he was only 12.2 so it was easy) I didn't mind cantering away from the 130 people who were staring at us pointing and laughing.
 
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