What is the most embarrassing thing

[snowangel5]

That has ever happened to you or a horse riding friend during a lesson or a competition ?‍

if any thing did happened during a competition were you able to get back on and finish your test or round and were either you or your friend giving a rosette with Well done -pink rosette-


I only fell off during a showjumping event but I was able to get a rosette

off topic how do you feel about the lap of honour

I miss competitions but I understand that flat work is really important

 

[Auslander]

Fell off a naughty pony, in front of a group of teenagers in an advanced group lesson

It was embarrassing because I was the instructor...

 

[snowangel5]

Fell off a naughty pony, in front of a group of teenagers in an advanced group lesson

It was embarrassing because I was the instructor...

I sniggered I bpet you felt really emb what were you trying to get the pony to do for the students before you came off

 

[Roxylola]

Rode the best canter trot transition we've ever done in our first ele test at H, trotted past the judges box desperately trying to remember how to get back to A and the final centre line, halted in the corner before M desperately hoping they'd bell me and tell me where I'd gone wrong, had the longest 3 seconds of my life when I realised I shouldn't have been trotting at all. I was supposed to be cantering - turn right at B frantic attempt at a totally unprepared simple across the centre line, canter left turn left at E, trot at K centre line and halt.
And no, my actual canter trot transition was not a patch on the erroneous one ?

 

[millikins]

I did an indoor driving trial with my Shettie x. They're kind to you in driving, mark the centre with an X using shavings, except I can only assume someone forgot the shavings so they used chaff. Every time we crossed the centre, pony put her head down and grabbed a mouthful so I had the choice of losing marks as I attempted to push her on whilst she had her nose on the floor or losing marks by giving the offending X a very wide berth. Little beggar was the only one out of about 50 ponies to be so greedy, we didn't score well that day

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

As a kid I was doing the group go round in a showing class when my pony disappeared under the ring rope and back up the hill to the trailer. I was left on the ring ropes ...

 

[Cortez]

Got bucked off RIGHT in front of the judge as we were going around the arena before going in. Got back on, won the class! Still embarrassing though.

 

[millikins]

As a kid I was doing the group go round in a showing class when my pony disappeared under the ring rope and back up the hill to the trailer. I was left on the ring ropes ...

Promise it was when you were little, I know you love your Shetlands?

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

Promise it was when you were little, I know you love your Shetlands?

It was a Novice Ridden class, I had just done the First Ridden back in 1999 ?

In 2002 or 2003 I came a cropper off of another shetland. Did a great go round, immense individual show, was yards away from pulling up from a blistering gallop which was my ponies forte when someone rustled the rosette bag at the side of the ring right next to me. Pony did a 180 and I kept going in the original direction ??

 

[ycbm]

I had a beautiful moving new warmblood who I took to his first dressage competition. He trotted up the centre line, spooked at the judge's car, jumped the wing of the car and took me back to the warm up ....... which was out of the arena, through the entire huge multi-barn livery yard, past the busy tack shop and right through a very large and very busy warm up area to the far side, where he finally stopped rather than jump the fence.

?

 

[Fleece Navidad]

Went up to give my name to the dressage judge, B shoved his head up to the open window and shouted in her face, I then embarrassedly admitted his age (18 at the time) when she asked if he was young ?

 

[iknowmyvalue]

When I was about 12, sitting on my pony waiting to go in the SJ ring. Lots of people around. I was sitting with my legs in front of the saddle flaps but holding the reins. Pony decides just standing is boring and snatches his head down to eat the grass.

Cue me sliding down his neck like a waterslide, ending up on the ground in front of him, taking his bridle with me. And typical pony style didn’t stop eating until I rudely interrupted by landing on his nose. At which point he simply shoved me out of the way and carried on eating.

Really could have been something out of a thelwell cartoon (complete with hairy brown pony whose greatest talents included kicking jumps over and walking over them instead of jumping, and deciding to plant and refuse to move for no reason other than it suited him)

 

[teapot]

I have landed on my arse getting on, and got stuck getting off (two different occasions) in front of two very well respected coaches... The shame.

In my defence being stuck getting off was my first ride after a very unfit four months off and a high cantled saddle.

 

[Gloi]

Sat on my little Fell stallion in a lineup and the pony next to him grunted at him. he reared straight up , my stirrups came off the saddle and I ended up standing in the stirrups on the floor behind his tail still hold of the reins. Sent out in disgrace ?

Truthfully though my most embarrassing time was at a show alone as a teenager when I came on my period without realizing and had to ride home with very stained cream jods. I could have died of embarrassment.

 

[Rokele55]

Elf, all excellent practice for your current job;-) My childhood showing and pony club etc. was great fun for me. I fell off, left the ring, lost my pony, got truly splattered or eliminated in every possible way and just laughed merrily. My mother, however, cried with embarrassment and hid in toilets. I think her worst cringe was when she was trying to sell a very nice little chap at a hunter trial, had encouraged some interest, and I managed to get the giggles and had two stops then fell off at the first fence. All helpfully pointed out by the friendly commentator. Nice little chap did sell and went on to a very good career with no help from me

 

[Coblover63]

I was walking the SJ course for my first ever little ODE, aged 54, after years of having a jumping phobia which I'd recently overcome, so nerves were high. I particularly noted that after fence 4 it was a sharp left turn to fence 5 and not to go sailing straight ahead as that was fence 8. Finally it was our turn. We entered the ring with me muttering "sharp left after 4" and the 50cm fences suddenly looked twice the size! My mare leapt fences 1 to 3 with great gusto but then slowed as she approached fence 4. Thinking she was going to refuse, I gave her a pony club kick and she sped up and flew it. However, my concentration had been broken so I forgot the sharp left turn. We carried on straight and jumped fence 8..... eliminating ourselves. The embarrassing part is that as we took off I realised our error and shouted "OH F ** K!!!" Then I noticed there were loads of children at the ringside watching us. I was mortified!!

I later found out that the reason my mare had slowed before 4 was because she was pooing!!!

 

[Sleipnir]

On my first jumping competition - was confidently doing the course when, in the middle of it, understood that I have completely and utterly forgotten it and for the love of my life, cannot locate the next jump. I just sat tall, smiled wide, cantered to the left, then understood my mistake, turned right and completed the course.

A friend had been sitting near the judges' booth. She reported that the judges had been very confused about my maneuver, but they had voted that if I'm smiling with such confidence - it means I have a strategy! So they let me pass without penalties. Although I still came last because of our slowness...

Which was so profound that spectators were actually yelling "Faster, horsey, faster! You can do it!" from the sidelines.

I will never live this down.

 

[Auslander]

I sniggered I bpet you felt really emb what were you trying to get the pony to do for the students before you came off

The idea was that each person jumped a line of fences set up across the diagonal, then turned right. The pony kept jumping the fences, then slamming the brakes on, putting his head down and charging back to the group, which was parked on the left. She came off twice, so I got on, and jumped the fences, whilst explaining that she needed to sit up quickly, keep his head up, look where she wanted to go, and kick on.
Pony did exactly the same thing to me, because I was more focused on talking than doing what I was telling her she should do. Absolutely 100% my own fault

 

[TwyfordM]

Schooling a pony who hadn’t been off the leadrein before, worked really hard to get him going forward (nappy as hell!!) going good but he was very strong and was having a few issues with getting him working nicely. Asked for some lessons from another instructor on the riding school (he was a school pony) so I had some eyes on the ground.

Got to the gate of the school. Napped. I did exactly what always worked. He decided to make an absolute fool of me ..??‍

13.2 tank of a newforest with no neck. Drops head (had never done that before) bucks at standstill. I’ve suddenly got no pony in front of me and land on my face ??‍? he squealed as he did it too for added dramatic effect. He was very proud of himself!

 

[Blanche]

Way back in the seventies we were living in Germany. I had always wanted to join the Pony Club and go to camp but living abroad I thought it would never happen. My excitement when I flew home and my mother told in the car home that I was going to camp was enormous. We were allocated horses from various local Saddle Clubs and I actually had a horse I knew, for about five minutes. Then he was given to a more novice rider and I was given an Exmoor to ride. Cross country he pulled like a train, schooling or show jumping he moved nearly as fast as a sloth. We had a mock hunt and I passed everyone. I just couldn’t pull the little sh!te up and had steer him into an enormous hedge. I remember one of the adults laughing and saying what a goer he was. The most embarrassing bit was on the last day when we had various competitions. The parents all arrived to watch and so my humiliation began. I did a couple of games with him that saw me come last by a long way. Then I was told by my instructor to do the showjumping as dressage was not his forte. I really didn’t want to but did it. I couldn’t get him to canter so we jogged very slowly to each fence , he stopped and I kicked and he tried to eat grass. After what felt like an eternity he would then cat leap over the enormous 18’’ jump. This happened at every jump. After the second jump my instructor came in to help, then later someone ran in with a stick for me. My instructor wouldn’t let me leave the ring so I had to keep going. What I found truly embarrassing was that everyone watching started to cheer after I got him over a jump, this in turn led to more people coming to see what was going on. The cheering got louder and louder after I got over each fence. When I actually got over the last fence they all stood up, clapping and cheering. It was awful. This started my abiding love of exmoors though!

 

[rabatsa]

Standing in the line up for a condition and turnout class, when the steward pointed out that I had forgotten to remove the tail bandage.

 

[Winters100]

My darling part TB used to get excited at parties. He'd done so well keeping a lid on it. Dressage test was going ok until horse in the warm up area next door had a XXXXXXX. Our canter transition wasn't supposed to contain an almighty buck. I went splat.

I don't want to be picky but surely as adults we should know better to use horribly unkind terms, such as the one used in your original post, now marked with 'x' above. For all you know people reading your post may have been affected by this problem, or have family who have suffered. If so I cannot imagine how they would feel to hear the wprd bandied about to describe poor behavior by a horse.

 

[View]

In the yard, mounting before going for a hack. No idea what happened, but right over I went, and landed sitting on the ground looking up at a very puzzled horse who was giving me the "what on earth look".

Problem was, I had just got the adults on the hack I was escorting mounted, tack and stirrup checks done.

 

[Snow Falcon]

@Winters100. I genuinely had no idea otherwise it would not have been used in any context. Thank you for pointing it out, I sincerely apologise if anyone has been offended by my post.

 

[Antw23uk]

No one told me that in showing the gallop should be poised and controlled ... I hit that corner with my arse up, back flat against the horse and off we went to the other side of the show ring ..... No one told me about the whole riding part for the judge or the bit when you untack and trot them up .. a girl from the yard came over to pretend to be my groom, the mare was dripping in sweat and a frothy mess, i'd only started riding her the day before and was fresh out of riding school and did not have a clue! Needless to say i came last and decided showing wasnt for me and that was about thirty years ago, lol!

 

[HollyWoozle]

The best recent thing I can think of lately is that I went drag hunting with some customers in Ireland (I sell riding holidays and escorted them essentially) and was constantly worried one of them might fall off... then I fell off myself instead, doh. I attempted to jump some silly hedge (got carried away!), toppled over the front on landing. Customers horrified as my horse cantered merrily past them sans rider. Someone had to pick up my stirrup and the man behind me had to give me a leg-up... it also wasn't a great leg-up and I was a bit wobbly so I hung off the side for a while until he came back to give me another shove. Such class on my part!

 

[humblepie]

Far too many but a really good one was winning an in hand class and on the lap of honour trotting round, I caught bit of a dip in the ground and went flying. Kept hold of my horse but ended up looking like I had done several rounds against a boxer. I quickly went to the food van and got something to eat as was expecting jaw to swell up and not be able to eat once home.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

Far too many but a really good one was winning an in hand class and on the lap of honour trotting round, I caught bit of a dip in the ground and went flying. Kept hold of my horse but ended up looking like I had done several rounds against a boxer. I quickly went to the food van and got something to eat as was expecting jaw to swell up and not be able to eat once home.

Been there, done that ?? your not alone!

I usually take my inhanders for a quick run round the lorry Park before we go in the ring. I tell people it's because they are fresh and need the run. In reality it's because my knees and ankles give way when I run until I have warmed up and I would rather trip and stumble outside of the ring than in it ??

 

[SEL]

Horse spooked in an indoor jumping round. I found myself on the side of the saddle - stuck. Couldn't haul myself back into the saddle and still had both feet in stirrups and was sort of stuck. Some random bloke had to give my backside a shove to get me back up. It was a long time ago and obviously I haven't got over it!

And then there was the pony that needed a pee in a dressage test. So it stopped ..... definitely a full bladder. Few farts just for added red face moments.

 

[still standing]

About to start a dressage test and went up to the Judge's car to give my name, on the scribe's side. Didn't realise that the judge knew me & we hadn't met for ages, she pressed the electric window button open and simultaneously leant across the scribe and yelled my name loudly! All to the horror of my horse who leapt and spun at the same time and deposited me on the ground. And much embarrassment & apologies from the judge. It was decided after some discussion that I wasn't eliminated so I rode my test but horse wouldn't go anywhere near the car after that of course!