Your accounts of 'why the hell did I do that' falls!

[Dave's Mam]

And no, this wasn't the ram incident.

 

[Red-1]

Teaching a group of teenagers. One of the horses kept landing, dropping his shoulder and clearing off back to the others, leaving his rider on the floor. I decided to get on and sort him out. Bad mistake. Very bad mistake...

Yep - he did exactly the same to me, and I ended up face down in the school. In front of the group I was supposed to be teaching. They laughed. A lot.

Ha Ha, I did this with a young lady. My rule is, if someone comes off we do not do the exercise again until the rider knows why the fall occurred, and how to stop it happening again. It was a dropped shoulder after the fence, and it had been a pretty rubbish approach, so we discussed how she would approach the fence differently. She did, and it whipped round again. 2 falls, and the second approach was GOOD, so I said I would get on horse.

I say horse, in fact it was a 14hh pony, skinny build, but as it was just a X pole I decided it would be OK, climbed aboard, placed feet in tiny foot trapping stirrups and went trotting off to the fence. The pony leaped the X pole in fine style, did one stride then totally spun off. I have a pretty much Velcro bum, but the little narrow French TB had no shoulder and I exited stage left, landing on my feet with some grace, if I do say so myself.

My embarrassment could have been covered as the young client exclaimed "You did that on purpose, just to make me feel better!" but nothing would persuade her otherwise, even though I was brutally honest and tried to admit that this was a bona-fide accidental dismount.

Bless kids thinking the trainer is perfect!

 

[Auslander]

Ha Ha, I did this with a young lady. My rule is, if someone comes off we do not do the exercise again until the rider knows why the fall occurred, and how to stop it happening again. It was a dropped shoulder after the fence, and it had been a pretty rubbish approach, so we discussed how she would approach the fence differently. She did, and it whipped round again. 2 falls, and the second approach was GOOD, so I said I would get on horse.

I say horse, in fact it was a 14hh pony, skinny build, but as it was just a X pole I decided it would be OK, climbed aboard, placed feet in tiny foot trapping stirrups and went trotting off to the fence. The pony leaped the X pole in fine style, did one stride then totally spun off. I have a pretty much Velcro bum, but the little narrow French TB had no shoulder and I exited stage left, landing on my feet with some grace, if I do say so myself.

My embarrassment could have been covered as the young client exclaimed "You did that on purpose, just to make me feel better!" but nothing would persuade her otherwise, even though I was brutally honest and tried to admit that this was a bona-fide accidental dismount.

Bless kids thinking the trainer is perfect!

Soundsa very similar to my incident! I'm 5"10, and the beastie in question was a 14hh pony with a very short neck and no shoulders. I set him up just right, went for the 'safe' fold, sat up and blocked the escaping shoulder as he landed, and rode him away from the fence very "positively". He still dropped me, the wily little git!

 

[Nessa4]

I used to ride a little grey mare,about 14'3/15hh who could drop you at will, however prepared you were for her - I have been known set weight through heels, sit up, brace, grab a double handful of mane and practically hook my toes under her elbows and STILL the little B**** would have me off!!!

 

[OwnedbyJoe]

I have somany, but the best is probably while instructing the "littlies" at Pony Club when I was about 18.. One small feral pony was an evil beastie of about 12hh who would drop his shoulder and spin out from underneath his small rider (who had learned to land on her feet...). I got on to "sort him out". And promptly got dropped twice by him executing the same manoeuvre. There was just NOTHING left under you to hang on to. And I didn't land on my feet.
Better yet, this happened in front of all the other coaches who had stopped for morning tea. After the second fall I looked round to see them all holding up quickly scribbled "scores out of 10" cards...

 

[Circe]

When I was a lot younger, I decided to take a run at the off side of my share horse and vault onto him.
If I had thought it through at all, I would have know it would end badly.
This was a horse that had only just learnt, after hours and hours, to stand while you got on from the near side, and had never been mounted either by a vault or from the off side.
Also, I've never actually been able to vault onto any horse.
I did manage to hook my leg over the back of the saddle, and I think I stayed on for a few meters as he took off broncing across the paddock.

Another one was asking my old appy "is that the best you can do ?" as he spooked at a rock.
I soon found out that he could do a lot better, as he dumped me at the next scary rock.
Kx

 

[Splatthekat]

I once hopped bareback onto my friend's nappy little pony. As I finally got him to trot past the scary hedge, and proclaimed that I'd won the game of wills, her husband came around the corner. Cue pony stopping dead and dropping his shoulder, me sailing over his head, landing on my butt and sliding in the mud until I landed on top of the husband's feet!

 

[Shazzababs]

When I was young, we used to have a Sec A. turned out in our field.

On our way home down the field, if he was 'in the way' my friend and I used to gate vault over him (you know lean over one hand on a front leg and one on a back, and then forward roll over the top)....unfortunately one day he decided to canter off when my mate was in mid vault. Cue broken collar bone.....and a ban on 'vaulting the pony' again.

 

[Wobblywibble]

Demonstrating to a group of 12 yr old schoolboys how to jump on bareback. Though it was a clever idea to chose a smallish, narrow pony to ensure I accomplished this gracefully and didn't end up stuck half on half off, put some extra spring in my leap, went up and straight over the other side, landing on my backside. They thought it was brilliant!

 

[HeresHoping]

Here you go: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/foru...mportant-for-riding&highlight=fiddling+straps

 

[Wiz201]

I had a stupid fall over a cross pole jump, had no idea why I went out the side door. Horse looked as surprised as I was.

 

[DJ]

1. My mum didn't get the photo so told me to come around again.

2. but my mum missed it so said come round and do it again.

Couldn`t help but laugh, next time your mum says "come round again I missed it" tell her to get lost (in the nicest possible way of course lol)

 

[BBP]

You guys are hilarious!

I nearly had a good one the other day, took pony to the gallops and went to use their mounting block. The pony wasn't stood quite square to the block, bum was swung away but I thought, that's fine I can hop on from here. One foot in the stirrup and a man ran round the side of the barn, pony tried to spin and leg it and I did a rather impressive split, one foot on the mounting block and one in the stirrup. I was pretty chuffed, I've been training to get into the splits, I never thought about trying this method!

 

[cobalobM]

was in the school cooling off, walking round holding the buckle in my own little world, squirrel jumps out, horse just disappeared from under neath me and i landed on the floor in a sitting position!

the other day i decided to ride pony to the field, bareback in headcollar, put him by the mounting block but was a bit far away, thought oh well it will be fine... started putting one leg over and we decided to walk off.. one leg stuck on horse.. other on the mounting block... well and truly went smack onto the concrete! luckily no one saw!!!

 

[Annagain]

The first I can only put down to lack of knowledge, the second God only knows!
I hadn't been riding that long when I went out for a hack from my local riding school. There's a section known as the canter track and we all had a canter there. I was at the back on a mare who was far from bonkers, but certainly not a dope on a rope either. Half way along I lost my stirrup, so I stopped to get it back. Mare stopped happily for me I got my stirrup back and off we went....only by this time we were 100m behind so she really legged it. I panicked and screamed she bucked going round the corner and I ended up in a pile of brambles. Lesson 1. Don't stop to get your stirrup back. Lesson 2. A horse left behind will go faster than you think. Lesson 3. Never scream.

The second was when a friend and I were out for a hack and came to a field where we'd hav a gallop. Off we went with me in front and at the other end I stopped, only to hear my friend shout " I can't stop, turn up the field." (There was a huge hedge she was heading for if she didn't turn) I was stationary at this point so, with hindsight, didn't need to turn up the field but I obeyed just the little bit too late and cut across the path of half a ton of horse going at about 20mph. She literally knocked me off my horse, he stayed upright but looked very dazed bless him and to this day there's probably still the face of an early 90s Pop Swatch in that field. It stopped her horse though

 

[armchair_rider]

RS lesson in an indoor school. My stirrups were way too long but I was too lazy to stop and adjust them. All is fine until we start trotting round the school as a ride and I start to lose my balance - again too lazy to stop and sort things out. On about the third the circuit I slid gently out of the side door to everyone else's complete bemusement.

 

[Polar Bear9]

Taking my new girl around a tiny clear round SJ when I first got her to get us into the swing of things. She's been bombing round the warm up bucking but the second she got in the ring she just slugged. Got over he first fence from trot then she went one way and I went another.

The stupid thing about it was that she went the right way round the corner to the next fence and I dived out the side door to the outside! The video basically looked like I just randomly bailed out the side in slow motion for no reason :/ So embarrassing. All I can think is that I was put off by how quiet she was being

 

[TeamChaser]

Better do one for each horse!

Taking boys down to field and being lazy decided to hop on Fox whilst leading Lockie. Got down to village green where some young lads were having game of footy, Lockie chose that moment to bite Foxy on the arse who promptly bucked me off! Both pride and back dented! Haven't ridden bareback since

Cotswold team chase 2013 - twisty track with sharp turn to big drop fence at 19. Lockie lost footing after turning too sharply (because I didn't bother to steer) skidded, completely unbalanced to the foot of the drop fence and what did I do? Nothing. Lockie nothing if not brave so jumped from a standstill ejecting me out of side door and over the bloody great drop. Fence judge came running asking ambulance to stand by to find me on my back like a turtle laughing because air jacket was prevent me from getting up lol! I try to make some of the decisions these days ... sometimes

 

[AprilBlossom]

Went to try a horse recently, had already decided after 5 mins or so of walk and trot that it wasn't for me - needed a lot more work than I had time for. Was chatting to owner at halt when horse went in for a full body shake.

I hate these at the best of times, so shifted my weight out of the saddle, reins in one hand and said 'ugh I hate when they do...'

And the swine saw his opportunity and bucked me clean off!

'...this'


Well played steed, well played.

 

[FellOutOfFavour]

Does it count as a fall if you don't technically manage to mount first?
Long ago when I was 25 years younger and much fitter I used to be able to vault onto a 14hh pony. So I tried to vault onto a friends 13hh pony, only I completely misjudged it. It was a very dry summer and there was one small muddy puddle in the vicinity where we'd just tipped out a water bucket. I vaulted clean over the top of the pony and ended up sitting underneath her in that muddy puddle.

 

[PonyclubmumZ]

I have somany, but the best is probably while instructing the "littlies" at Pony Club when I was about 18.. One small feral pony was an evil beastie of about 12hh who would drop his shoulder and spin out from underneath his small rider (who had learned to land on her feet...). I got on to "sort him out". And promptly got dropped twice by him executing the same manoeuvre. There was just NOTHING left under you to hang on to. And I didn't land on my feet.

And this why I don't ride the kid's ponies!!

I have fallen off at walk when my horse tripped, I feel much better having read all your stories though, its a relief not to be the only one!

 

[Kezzabell2]

Turned in at a jump last minute, my girl jumped it but stumbled as she landed and I came off, landing on my head! felt like such a numpty for doing it!

Also getting on with so much spring that I almost came off the other side! managed to stay on by the skin of my teeth!

 

[rowan666]

Last summer at the beach infront of a crowd of families cooing over my "donkey" (anglo) I excitedly mounted.....and fell straight off the other side!!! No idea how! Haha

 

[Redders]

So my mare was having issues standing still to mount from a block, she would stand there fine, then turn her hind out as I went to out my foot in the stirrup, so we did loads of practising (she is fine now) one day she stood perfectly! I was so chuffed that I lept onto the saddle with such enthusiasm that I went straight over the other side of the saddle with a mini somersault, foot still in stirrup so took the saddle with me and I was doing the splits on the floor! In front of the whole yard, and the mare just looked at me and appeared to roll her eyes! Not even at a walk!

 

[Sukistokes2]

When mounting I decided to use a white plastic chair instead of the lovely breeze block mounting block. No idea why but there you go. My horse stood still I stepped on the chair , raised my foot to mount and the chair promptly collapsed under me , I landed in the yard on my bum,hard! My horse was disgusted with me!