I fell off of Nova on Friday. I'm fine today, my elbow hurts, my hip is super bore (but not bruised), and my knee is bruised, but it might have been that way before the fall. It was such an odd thing. The way down I was thinking "I'm falling off. No, no, no, I don't want to scare Nova. It's bad for babies to be fallen off of. I'm wearing white. My joints already hurt, need I really do any more damage to my body?" Thump. And off I went. Yes, all of those thoughts went through my mind, and it didn't even feel like they were rushing. I was just calmly thinking about how I might scare the poop out of my little girl and give her some issues.
Here's what happened. I wasn't planning on riding Nova, just lunging her. I lunged her with her head down, and a few times she actually balked, threw her head up, acted like she was going to rear, and I was worried that she was going to flip over. I have seen a horse flip over. It is scary. The horse was totally fine, but I was scared that they were going to have broken every bone in their body.
So I figured "Ehh I haven't really lunged her with her head down in a while, maybe I'll just loosen it up". So I did, and she was fine. I just decided hey, lets try bareback. She has never offered me one single rear, buck, running out, nothing under saddle. Her stop is better than 90% of other horses too. So I got on, and was walking her around a bit, doing some circles, easy peasy stuff. I asked her for a trot and she was nice and smooth. Her back is still so round that she's super comfy bareback. I was going to ask her for a circle, and then be done. So I did, and for whatever ever reason she freaked out, and skirted out from under me. I went one way she went another.
By the time I was on the ground, Nova had stopped to check me; which I love. To me it means that she doesn't hate me, which I sometimes question with her. Right away my elbow hurt really bad, and my hip too. While assessing myself I asked her "Did you break my arm?" I wiggled my fingers, and knew that it didn't really hurt that badly.
Like any good cowgirl, I knew that I had to get back on, for me and Nova. I was really worried that she would be terrified now. But I didn't want to get back on. I was dirty, I hurt, and it was just so extremely emotional. I don't even know why it was so emotional. It's not an issue of pride, I think falling off once in a while is humbling and we all need a little reminder once in a while that we aren't bullet proof. But I almost burst into tears after. I pulled it together, by lunging her a tad more. I had her doing a close circle to me, and roll backs. We've been working on roll backs while lunging, and she's getting better.
Then a friend came over to chit chat, and I knew that if I didn't get back on her now, we might both harbor some ill feelings towards each other. So I popped back on, and I was so relieved that she didn't tremble, run off, or act traumatized in any way. We walked a couple of circles, trotted about 5 steps, and then I happily got off, loved her down with some pets, and put her away.
In other news Blossom is getting her feet done today! Woohoo, her work starts tomorrow, with some lunging, saddling, and asking for responsiveness at the bit. Obviously I want to take some time with her training, but the vet says that she is 4, so the sooner she finishes training, the sooner she gets put into lesson to make some money.
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