Lysa's Blog

Hanging on like a cat

I fell off my horse Wednesday! And get this...he was standing!

Marcella and I went out on the trail a little bit Wednesday, just a short ride out to have some fun together. Ranger was good as gold leaving the property and getting down the street. He didn't start acting up until we wanted to head down past the high school. For some reason, he was NOT having that, and kept backing up into the street.

Now, here's something that perturbed me...in Norco, it's an unspoken rule that everything is about the horse. If you are driving through Norco, and you pass riders on horseback, you don't go zooming by or doing anything that might spook the horses. Unspoken rule #2: if you see a rider in distress, with a horse that is acting up, you go another direction, or wait patiently so as not to exacerbate an already tense situation by zipping around a hysterical horse. Most everyone who lives in Norco follows these unspoken rules without complaint, and will often even drive past after the incident with a smile and a wave as if to say "It's okay I had to wait for you, I'm just glad you and your horse are safe". I mean, think about it, a spooked horse not only represents a danger to himself, and his rider, but potentially to the passing cars if he charges at them. No one wants the damage a horse could do inflicted on their car!
This being said...while Ranger was having his fit and backing into the street...some bitch in a green BMW drives up, sees the fit, and drives around behind the horse that is backing his ass up towards her car. Dumb bitch. Too bad Ranger didn't kick it. Other drivers did the expected wait/smile/nod ritual. We decided to take another trail after that, to get Ranger moving forward.

On the way home, Ranger got spooked by a big panel truck rocketing behind us with its panels flapping loose and making a ton of noise. Ranger starts cantering in place, and then to make matters worse, some dipshit on a dirt bike goes roaring right behind the panel truck. (This is another unspoken Norco rule: be considerate on noisy motorcycles and anchor your truck parts down better) Ranger is now desperate to go home. He's galloping in place, I'm whoahing him, Marcella's whoahing him, Misty looks bored and like she wishes we'd sort it all out already. And then dogs started barking at him. It was chaos. We finally got hime calmed down, I petted him and baby talked him, Marcella petted him and baby talked him, even Misty nuzzled him to say "it's okay Ranger, that stuff doesn't eat horses, let's go home and make them give us buckets". Poor Ranger. My boy had just had enough of the outside world at that moment.

This isn't when I fell though! But this is still relevant. Because all the way home, Ranger was twitchy, like I used to be running down the hallway because it was dark behind me. He just wanted to be HOME.

So, we get back to the barn, and I'm telling Tish what happened, and she's sitting on the big stand at the back of the arena (If you're not one of my local friends, you've never seen it, but it's about 4 feet off the ground, and has a rail about 6 feet up). I'm talking to her, and Ranger's getting restless, and all of a sudden, he trips on his own feet or something, and falls to his knees. Believe it or not, still not when I fell off. When he went to get UP...he lurched hard to the left, and THAT'S when I unbalanced and toppled over. Right into the railing of that stand! I'm hanging onto the top rail for dear life, and my feet are still stuck in the stirrups. NOW I'm panicking because he's starting to walk away with my feet, Tish is pulling on me, it's comedy. I finally get my feet free, and the bottom of me falls the rest of the way off. I'm still clinging to that railing, so all of my weight is hanging from my left shoulder. Tish is trying to get me to let go and grab my horse, and I'm all "I can't move!". My knees got twisted, my right leg slammed into the saddle horn, I'm in so much pain. Tish is all "don't be scared, just let go!". I'm all, "It's not scared, it's PAIN!". She finally pries me off the railing, and poor Ranger is standing not more than three feet from me. And I swear, my horse looks EMBARRASSED. Like "Sorry Mom". It was pitiful. I hugged his nose and petted him and loved on him. And then went and cleaned him up so he could eat and go to bed. Poor Ranger was just having the WORST sort of day, lol. He got a really big bucket. :)

Now I have to bake brownies. TLC tradition is, the first time a rider falls off there, they have to bring brownies.

Today, the left arm aches badly, the right leg aches badly, but the rest seems okay. All in all, a lucky fall, I think. :)