Take the fall, or hang on to the horse's face?

Tercio, The story you tell is alarming. That nowadays such scenarios can be present in a commercial livery stable beggars belief. From what you write, the horse is mentally disturbed and as such is obviously very dangerous to both visitors to the yard and to the workers on the yard.

Such horses can present to specialist horse trainers an object lesson but whether the animal can be cured of its misbehaviour in general towards humans and other horses is a question way beyond my level of expertise to answer.
In the UK I doubt if I could find a farrier to shoe the animal or a vet to inject it.

The HF.com is probably not the place to discuss such a situation.

Velvet - be safe and walk away.

B G

I was taught to hold on to the reins when falling offso the horse didn't run away (many years ago) and it is a very hard habit to break, but fortunatley I haven't fallen off since 1987 (touching every available piece of wood) so I don't know what I'd do now.

Clava
1987 to 2013 is almost 26 years. Ar you sure you have been riding a horse - or has it been a four legged created with pointed ears that goes oinK oinK.

B g

No, I'd definitely fall off that

(I've just been lucky so far and probably made up for it the number of times in my youth )

I always let go. I rarely ride in a bit but I think a fall and yanking back on the nose is worse than yanking on the mouth. Either way my thought process is "Let go" and then "Cover your head" or ", "don't land flat". Most of the horses I ride know to stop when the rider falls off even if they're spooked. I feel like most horses would stand by their owners/riders if they fell. I've seen more horses stop dead than run off, even green broke and new horses.

Sadly most ponies I know do actually run off...it is a real worry in a country where all our roads are reasonably busy. My friend was riding my pony on a fun ride in a group which consisted of the rest of his field mates - and he still galloped off when she came off (fortunately he was caught by a steward).

I always though people trained their horses to stand when they leave of the saddle. When I train a horse I do emergency dismount to train a horse to stay if I come off. It's a pretty common practice around here so it's fairly surprising that it's not typical everywhere. Shows what living in a small horse community does to your thinking.

I wouldn't regard us as a small horse community unless you mean your own, it just isn't something we train horses to do as a general rule, and as I have always stupidly kept hold of the reins I have never needed it. It certainly isn't typical to train horses to do this in other parts of the world from what I have seen in Europe. I suspect quite a few horses will stop anyway, but the ponies I know are another matter.

Theres a whole big difference in falling off a horse that's sedately and calmly walking along in a controlled situation (thats pretty much not when people fall off) and parting company with one that's bucking its brains out, trying to catapult you over a fence or spinning around at a flat out trot and going the opposite way when you least expect it
Even then I'll avoid hitting the ground if I can but a horse that's in that frame of mind if/when it dumps you is hardly likely to be thinking 'Oh havent I been trained to stand still after I've done' this because if it was thinking 'nicely' you wouldnt be on the floor in the first place
Nice idea but mostly it aint going to happen!!!

Some emergency dismounts, falling with style, badly executed landings..................................
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnfRRtrVrzU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKD4AdvWeaI