Hi. I'm puzzled and opening this up to my friends here.
I fell on Saturday. Nothing serious. My horse stumbled either over his own left front foot, or there was a hole. I'm not sure.
I'm OK.
He stumbled and I felt myself leaning too far left. It always seems like I fall left. And most of the time it feels like I'm falling in slow motion - like I have a split second when I can correct the fall before it happens, but I don't know how to do that.
What do I do? Do I lean hard the opposite way to straighten myself out?
I haven't fallen in 7 months. I'm getting tired of falling, though.
What do you do when you feel a fall is imminent but that you have time to correct it?
Even in my best emergency dismount (at an actual gallop, not a canter) I shattered 3 toes in my left foot. I'm in the "less graceful" and "delicate flower" category.
I've never found monkey gripping to be a great tool for horses that are bucking (with all fours in the air and twisting like a bronc) so basically I try to keep myself as upright as possible be it by leaning forwards/backwards.
In the "oh ****" moment where you just know there is nothing left to do I actually think of something funny and try to loosen up a little. It helps with the fall.
Other than that I try to go feet first even if that means flinging myself over before gravity takes effect.
Also in general don't get up right away! Obviously there are situations that would make this prudent but remember to take a breath and check to see that things are moving/not moving accordingly. The biggest mistake I made with my whiplash was trying to get up in a push-up like fashion -- you're best option is if you land facedown to roll over on your back, wriggle toes/fingers/etc and worm yourself up.
Side notes:
If you pass out at all get to a hospital before you try to "cowboy up"
And to help with falling: Do you normally fall one way? I fall to my left most of the time because my first instinct is to clench with my right (dominant) leg which shoves me off.
If you want to see how exaggerated this is have someone come up and grab your boot and push your leg upwards while relaxed. If you're letting gravity do the work to drop the weight through your heel your leg should adapt by bending at the knee. Your heel and hip should be in roughly the same line that they started in.
Now drop your leg and try to grip really, really, reaallly hard. Like your horse is being stupid and you reeaaallly need to hang in there. Now have your helper push your foot "up". You're going to fall off. Its like trying to push something with a rope (or more accurately a hinged stick) or a metal rod. Which is easier?
This is very true!
So here's a story in relation to what DreaMy is saying; not too long ago at a local schooling show, this poor little girl had this horrible horse. He was mean and not very happy to be there, yet the trainer insisted she'd continue to ride that horse. The horse was no way near being a good mount for such a little girl, whom was in the early stages of riding. Well to make things short, she got dumped in the warm-up ring, she got dumped in the jumper ring, and still after that, the trainer put her back and made her do a second round!! She did pass out for a bit during one of the falls, but was back on her feet again soon after.... well the girl went to the hospital with a very bad brain contusion, very embarrassed and with her confidence destroyed.. sad and scary!!!
She was fine luckily! but honestly, even if your trainer is really pressuring you to get on a horse that you feel is too much for you or dangerous, please don't do it. This girl trusted her trainers' judgement and it ended up bad. Shame on the trainer.
I guess this would kind of be off topic. But don't "cowboy up" when you feel the horse is being dangerous. No shame in not getting back on. So many ways to address the problem that don't involve risking your bones. Being brave doesn't necessarily make you intelligent. :icon_rolleyes:
I have gotten pretty good at staying upright in the saddle, but have also turned "tree monkey" and clung for dear life to all of the following: side of the saddle, top of the neck, bottom of the neck, and on top of the head once (horse did a dirty stop at a ditch then put his feet in the ditch so fast I ended up on his head). It happens so fast I am not 100% sure HOW exactly I get a grip.
Over the years I have gotten better and better at fighting the fetal position reflex, and sitting up and deep in the saddle. Looking up at the horizon is now one of my key tactics, cause if I look down, I am likely to end up there.
If I feel I have reached the point of no return, I learned early on to round my back and tuck my shoulders if I can't do a proper emergency dismount. No trying to stop the fall with the arms, that will just break or sprain things!
I usually tense up, think about how much this will hurt, and if it's really slow motion I might think about the hospital bill too. In spite of a couple of years of Tae Kwon Do where we practiced running somersaults over and over, I still can't roll coming off a 16 hand horse.
After my 3rd degree shoulder separation in 2009 I decided since I'll never learn how to ride, I better learn how to train. It's working so far. I haven't fallen off since.
I have not yet fallen in my riding career, but have come close a good number of times. One time in particular I remember I was cantering a mare who was still very green to the canter undersaddle and had absolutely no balance or self carriage whatsoever. It was like riding a motorcycle the way she was leaning and careening around the arena in ever tighter circles. At some point her terrible transitions and leans caused me to lose my stirrup- possibly both- and I was fighting to find them again, steer the horse, slow the horse down and just stay on! Pretty soon I realized that there was no way I was staying up- the mare would not slow down and I could not keep my seat or balance on that canter. I experienced that limbo moment where everything slowed down and happened very clearly and I just stopped trying to stay on. I relaxed, sat back, stopped pulling on the reins and accepted that I was going to fall. The mare immediately re-balanced herself and came to a smooth stop. I righted myself, still in the saddle.
The point of that little story is I guess that sometimes the best thing to do when you feel ready to fall is nothing. My theory is that in this case while I was bouncing around, pulling on her face and throwing my weight around to try to stay on, I was actually causing more interference for the mare. How could I expect her to stay up when I was causing so much commotion and confusion? When I stopped and relaxed she had enough time and independence to focus herself and get her feet underneath us. It no doubt also helped that when I relaxed, she felt that and was encouraged to relax as well.
I rode out a pretty impressive bucking fit bareback today. All I kept saying to myself was "long legs and SIT BACK" and I stayed on even though I ended up riding the witch's neck. Kept her forward until she settled into the nice canter I was asking for, then let her stop, righted myself, and kept on riding.
That was a situation in which I absolutely could not afford to fall off. Once a horse dumps you once, she knows she can do it again. She learned today that she can't ditch me, which means she's less likely to try it with her nearly 50 year old owner.
If I have time to save myself, I save myself every time. But nowadays if I'm unseated it's a rare thing for it to be a slow enough unseating for me to have that time - if I'm going to fall it's usually violently. I've been flung into more jump wings than I care to count because my old jumper would pick up the pace coming towards a fence, then drop a shoulder and spin away from it at the last moment. Even with an upright, solid position, there was no way I could save myself. Took me a while but I figured out he did it when he felt like my position wasn't secure enough for me to stay balanced over the fence. Last time I came off a horse was when the horse went full rodeo bronc on me when I was riding stirrupless in a saddle I hated. The time before that was one of Monty's spinning stops.
Something I have learned in these moments is that the INSTANT you think "yep, I'm doomed" you WILL fall off. Sheer determination has kept me onboard more times than I can count. I will NOT fall off a horse if I can at all avoid it!
blue eyed pony;7573498
Something I have learned in these moments is that the INSTANT you think "yep said:
Along those lines, someone once told me that it was an old 'cowboy' saying "dont look at the ground unless that's where you want to end up!".
So, if I'm feeling unbalanced at all, I make a point of looking forward. I have a bad habit of looking at his withers when I'm thinking too hard (lol), and that's too similar to looking at the ground..a bad,bad habit,,I'm working on it, and doing much better.
So im an idiot and was bareback riding and fell off 3 time in one weekend :P I always know for some reason when im going to fall off because i always think "not this again" I dont actully do anything when i fall I just make sure the horse doesnt stamp on my head :P
How does one train themselves to instinctively lean back instead of going to the fetal position? Is there a way to ingrain this response without having to practice on a spooky/naughty horse?
I've been riding for a long, long time, and I still fall off way too often.
I used to (and still sometimes do) resort to the fetal position/hunched forward whenever I felt insecure, not just when I felt I was going to fall. So I got a lot of practice at other times. It eventually carried over to when horses got broncy. If the thought of falling or spooking makes you start to get into a forward, defensive position, you can use mental exercises to help recondition your response. Ride around on a calm horse and play spooking scenarios in your mind, and while you do so, sit deep, look up and pull those shoulders back.
My Grandfather had horses, they raced them in our small town back in the old days and he was a rambler gambler good old boy then.
I first fell from a horse while riding with my dad at four years old, the next time I fell I was five, it's become a tradition so to speak the last time I fell off I busted three ribs and my Mom said, "Well the boys been doing this all his life" falling off horse that is.
These threads just make me laugh. SOOO many people post about how to need to ride out a buck bc it makes you a better rider. I disagree. I say, teach your horse NOT to buck. Nobody likes to ride a horse that bucks. You know that buck is designed to dislodge a panther who has his claws in the horse's back. NOT very nice, Precious.
The rest is to get physically fit so that you can sit the bounciest trot, and move with the biggest canter, and stay on going over a jump without your stirrups.
I'm a weirdo, then. I kind of like buckers. Now, I don't encourage bucking and I get after horses who do, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't get a bit of a thrill from it. Now, if a horse even slightly rears, uh uh, no way no how! Hate rearers!
I agree with you to some extent, Corporal, but there are still some people out there that haven't been given a "natural" horse riding ability. I'm one of them. My hamstrings are always tight, I lean too far forward and when my horses gets going my natural response is to become a ping pong ball. It has taken me years to ride "correctly" and half the time I still don't I agree that physical fitness has a big impact on it. When I'm out of shape...I don't ride nearly as well. But I think in some of these cases the mental game can overpower everything else.
I fell off routinely when I was a kid. I got a lot of bumps and bruises and an occasional fracture. Now it is very rare if I fall off. For starters, I am not a trainer, so I am not going to ride somebodies rank horse. My horse is very hot, but I know what she will do and I know what to expect. The biggest thing for me is to stay in tune with the horse. If she is about to spook, I can feel it and get ready.
I am too dang old to fall off without getting hurt and I can't afford to take time off from work from being injured; I hang on for all that I am worth. I think the most important thing if the horse does go crazy is to keep a deep seat and keep those heels down. Other than that, physically hanging on to the saddle horn or mane or monkey grab (whatever you have) and trying like crazy to stay in balance with the horse is what I do.
When I fall, I pretty much hit with a big splat like humpty dumpty.
I have no natural seat. I really worked at it. You know, the best teachers write about how to get a great seat. They start with riding a totally reliable horse, sitting on a lunge, patiently working at your craft.
The one person that I never wanted to be I met at a small CW event. She raced around on an older Arabian and was known to routinely end up taking an ambulance ride in the middle of many events. I met her at a campfire, bragging about he falls, her broken bones, her mishaps.
Is that what you want?
I want a pleasant ride on a pleasant companion. I've been dirty bronco bucked 3x. The first was on a 16.2hh OTTB who was having a temper tantrum. SOMEHOW, I dove and only scraped my elbow. The 2nd time, same horse, tired of working in the mud. I had no legs left that day, got bucked off, fell flat on my back in the mud, nothing hurt. The last time another gelding lost it when a cannon went off. I tried to dive, but my R humurous took the brunt of my fall and broke. My whole riding season was gone while I recovered.
Sometimes you WANT to fall or learn to do something akin to a flying dismount, like the horse is running scared and you are approaching a tree limb. Better than snapping your neck.
Don't think you should be encouraging people to think it takes a bucking horse to create your seat. How about a safe horse with a hard to sit trot? I've owned a few of those. You post and sit and teach yourself to keep your balance sitting the trot. OR, you ride for an entire day, so that you don't know if you want your stirrups or not bc neither is really comfortable.
Or just MAYBE, you get a good instructor to teach your a great seat and how to be safe.
You don't have to get bucked off to learn to sit a horse. That horse that bucks a little will escalate to buck a LOT. Not my idea of fun.
When I feel like I'm about to fall, I hang onto any part of the horse or saddle I can get my hands on and dig in. I'm like a cougar on its back, which is no help at all (tends to make the horse panic and run faster trying to get rid of me). But I can't seem to help myself; I hate it when anything but the bottom of my feet touch the earth.
Some great responses. The slow motion thing is you're brain processing information subconsciously at literally the speed of light and this is survival reactions. Unfortunately sometimes survival reactions are not the right thing to do.
I have always believed the best way to not fall is stay on the horse/bike/motorcycle...duh. But sometimes there comes a time when the parting of ways is inevitable so in the split second or two that you have, chose to end it as best you can or "on your terms". For instance, while you still have some small opportunity to influence your "landing zone" chose the softest spot possible.
Learn how to fall. A lot of arm/wrist injuries are totally preventable. It's instinctive to stick your arm/hand out to soften your fall...better to allow the shoulder/collarbone to absorb that impact. Collarbones heal in four to six weeks in the off chance you fracture one...wrists...sometimes never. A dislocated shoulder, while painful, can be reduced at the scene if you know how, which if you're gonna ride you should learn. Ditto with fingers.
This is what I do: jam those heels down as far a I can, let my hips move with the horse but keep my upper body straight and shoulders back.
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