[Mike Matson]

Now let's hear yours!



http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...ilridefall.jpg

[OveroHunter]

I did once convince two of our male wranglers to ride my extremely bouncy horse bareback... together Open in sequence:
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/joshjohn2.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/joshjohn3.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/joshjohn4.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/johnjosh5.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/johnjosh6.jpg

[GaitedGloryRider]

What was going on in that first pic pretty much happened to a friend of mine. But unfortunately she managed to hang on, when the her horse lunged out of the mud her shirt and bra were around the horn. Horse jumped up out of the mud ripping every button off her flannel shirt *and* shearing the clasps off her sports bra.

So there's my dear friend with her horse trotting down the trail as she frantically tries to stop her, bare-chested with the goods flapping (yes flapping) in the wind.

Did I mention it was a big organized ride with loads of people around? Did I mention several children bore witness to the event? Friend was mortified. All I could think was thank gawd it wasn't me. A kindly stranger offered her a hoodie to ride back to camp in. It was still a rather uncomfortable, bouncy trip back to the trailer for her curvacious self with no bra on that springy little Arabian.

[cowboymom]

GGR You reminded me of one of mine-riding with my father in law and my husband way up in the wilderness, just the three of us. We were passing a rough spot in the trail by hugging the edge by the trees and as I passed through the tree branch it caught my tshirt just right and ripped a huge hole in it across my left boob-like a foot square hole, instantly. DH heard the odd sound and turned around and I was with my arm up across my chest being very thankful that FIL is deaf as a post! "GIVE ME YOUR SHIRT!!!" I demanded of him and we ducked behind a tree and swapped shirts still on the horses. caught up with FIL who was probably telling a story during the entire wardrobe malfunction and if he noticed we had swapped shirts he never said a thing. It was a pretty self-explanatory situation if he did notice. DH looked ridiculous in a too-tight half-gone purple t-shirt all day...

[2DogsFarm]

Overohunter!
You kilt the wranglers!

I have 2 trail horror stories:

#1 - took some newbies out w/me just before dusk on a lovely Summer's eve, for their first-ever trailride...
Misjudged our time on the trail and ended up coming home in the pitchblack trusting my TB could see better than I could and knew his way home.
He did, and I never let on to the aghasted newbs that I was as lost as they felt once the sun set

#2 - took myself out bareback on the TB, dismounted (WTFruitbat was I thinking?) for some reason or the other. Realized I had no way of getting back on and had to walk pretty far in ankle-deep mud before I found a log in the right position so I could get back on.
TG, Mr TB chose to be his Angel-self and follow me instead of jerking free and leaving me stranded.
That was fun...NOT!

[maunder]

Overo Hunter...that last photo...

[sketcher]

What was going on in that first pic pretty much happened to a friend of mine. But unfortunately she managed to hang on, when the her horse lunged out of the mud her shirt and bra were around the horn. Horse jumped up out of the mud ripping every button off her flannel shirt *and* shearing the clasps off her sports bra.

So there's my dear friend with her horse trotting down the trail as she frantically tries to stop her, bare-chested with the goods flapping (yes flapping) in the wind.

Did I mention it was a big organized ride with loads of people around? Did I mention several children bore witness to the event? Friend was mortified. All I could think was thank gawd it wasn't me. A kindly stranger offered her a hoodie to ride back to camp in. It was still a rather uncomfortable, bouncy trip back to the trailer for her curvacious self with no bra on that springy little Arabian.

She is lucky her bra snapped, otherwise she may have had a lot more with embarrassment to contend with! I had my bra get hooked on the horn once. I was dangling off the side barely on my tippie toes and the only way I could get undone was to climb out of my bra. it was scary enough that I didn't care who-saw-what! And I was lucky to be on a saint of a (tall) mare.

[BigHorseLittleHorse]

yep, I've had one of those. My horse tripped over a little 6" gully on a sandy hill and went down face first. I bailed over his shoulder, and we both got up fine. Then, as I was checking him over to make sure he was OK, he ripped the reins out of my hands and took off at a gallop. My dog wavered between me and the horse, but she decided to stay with me. We walked the two miles home, crossing several busy roads, and got there to find my horse in the stall and the barn staff organizing the search party. Good times

[Gray Horse H/J]

I did once convince two of our male wranglers to ride my extremely bouncy horse bareback... together Open in sequence:
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/joshjohn2.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/joshjohn3.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/joshjohn4.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/johnjosh5.jpg
http://file1.npage.de/001804/17/bilder/johnjosh6.jpg

OMG this is hilarious.

[fivesocks]

I thought I killed my husband (boyfriend at the time) on one of our early rides together. He was a beginner riding a friend's trail horse.
We went on a neighborhood trail which has one area that's slightly tricky for about 3 steps because you only have about 24 inches between the slippery red clay edge of the bank, and a tree. So you can expect to get your knee sheared off at the tree as the horses try to avoid falling off the bank.

Well the horse got about to the narrow part and decided to back up. Perhaps what happened next could have been avoided had my husband been a little better, more coordinated rider with the whole steering/pushing horse forward thing. Or perhaps it could have been avoided if the horse had a normal horsey sense of self-preservation and been paying attention to where his feet were in relation to the footing.

Anyway, horse backs up but his hind legs go over the edge, falling down a 4-5 ft embankment to the shallow creek below. Gravity then causes horse's front end to go over backwards. All in one fell swoop. I look behind me and horse is down in the creek, on his back, legs in the air, and my husband is pinned under the horse between the saddle and the creek bed. Thank heaven the sandy creek bed was soft or my husband would have been a pancake. As it was, he thought he may have fractured his hip but the intense soreness wore off after a week or so.

He is such a good sport has become a better rider and still rides all the time with me! Just not on that horse.

[Papyruse]

My most embarrassing fall was while out herding some cows. I was just plodding along when my horse did a complete flip over her head. I landed in a patch of cacti. I just lay there for a minute wondering if I had broken my neck

[TheJenners]

Yep. DH and I were down South visiting, and we did a trail ride. I'm riding this "broke" horse who was being retarded, either in heat or just a bad day for her, and she kept doing this number throughout the ride. DH was riding this horse, who had been "unrideable" for about three months or so and bucking people off, including the residence trainer. Yeah, the horse wasn't too bad for DH, but do you see the look on their faces? DH was pretty terse and the horse looked like half a marble for the whole four hours.

So we're riding along, and DH's phone rings. It's a buddy of his who is a BNT/BNR in the calf-roping world, and I always feel inferior around him because he's this awesome, fearless rider (like DH, but at least with DH I can make him do dishes or something...). So stupid mare does this stupid flying sideways thing right into a stupid group of saplings, one of which goes between me and the saddle. Mare keeps moving, tree starts bending. Can you picture what happened? Every seen Looney Tunes? Damn tree FLICKED me off the back of the damn horse, and I landed in the damn mud. DH says to trainer-buddy, "hang on a sec, Jenn just came off." Ugh. I didn't COME off. I was FLICKED off.

[CFFarm]

I can describe mind in one sentence: Banana spider across the trail at face height.

[Chardavej]

Yep. DH and I were down South visiting, and we did a trail ride. I'm riding this "broke" horse who was being retarded, either in heat or just a bad day for her, and she kept doing this number throughout the ride. DH was riding this horse, who had been "unrideable" for about three months or so and bucking people off, including the residence trainer. Yeah, the horse wasn't too bad for DH, but do you see the look on their faces? DH was pretty terse and the horse looked like half a marble for the whole four hours.

So we're riding along, and DH's phone rings. It's a buddy of his who is a BNT/BNR in the calf-roping world, and I always feel inferior around him because he's this awesome, fearless rider (like DH, but at least with DH I can make him do dishes or something...). So stupid mare does this stupid flying sideways thing right into a stupid group of saplings, one of which goes between me and the saddle. Mare keeps moving, tree starts bending. Can you picture what happened? Every seen Looney Tunes? Damn tree FLICKED me off the back of the damn horse, and I landed in the damn mud. DH says to trainer-buddy, "hang on a sec, Jenn just came off." Ugh. I didn't COME off. I was FLICKED off.

LOL! That's hilarious, the visual! Flicked off a horse, OMG that's funny!!

I have no photos of me, but do of a friend. We were going down a gravel road at a high rate of speed when his horse spooks and bolts to the right---killer horse eating mailbox!

It was in a matter of a second: Fast speed, stop, jump to right side of road from left, rider falls over handlebars onto back in front of horse, Dino was just kinda look down at him in surprise "How did you get there??". He just laid there like he meant to do it. Note his shoe by his head:

http://s36.beta.photobucket.com/user...ml?sort=6&o=21

[MMacallister]

I can describe mind in one sentence: Banana spider across the trail at face height.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH That gave me the shivers just reading it!

[MMacallister]

I guess my worst/dumbest one was at the U of Wisconsin's train the trainer sessions. Two weeks, meant for instructors kinda thing. We are out trail riding, and the horse behind me starts acting up, I stand up in my stirrups and turn around to see if she is ok, her horse gets to close, my horse bucks, guess who ends up on the ground? They all laughed at me because I was aware enough to cuss before I hit the ground.

[Cielo Azure]

About eight years ago, when I weighed 35 pounds more than I do now, I got off my horse Katie to tighten my son's horse's girth. Well...Katie was 18 hands and I just could not get my butt back up into that saddle. It was on a trail, that had a train track running by it. A train had passed by a few minutes before (one of those mile-long freight trains) and Katie was not going to turn her back away from the train track for very long . I had to search everywhere for a rock or mound to use -of course, this was in Maryland on a very busy mixed use hiker, biker, horse trail. I found a small boulder but Katie was so nervous about the train, she kept swinging around to watch for more. I just could not get her positioned at the same time I was perched for the mount. I had an audience of about 20 people watching me. Yes, I finally got my fat ass up there. But definitely, not one of my finer moments... Now, I am proud to say that when the weight came off, my ability to mount my big horses improved 100%. I can now climb on any horse on the farm, no matter how tall without the use of a tailgate, rock, hill, fence or mounting block.

[puddleplasher]

My favorite trail blooper? A few years ago, on a lovely summer day, my friend and I stopped alongside the trail to chit-chat and let the horses munch on some grass. Forgetting that I had loaned my breastcollar to my friend, I leaned way over to see if I could pick this one flower while in the saddle -- turns out I could, but only if the saddle leaned with me. The whole thing slid over and landed me among those flowers, basically falling off from a complete standstill. My horse took one sideways step and looked at me like I was an idiot -- quite true, at the moment -- and kept munching the grass. My friend laughed her head off.

[dressagetraks]

Beautiful day, great trail-riding weather, and I was lost in the music of hoofbeats as Bam Bam, my half Arab and half lunatic gelding, went along beautifully down the trail, doing his best temporary impersonation of a saintly horse complete with halo, one who never saw ghosts or spooked. Until. . .

SNORT!!!! I managed to ride out the pirouette, though I didn't quite look like Anky doing it. Bam ended up pointing the same direction we'd started, only going in reverse now, ears pricked so far they were almost touching. I was occupied for a minute just getting the horse to stand still. Once I finally had a chance to look around for the alleged monster, I just about spooked myself.

We were going along a trail next to a huge field which was full of hay, almost ready to be cut. Tall hay. Coming across the top of the hay, making a beeline for us, were two little triangular shark fins. Cue the theme from Jaws. I was actually wondering about Candid Camera or UFOs for a minute, could NOT figure out what that thing was. I couldn't blame the horse for jumping. It definitely was heading straight for us, though, and every time Bam backed a few more steps, it would adjust trajectory. He finally concluded, as did I, that we were going to meet the two shark fins no matter what evasive action we tried, and we just waited together, though I could feel the horse quivering.

Finally, the shark fins got to the fence line, and out of the hay popped - a pony. I have no idea what he was doing in a full hay field - probably an escape involved. But he obviously had heard Bam trotting down the road and just wanted to come say hi to his big cousin. He was just short enough, and the hay just tall enough, that only the ears were visible all the way across that huge field.

I nearly fell off laughing at that point. I think Bam was actually embarrassed. Just a pony. Not a shark, UFO, or fire-breathing dragon. Silly little pony.

[ReSomething]

I did that first one, only imagine having those old engineer-striped pants on, they're fine blue vertical stripes and of course they meet on your a$$ in a V shape, so I got to hear about that all day long, about how my butt looked in those pants. Maybe it was some pick up line but since this was in the day before helmets I had a ferocious headache that was probably a concussion, and no sense of humor whatsoever.


I have come close to the banana spider but mostly the pony gets them in his face (and hates it!) but I went out on a rental trail ride and my impetious rental horse decided to cut between two trees that also had a big vine growing down, thank dog I was a bit more limber then and managed to lay flat back off to the side a little and just eeek under it. Poor disappointed rental horse, the stinker.