I'm 26, and I can truthfully say I've never experienced lasting fear around horses before. I grew up around them, I've ridden all manner of green/spooky/naughty horses, and I've had my share of falls and scares on the ground-- in the past, it was always pretty easy for me to get up and move on with my life.
I've been out of the saddle for a few years and have committed to a few months of working on myself/getting back in shape before looking to buy a new horse. I'm doing this with a full lease on a horse who is a good combination of challenging and tolerant of my re-rider foibles.
A few nights ago, I had just put my lease away and turned around in time to witness another horse spook, rear in the cross ties, break the cross ties, spin, and come careening down the aisle-- right toward me. He veered off at the last second, but still partially mowed me down with his hind end. His owner (a new rider) was on his heels.
I had the wind knocked out of me, but got it back pretty quickly, verified no broken bones or missing teeth, and got up to help catch the horse, who had run out of the barn. There weren't any barn staff around since most had the holiday weekend off-- it was just me, Mr. Serendip and this woman at the barn by this time in the evening.
The owner was having a meltdown outside, so I caught the horse and helped her bring him back into the barn, only to realize my left arm was streaked with blood-- which turned out to belong to the horse. When he snapped the cross ties, they'd clipped him in the face, and he had two half-inch nicks on either side of his nose, one of which was bleeding pretty profusely. The horse's owner took off to call the vet, leaving Mr. Serendip and me to deal.
Long story short, bleeding stopped quickly with some pressure, we cleaned up the cut, checked horse over to make sure he wasn't hurt anywhere else, lopped on some antibiotic goop (mostly to make me feel better), and horse settled down to munch hay. Owner returned at some point; vet wasn't concerned enough to make a farm call at 9:30 at night and would come by in the morning.
The next day, I put my lease in cross ties and realized I was nervous. Very nervous. Horse isn't bombproof but definitely isn't spooky, and has never had an issue being cross tied, but I found myself hurrying to groom and tack up-- and I was holding my breath as I picked up each one of his feet. I got on and was totally fine riding him, despite a random spook at a jump standard that wasn't there yesterday, but when I got off I was so worried about cross tying him that I actually felt sick. He wears a cribbing collar in his stall and can be a brat when I put it back on, and the thought of him even tossing his head while cross tied was too much. I ended up untacking in his stall.
How do I get over this... and what the heck happened to me?! It's not like I've never experienced anything like this before (albeit not since I started riding again), and the original incident ended up pretty minor... so... why the fear? I never thought twice about cross tying my lease until now, but now even the thought makes me nervous. How do I deal?
I've been out of the saddle for a few years and have committed to a few months of working on myself/getting back in shape before looking to buy a new horse. I'm doing this with a full lease on a horse who is a good combination of challenging and tolerant of my re-rider foibles.
A few nights ago, I had just put my lease away and turned around in time to witness another horse spook, rear in the cross ties, break the cross ties, spin, and come careening down the aisle-- right toward me. He veered off at the last second, but still partially mowed me down with his hind end. His owner (a new rider) was on his heels.
I had the wind knocked out of me, but got it back pretty quickly, verified no broken bones or missing teeth, and got up to help catch the horse, who had run out of the barn. There weren't any barn staff around since most had the holiday weekend off-- it was just me, Mr. Serendip and this woman at the barn by this time in the evening.
The owner was having a meltdown outside, so I caught the horse and helped her bring him back into the barn, only to realize my left arm was streaked with blood-- which turned out to belong to the horse. When he snapped the cross ties, they'd clipped him in the face, and he had two half-inch nicks on either side of his nose, one of which was bleeding pretty profusely. The horse's owner took off to call the vet, leaving Mr. Serendip and me to deal.
Long story short, bleeding stopped quickly with some pressure, we cleaned up the cut, checked horse over to make sure he wasn't hurt anywhere else, lopped on some antibiotic goop (mostly to make me feel better), and horse settled down to munch hay. Owner returned at some point; vet wasn't concerned enough to make a farm call at 9:30 at night and would come by in the morning.
The next day, I put my lease in cross ties and realized I was nervous. Very nervous. Horse isn't bombproof but definitely isn't spooky, and has never had an issue being cross tied, but I found myself hurrying to groom and tack up-- and I was holding my breath as I picked up each one of his feet. I got on and was totally fine riding him, despite a random spook at a jump standard that wasn't there yesterday, but when I got off I was so worried about cross tying him that I actually felt sick. He wears a cribbing collar in his stall and can be a brat when I put it back on, and the thought of him even tossing his head while cross tied was too much. I ended up untacking in his stall.
How do I get over this... and what the heck happened to me?! It's not like I've never experienced anything like this before (albeit not since I started riding again), and the original incident ended up pretty minor... so... why the fear? I never thought twice about cross tying my lease until now, but now even the thought makes me nervous. How do I deal?
He used to do this whenever he thought I was nervous, and it really did help.
- but that's another thread (and one we had before).
Comment