Ouch!

Today I fell off a horse for the first time in probably ten years. (That makes two in twenty, I think I'm doing pretty well.) I was riding Bey Magic, and he was a little bit jittery because I didn't have a chance to lunge him to get him un-hyper, and he had obviously not been ridden in awhile. (He was shedding like I have never seen a horse shed before, it was CRAZY.) So, with four horses in the arena and one of them jumping and one of them ridden by Char, who hasn't ridden since she was nine, I kept it pretty chill. Walk, trot, let's do some little swizzles for funsies. I feel like I'm really starting to get what Rachel's been drilling into me since November. It's great. So, when the other two horses left, feeling all confident and such, I decided that Bey and I wanted to do some cantering. Yeah, I've never cantered on Bey before, other than that one time accidentally... So, for the first little bit we were okay, we probably made it once around the arena before my right stirrup decided to slide to my heel. Okay, it was my fault. But anyway, we made it around the arena a couple more times, with me pretty much only using one stirrup, and trying not to fall off, and trying to slow him down, but being unsuccessful. Because about our second time around, he decided to buck. Yeah. So, finally, about the third time around the arena I finally lost my right stirrup, and as I was losing my left stirrup I bailed. It hurt. Char was like, "Are you okay?!" and I said I was, which is completely true, because I was, just a little owie. So I brushed off my bum and moved quickly over to Bey, apologizing profusely for being such an idiot and panicking and pulling on his sweet good mouth and letting my heels come up. (My heels which, wonderfully enough, had spurs on - my legs are not strong enough to give Bay the leg cues he needs, but spurs are wonderful. I'm not saying cowboy spurs. I'm saying these kind of spurs.)

Nice spurs. English spurs. Anyway, while clinging to him desperately with my legs, I'm sure he was getting lots of spur action, meanwhile I'm pulling back on his reins like "Whoa!" I'm sure he was thinking, 'You crazy lady! Don't tell me to go and stop at the same time!' In his good grace though, he just nuzzled my face as if to say, "Apology accepted. Just don't do it again, crazy lady." So we walked back over to the mounting block and we went for a couple turns around the arena at a super loose rein and a nice walk. All in all it wasn't bad, I definitely learned that I need to realize that I am not as cool as I think I am. Which isn't a difficult realization for me, because I'm really not that cool and I don't even think I'm that cool. I just don't ride enough yet. Which is depressing. You'd think after 15 years I'd be pretty dang good...
Sigh. My bum hurts. Well, actually, my pelvis hurts. Like, tramp stamp area. And below. Yeah. Ouch. Other than that though, the only thing that hurts is my pride.