Tis The Season to Be Falling

So once again, I did not take pictures.  I remembered this time, Saturday I dug out my camera and got it all ready.  All I had to do was charge it, and I've apparently lost the chord to do that. 

So the Sunday before last, we went out to help clean the stable, like usual, and then we brought Artemis in to work with her.  I'll have another post just about Artemis because I think this one might get long enough as it is.  Anyway, as we were working with her, a bunch of people showed up to ride.  We decided to ride outside because having eight riders trying to work around each other in the indoor arena isn't fun for anyone.

We decided to go into the little field behind T and E's house and right away the horses were a little crazy.  I won't lie, Socks' hyperness probably had a little to do with me.  It was my first time riding outside since I broke my arm and I was stressed out. 

Jimmy was even worse though.  He thought being in the snow was the coolest thing in the world.  All he wanted to do was prance and play in the snow, but he kept getting stupid about it so my mom wasn't letting him do what he wanted.  By this point, K had decided the arena was too full and came out to join us.  It was good for about ten minutes.

We were all riding in a group and Jimmy just took off bucking all of a sudden.  Socks and Tango bolted in the other direction so K and I were too busy trying to stop our horses to pay attention to what my mom and Jimmy were doing.  We managed to get our horses under control quickly, and then we turned around just in time to see my mom land in the snow.  Jimmy didn't even hesitated, he took off running across the field, back towards T's house.

We made sure my mom was okay and then went to attempt to get Jimmy.  I knew right away that wasn't going to happen.  The calm, level-headed guy he's turned into was gone and in his place was some crazy, full of himself mental-case.  His tail was up in the air like an Arabian (I've never seen him do that before) and he was staring at Socks and Tango like they were monsters coming to eat him.

K and I both got off to try and get him, which set Socks and Tango off again.  Jimmy took one look at them jumping around, and took off back towards the stable.  We calmed down our horses and then K jumped on Tango to go get him.  I tried to get on Socks, but with my arm I just can't pull myself up from the ground yet.  So instead I tried to walk over to my mom, who was going the opposite way as K, to cut Jimmy off from going onto the road.  Note to self, walking through knee-deep snow with a horse whose convinced she can just drag you through it, is a bad idea. 

I had to take a moment to get my breath back, and K managed to catch Jimmy.  She brought him back over to us and then the three of us decided to continue our ride in the outdoor arena.  We'd be closed in so if our horses kept acting stupid, we wouldn't have anymore runaways, but the horses would have to deal with their excitement over the snow.

Jimmy calmed down a little, and K and I had fun trotting our horse in the snow.  We didn't ride for much longer, but now we know what we have to work on with Jimmy next.

Okay, fast foward to just this past Sunday.  We were riding in the indoor arena and some girls had set up five jumps.  They set them up kind of goofy and they were difficult to get around.  There were four in a long row and they were too close to the wall so they were difficult to get by.  They had another one, a pretty tall one (to me at least) set up closer to the arena door.  They weren't in the arena yet so it was just my mom and I.

I was letting Socks run around as she pleased.  She was pretty full of energy so I figured I'd let her blow it off.  It was going well, but then as we were coming up to the arena door, L just happened to walk up right as we got to it, and it scared poor Socks.  She went straight up in the air, and then ducked to the right.  Then she saw the four jumps so she ducked to the left again.  Well this put us right in the path for the fifth jump and Socks was still running.  I could feel her thinking about going over it because we didn't really have enough time to go around it, and I was sure if she tried to jump that high, she could do it but I'd go off.  Just as her nose got to it, she slammed on the brakes, which was probably the best option for the both of us. 

I kind of suck at explaining things, so here, have a bad picture I drew quickly.  It looks so much less bad when it's drawn with a dotted line...but trust me...it was a bad spook.  About ten times worse than the spook Thor had that caused me to break my arm.  And yes, I feel so stupid that I stayed on this time and fell of then.

I have no idea how I stayed on.  From the first moment she spooked to when she stopped, I don't think I was actually in the saddle at all.  All I can remember thinking is that I was going to break my other arm and then praying she didn't try to go over the jump.  I was so far over the saddle that my right knee was over the left side of the horn.  I think the only reason I managed to stay on sheer willpower. 

For the next ten minutes after that while we both tried to calm down (my heart was pounding just as loudly as her's was) all I could think of was how insane I was for getting back on a horse.  That was a new experience, I've never had thoughts like that before, but it made me realize how terrified I am of getting hurt again.  Luckily those thoughts didn't last long and just last night Socks and I were back to runnng around the arena.  She did keep spooking at people at the arena door, but nothing big and we'll just keep doing it until she stops.

Like I promised, I'll have an Artemis post soon, we've been doing a lot with her lately and she's been doing awesome.  For now I have to go catch up on other blogs.