Live Learn Love: The great fall

I had been bugging Shane for some time about going for a ride with me on Michiel and Bettina’s horses, and after a weekend stay there when he still hadn’t gone for a ride, it was decided that on Tuesday we would go riding. I have been taking Demi every Tuesday afternoon for a lesson on Weeky, and every Tuesday since before Shane arrived I get asked about whether he is coming with to watch her. Tuesday seemed like a good day to go riding then and when Dems asked if Shane was coming to watch I said that he was in fact coming riding with us!

Shane’s motto about horses is that they bite in the front, kick in the back, and are dangerous in the middle. I have heard numerous of his bad horse riding experiences, most notable being his first riding experience on a Mongolian horse, which did not go well at all! And then I came along and help him set a new record! I had my horse crazy childhood years and I started riding, but after falling off a few times I lost my taste for it and decided I wasn’t so horse crazy after all. Since moving to Plettenberg Bay and meeting Michiel and Bettina, and their horses, I have rediscovered my horse crazy years, much to Shane’s dismay! This is how Shane ended up on Tuesday afternoon with me and Dems ready for a ride. Things were a little rushed and it ended up that we didn’t have a girth for Mandla so I would ride bareback, with the instructions to my companions that we would keep to a walk. Despite the original idea of taking a long walk through the fynbos we decided to do a shorter lap through some pine trees and along a dam as Shane hadn’t ridden in a while and skippy here was going bareback. Shane was riding Troy, who to me is huge but seems more in proportion when Shane gets on him, and is also the slowest of the lot. Troy doesn’t walk, he snails. Things were going well, everyone was happy, Troy was his sturdy plodding self, until we reached the dam wall. It is here that a specific reed grows, an invasive but quite attractive reed with a fluffy white top. This caused trouble. Weeky was in the lead and decided that this was far too scary to pass so Mandla took point, not noticing the waving tails until he was almost upon them, got a fright and made a U-turn with surprising agility for a horse so large and almost ran Weeky and Dems down! Troy and Shane had stopped for a grassy snack unimpressed by the troubles we faced. At long last we coaxed Mandla and Weeky past the scary reeds and past some protruding wattle branches. Troy ambled his way past the reeds without batting an eyelid but the protruding branches presented an obstacle to Shane, who decided to lean way over to the right to avoid them. This was his unseating. The saddle slipped with his full weight on the one stirrup and Troy, feeling the unequal weight stepped left to compensate and dumped a dear Shane on the ground.

I heard the commotion and turned around just in time to see Shane thump to the floor. In hindsight I can giggle about it, but I had seen him fall and hit the ground, then I saw him standing, and once I turned to go to him he was back on the floor on his back – minor freak out! But besides some bruises and a hurt pride he was fine, and got back on the horse to ride the 2 minutes back to the paddock. So much for showing him how awesome riding can be, he can now add to his repertoire of horse riding horrors, the great fall of 2013!