Last week we did a Miles contest where we had teams of 10 people and 6 different teams, the idea is to see which team can collectively walk the most miles in 10 days. Now I've been teaching my daughter and my niece to ride horses so when I'd go walk, I'd take my daughter and her horse and she'd practice riding while I led her horse. Any way my niece also loves horses and she wanted to come with us.
I thought leading 2 horses shouldn't be too hard especially if they're obedient, so I saddled them up and we got walking after about 1 mile I they were both getting fairly confident. I let them go ahead of me a little so they could get used to controlling their horses.
They were doing great! I was so proud of them🥰 we did this a couple more times and each time they were able to pull their horses around when I asked them to stop and wait for me. After about 3 miles I was getting pretty tired, (I don't get out and walk as much as I should)
My husband was on his way to come meet us on his bike, so I thought it'd be ok if they went ahead one more time and they'd meet up with him. Sariah is 10 years old and she wanted to try going a little faster, we had trotted a couple times with me running long side their horses and they had stayed on and in control pretty good I thought. I decided it would be fine if they did that.
They started out and at first they looked pretty good. Then they started picking up speed, my legs were pretty weak at this point but I started running as fast as I could when I realized both horses were running out of control and Sariah's horse Sebastian was taking advantage of her inexperience, My daughter Zeeva is also very inexperienced, Zeeva had never Galloped on a horse before! And Sariah only had once.
They were about a 1/2 a mile away when they caught up to my husband and Sariah's horse made a sharp turn into a field, and her foot came out of the stirrup. (I had forgotten to give her a lesson bareback, so she could learn to stay on without a saddle🫤) It was after this that she lost her footing and started slipping. She fell off out in the field, I was so grateful she fell in the field and not on the gravel road. Also the Sebastian slowed down to turn the corner so that helped too. (Going as fast as she was it would have been so much worse)
Zeeva's horse "Easy" usually follows Sebastian everywhere, but when he went through a big puddle Easy decided he was done running and came to a stop. my Husband helped her down, she was pretty shook up.
I was so far away when Sariah fell I wasn't sure what had happened, but I could see my husband running towards something away from he horses, that's when I realized one of the girls had fallen. And I Ran as fast as my tired legs could possibly go, when I finally got there she was standing, and WOW! was I ever glad to see her standing there. That meant that at least she wasn't unconscious, we checked her out and nothing was broken. the only damage was her foot and leg where it had connected with Sebastian's hoof as she fell off the horse.
I'm so incredibly grateful that god protected these girls despite my stupidity in letting them go when I wasn't sure they were ready. I won't ever let that happen again, from now on they'll ride in the round training pen until I'm confident that they have full control, and can regain control when they lose it.
Everyone loses control at some point in their life, it's only bad if you don't get it back before something bad happens.