Near Death Experience #1

WESTPORT
Friday (June 9th) I woke up early to go horseback riding but as it turned out I was the only one that went on this activity. The instructor Nicky was quite happy to teach me to ride and to get the horses out for a gallop. We saddled up as I was riding “Carlos” and Nicky was on “Sandy.” Best friends and both of which are generally very calm horses. Well, after a few minutes of slow walking, cantering, and trotting… we moved on to galloping.

Nicky thought I was doing just fine riding FOR MY FIRST TIME so she decided that we should “race” the horses. Well, of course I’m up for adventure so I agree. My basic instructions were “just hold on…” I was pretty excited and feeling really good when my horse won but I was fully aware that I played no role in the win… I simply held on.

The next area, Nicky says “this is a really narrow lane… we’re going to gallop so just stay right behind me.” I hang on for my life and we gallop really fast down the trail. Instead of walking back, Nicky decides we should gallop back. Well that sounds just fine until her horse doesn't stop properly when it gets to where the river intersects!!

My horse tried to go around hers, but there was a river so he takes a sharp left. Guess what that meant? Yes, I went flying off the right and landed on the river bank. It was quite funny and I shook it off as Nicky went up the river to get my anxious horse. As she's adjusting Carlos' saddle, her horse runs off across the river and I reach for it's stirrup ripping it off as it goes by.

So I re-saddle Carlos, and Nicky walks with us through the river (waist high in water), but Carlos decides he wants to catch up with his "friend..." At first, I'm okay with leaving Nicky behind for a little canter to the other horse but when Nicky's horse starts trotting away and my horse starts picking up speed... I got scared! I tried to stop Carlos but the more I tried to stop him, the faster Sandy started running! We were in a full gallop now with Nicky (the instructor) way behind on food and Sandy leading us through the trees, over small streams, and through a herd of scared cows!!

By this point I was praying that Carlos would stop or that I would fall off ... clearly my second wish came true before my first because I half jumped off and half flew off when I saw Carlos running towards another clumping of trees. I was definitely thinking that I would rather fall off before we hit the trees than after! This time, my fall was so painful it brought tears to my eyes and I'm laying there thinking "I am too old for this..."

Well, I look up and there is Carlos, staring at me, seeming to say "Oops, I probably shouldn't have done that..." but then I hear a whinny from the trees (Clearly Sandy calling Carlos) and Carlos bolts. Leaving me there on the ground. I picked myself up off the ground and headed back towards where I last saw Nicky.

We both walked back to the main gates and hoped the horses would be there waiting for us. There they were, eating grass and chilling out at the gate.

The adventure didn't stop there because apparently the cows were angry that our horses had chased them around so one of the cows jumped the fence and started following us. That of course freaked my horse out... but we got away before anything else happened. It was quite embarrassing when we both rocked up with jeans soaked to the knee from wading through the rivers!

My instructor said she had never seen anything like that before and the horses are always really well behaved... she said I did all that I could have done though! haha Needless to say, I won't be riding anytime soon.