Three Years in the Making

Buddy dumped me for the first time in the 3yrs that I've owned him today.  I was riding him bareback and decided to jump a bit.  I jumped him for the first time in 6wks on Tuesday and he was good.  The first few jumps he was a bit forward too, and didn't want to balance on the offside but settled down well.  I ended our ride by dropping my stirrups and trotting x's and he was great.

Today we was lazy in warm up and was pretty laid back to the first few x's we did.  He was much more balanced and together on the landings and even gave me a nice lead change.  I decided to take him over an 18in vertical and apparently it looked a lot bigger to Buddy.  He launched over it from a stride out and I got sent flying over his shoulder.  I landed on my tailbone and rolled to my left side.  It did take me a minute to get up, my right leg was hurting more than the left. 

To add insult to injury, the other farrier at our barn and his wife (who were Buddy's former owners who didn't treat him well) were there working on horses.  They saw what happened and came over to help.  Buddy had stopped and wasn't moving but they lead him into the barn for me.  I untacked him and put him back outside.  By then my thigh was screaming so I crawled into my truck and went home.

I barely made it into bed and took a few Aleve.  I rested for a few hours, trying to move as little as possible, and iced my leg.  I was supposed to go out with barn friends tonight because its my barn owner's aunt (who actually owns the property and acts as an aunt to all of us boarders) 90th birthday. I had gotten up trying to see if I could go and it had taken me 10mins to walk from my bedroom to the kitchen to feed my cats.  I was crying and sweating and texted Connie that I wasn't going.  She asked if I wanted someone to take me to the ER and I said yes please.

I could barely move but managed to hobble out to the car and then into the ER on my own.  Two hours, and one pelvic x-ray later, I'm back home with vicodin and directions to ice my thigh for a couple days.  They said it's a deep bruise and to stay off my feet and not ride for a while.  I won't be making my lesson tomorrow, but come hell or high water I'm showing next weekend!  I have a ton of sick hours at work and already left a message for my manager telling her I won't be in on Monday and will let her know about the rest of the week. I have no problems taking the week off to recover.