‘Oh Crap’ Moment of the Day: Neck riding

Today’s “Oh Crap” moment comes to us from reader Brett Lynn Stallings, who survived a sticky moment at an event last year.

Brett writes,

Last September my 10-year-old Thoroughbred mare Aiedail and I went to our first recognized event up in Rainier, Washington. Our show jumping round went pretty good the first few fences. It was at jump #4 where things didn’t go quite to plan. Jumps #2-4 were on an “S” curve line, with #3 being a vertical and #4 being an oxer with four strides in between. We took jump #3 rather long, causing to miss our line to jump #4. I had tried to rebalance with no avail and we ended up really deep on jump #4.

Looking at the photos shot in sequence you can see the results of what happened. By all rights Aiedail should have refused, but being the brave and honest horse that she is, she continued to try and jump the fence.  As we were scrambling through it I thought she was falling, since all I could see was sand and had the sensation of going down. At the time all I could think was “Oh crap, we’re done for”; however we did not fall.  The sensation I was feeling was Aiedail trying to keep her momentum while disentangling herself from the fence.

After we freed ourselves from the fence, my horse through her head back to get me back in the saddle and then contorted herself so that she was back underneath me, and so that I could rebalance myself. We continued on to finish our course and to finish 8th overall. I feel so blessed to have a horse that really takes care of me and get herself out of sticky situations such as this. This experience also taught me why it is so important to keep your lower leg on. I also attached a picture of us jumping later in our course, which shows that the wipe did not phase her at all.

Thanks for sharing, Brett–what a save, and what a big heart your mare has!

Brett, it’s a time-honored tradition here at Horse Nation to dedicate a song to our fallen (or near-fallen, in your case) soldiers. This one goes out to you:

YOU are the champions, Horse Nation. And I know you’ll keep fighting ’til the end.

Go Riding!

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Do you have an “Oh Crap” moment you’d like to share with hundreds of Horse Nation readers? (We’ll laughing with you, not AT you–promise!) Email your photo or video link to [email protected] and be sure to include a brief description of what happened!