As eventers, the question isn’t whether we will experience setbacks, but what we do once we experience those setbacks. EN reader Sammi was kind enough to send us a story that I found inspirational and I hope you do to. Thanks for writing this Sammi and thank you for reading.
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From Sammi:
This is one of my favorite ears pictures that I have ever taken, from the first ride back after a bad accident. On January 14th, 2012, I was at a schooling horse trial and while warming up for XC and as I was taking my last warm-up jump before heading to the start box my horse Drake and I had a full rotational fall. He just barely clipped the jump with his left front hoof, but the portable XC jump wasn’t properly secured to the ground causing it to flip. Drake couldn’t get his hoof free in order to put his landing gear down and that’s when we flipped. I stayed in the saddle all the way to the ground causing him to land on me. All of that resulted in my pelvis being broken in 3 places, a broken wrist, and a dislocated collar bone. Many thanks to my helmet and vest for protecting me, all the doctors were amazed that I didn’t have any head or internal injuries at all. Luckily I was able to cushion the fall for Drake and he was fine. The doctors told me it would be 6-8 months until I could ride again. But a few days, just under 3 months from the accident date I was released to begin riding again! I got on one of my mom’s dependable school horses and walked and trotted around for about 50 minutes, smiling from ear to ear the whole time! Now to just get my strength back so I can get on my own horses again and get back on the XC course!
