The Ride

Went to see Marble at school again today, and we decided to take a ride with her. It's pretty impressive how much she's learned and how well behaved she is now. There were three of us on horses along with one loose horse that was still learning. ( Well, not loose, but not ridden )
The loose horse got spooked by something and freaked out. In turn, this horse took off running in circles around us, scaring the horses we were riding. This horse came hurling towards my horse and freaked my horse out. My horse spun around and headed off in the opposite direction of everyone else.

The trainer tried to get off the horse he was riding to come to me, as I KNEW I couldn't stay on or handle an out of control horse. ( Which, I had warned them before we ever started). When he jumped off his horse, it then freaked out too, all caused by the spooked loose horse, and he had problems controlling his own horse.

**Now let me break in here and say that this trainer is awesome. He's like a horse whisperer. He has Marble follow all directions practically by sign language. She will stop just by the way he looks at her. It's very impressive.**

Anyway.. My horse was running and freaked, so my choice was either to fall off or bail. I knew I wasn't going to have much choice anyway. I started to just slide to the side and just dropped. The main thing on my mind was to get my feet out of the stirrups, which I did with no problem. I hit the ground pretty good, my thumb was caught a bit in the reigns, but I was able to get it out. The horse went right over me and kept going.
I got up, dusted myself off, I knew my thumb was a bit injured. I then looked for the hubs and Marble. Marble had stayed in complete control and just stopped. Hubs was pretty ahead of us and didn't see my horse freak and me fall off. He had Marble still with three other horses running like mad, so he stayed where he was. I then stayed where I was too, although these horses were still out of control.

Another trainer came out of a house nearby to help our trainer control the horses. By eye contact and hand motions, both men were able to get these horses to stop and walk right up to them calmly. It was wild to watch. The horses were then calm and walked right back to their stables and put away.

We decided the ride was over.

The mistake that was made, and of course realized very quickly, was that the new trainee (the un-ridden horse) shouldn't have been brought along for the ride. The trainer realized his mistake and was of course very apologetic. No injuries really except my thumb :)
We'll try again another time.

I'm starting to feel it now of course, hitting the ground from the tallest horse on the ride that day. But, I know it could have been a lot worse.

33 degrees this morning and snow on the mountaintops.
I think Winter is coming early this year.