Falling Down

It's inevitable.  If you ride long enough, you're going to fall down. Falling is part of what riders do and if you have a kid that loves to jump, falling is likely going to happen more frequently and in a more spectacular fashion.  Kids that stay earth bound certainly fall but they are unlikely to catapult themselves into large immobile objects as often as a child that chooses the sport of 3 day eventing.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first time the brat child fell off her horse she was 6.  She had been taking riding lessons for about 6 months and was progressing "ahead of the learning curve", or so the trainer I wrote large checks to each and every week assured me.  We were told that the brat child would benefit greatly from having her very own pony so she could ride outside of lessons.  This was the first time I had a trainer upsell me for the benefit of my kid and her checking account.

So we leased a seasoned old pro of a pony with a mouth as hard as iron and a tendency to fall asleep during lessons.  Pony and child became quite the pair and were happily walking and trotting all over the arena on a daily basis.  One day, the brat child noticed a cross rail set up in the middle of the arena and stealthily began trotting closer and closer to the jump.  About five feet from the rail, she abruptly turned the pony towards the jump and the pony trotted over the cross rail then cantered off, much to my non-cantering daughter's horror.  Three strides later, the non-cantering kid did a slow motion slither down the side of the pony and ate dirt.

Now I am not a trainer, hell, I'm not even a horse person, but I knew enough to realize that she had to get back on that cantering pony pronto if we were to salvage any vestige of confidence.  I marched over to the crying and dirt covered child, brushed off her bum and said "Falling down doesn't matter.  What matters is whether you choose to get back up."  She wiped her snotty little mud encrusted nose on her riding glove and got back on, though this time she stayed well away from the jump.

Since then, there have been more falls.  There have been slow falls, fast falls, falls over tiny logs and falls over huge log piles.  Some falls could be predicted well in advance of the actual aerial acrobatics others were a complete shock (as in "How the heck did that happen?"). There have been falls that got her dirty, falls that got her wet, falls that added grass stains to her breeches and falls that required new helmet purchases.  Usually, I tried to stay out of the way, keep my mouth shut, and allow the kid and her trainer to work through what happened but once or twice I have become involved. 

I was most vocal when I saw the kid lawn dart off her very large horse and into a substantial jump. The horse then clipped her in the nose with a very large knee.  My daughter walked over to me, nose gushing blood and asked me to hand her the horse I had chased down and was now holding.  "Mom", she said (it sounded more like 'mob' with the stuffy bloody nose), "Mom, can you help me get back on?"  I hesitated for a minute before asking her to please wait until she stopped bleeding and we figured out whether or not her nose was broken.  I draw the line at blood, broken bones or altered mental status.  Once we found she was okay, she got back on the horse, immediately approached the jump she had missed so badly before and jumped it beautifully.

Someone very wise once said that falling down is part of life but getting back up is living.  I believe this is true but it sure would be nice if the falling was not so damn literal.  It's hard to watch Princess pose as a human cannonball at times but it does warm the cockles of my icy little heart to see her get back up, jaw tensed in determination, and turn the fall into a learning experience.  Go brat girl!