Scariest thing that's ever happened to you riding?

[Mercedes H. Broken-Elk]

Don't know if I can post things like this, but I'm curious about other people's stories. What's the scarriest thing that's ever happened to you on a ride? Falls, bolting horses, weird people and happenings? ANYTHING~!

[Running]

It was actually just today, I was riding my Quarterhorse and we were on the rode. Me and my instructor turned onto a dirt road that we always had went on and she noticed a 'deer hide' or so we thought. A few seconds later I hear "Oh My Gosh!" From my instructor I looked over and there was a pig head sticking out of a mound of dirt. I said that it didn't look like a domestic pig because the bottom teeth were grown out and we could see them. I live in PA and as far as I know there aren't any feral pigs running around, and back to the 'deer hide' it is fall/winter here and it is getting colder so I was like that is the pig's skin not a deer's, it would have been much darker. My instructor told me this was the 2nd time it had happened, and it happened last year around the same time. The sad thing is that the pig was actually dug into the ground and put there by a person, nothing around my place could have eaten an entire pig and then burried it like that. So far in my riding career that is the most odd/scariest thing that has happened.

[Starboard]

That's horrifying, Running! And I guess we're not too far from each other then, which scares me even more. I'm down in DE, though I ride in PA and MD.

Well, there have been two very scary things that have happened, though I'm not usually one to freak out when things like that do happen, only afterwards.

The first one was my second year riding, so back when I was 10 years old. I was asked to come ride in the younger session also to teach them how to ride in a group and give their ponies a horse to follow. While we were lining up in the center of our ring, with our backs to the seldom traveled road behind us, (mind you, it was a Summer Camp and it was nice and warm out that day, so plenty of people were outside having fun) two idiots come up the hill to our left and see us all out there on our horses, and think 'You know what'll be fun? Revving our engine right behind them where they can't see us and then speeding away.' So what do they do? Scare the crap out of our horses, make every last one of them buck and rear, and cause for one of them to throw off a brand new rider who I had convinced to come to the camp with me. Poor girl bruised her arm pretty badly, but thankfully she continued to ride that day, and is still riding now.

The second time, I was at the barn I rode at this past spring down in MD, and I hadn't really liked the instructors all that much, nor did I think their horses were very well trained, but it was cheaper and closer than my old barn. I pulled in for my lesson and my instructor wasn't there. I walked into the barn and another instructor told me that she was teaching our lesson that day. Last time she did that, we went on a trail ride... Yay... Well, this time, she actually wanted to teach us, but I went to check if Sailor (the thoroughbred I usually rode) was in his stall, but she said he'd been taken to a show with my instructor... Awesome. But I got to ride this adorable little pony named Cassie, who was newer to the barn. She was perfect getting groomed and tacked, absolutely adorable, and then the second I take her into the ring and swing up, she switches from 'in your pocket' to 'I wanna be a barrel racer' pony... So the entire time, I don't press my heels into her, I keep my hands light on her mouth, I can't think of any other way to slow her down, and she won't walk slower than a harness racer, won't trot slower than a lope, and won't canter slower than a racehorse. She got so out of hand when we were jumping, that she decided last minute she wouldn't stop cantering and it took everything I had to keep her up as she leaned in and spun around the jumping standard at the end of the arena and then ran head on at the line of other horses and riders waiting to go. She skidded to a stop and at that point, I was so ready to just get off and hand her reins to the instructor.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

I wouldn;t exactly say it happened "to me" but this is the scariest thing I have ever faced while working with my horse.

In one of the first places I grazed Cedar, there were paddocks and a track to ride around (the track has awesome cross country fences). Cedar never liked the track, because there's a driving range down one side of it, and he never liked the sound of the golf clubs hitting the balls... Sorry, I digress. I used to work him in the paddocks (one was set up with jumps that we could move around and adjust to suit ourselves), and then I'd either lead or ride him gently around the track as our cool down.

One lovely Saturday morning, Cedar and I were plodding along alone. He'd made friends with the land-owner's mare who grazed on the track (beautiful thoroughbred). She was lying down by the fence and Cedar came to a stand-still and gave her a hearty greeting, which she returned. It was at this point though that I wondered why the mare didn't stand up, and I couldn't get Cedar to walk forward (he was a horse that I could turn by the slightest movement of my little finger and the slightest touch with my legs).

I dismounted, left Cedar ground-tied (yup, on a track) and walked up to Daisy. She had her back leg tangled up in wire. Luckily this is when another lady who also had her gelding grazing there arrived. I waved to her and when she came over I asked if she could hold Cedar. Yeah, I could have mounted up and got him to jump the gate to Sharon's house, but I didn't want to rip up her perfectly manicured lawn (she lives in a mansion surrounded by her own horses). Sharon saw me running and came out.

Sad to say, Daisy was taken away by the Huntsman as her leg was completely severed.

So, even my first fall from a horse on a beach stopped being my "scariest" moment.