Aerial Dismount
| November 29, 2025 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
Somehow things have escalated since you, My Dear Reader, have visited. I now own 8 or 9 horses, depending on the season, Fig can canter and I don’t cry, and most surprising of all, one of my horses is a tall, grey, gelding – breaking every rule I *had* about horses I would own.
Fortunately for this story it involves just two horses, and even though they are both chestnut mares, I promise you will be able tell who is who, and also fortunately – neither Paige, nor that really tall grey gelding is involved at all.
Last week I was riding Poppy, a cute little red mare with a white face who is super short) and had Kenna, another red mare (think classic cutting quarter horse look) on a lead rope on my left. We are legging up horses to go play polo in Indio in a mid January excursion, which means a set on the trail any time I can make it happen because circles in the area are boring. The thirty min walk/trot set was relatively unexciting except for one moment with Kenna and Poppy decided we could canter like civilized beings, except then we couldn’t because we were also kicking up our heels rudely so instead Poppy cantered and Kenna fast trotted next to me because, well, it’s hard to canter or buck with your nose held to my knee. I was planning on letting Matt, who had stayed behind to do boring circles in the arena on a another two horses, that the trail was in good shape, and his horse Kenna was a sh*thead and wasn’t it such a good thing I rode Poppy? (He will not agree because him and that cute little horse have it in for each other, but he’s such a natural rider and polo player that having any horse in the string he can’t ride and me and Fig can is something to be brought up as many times as possible).
I had just finished trotting down the lane and was ready to make a left turn onto the asphalt road (rural, the time with no actual stripes and the shoulder just sorta peters out to orchards) to walk to the barn.
On my left was a house. This is a house without any property – just a house with a strip of walk around property that is nestled in a cut out of a walnut orchard. The walnut grove lane runs by the house, about 30 feet from the house.
Poppy doesn’t like to get her little feetsies dirty (not an endurance horse that one) so I walked close to a walnut tree (away from the house) to skirt a puddle in the middle of the lane (thus forcing Kenna to walk through it, but she understands the need to sacrifice for the greater good).
I’m going to draw you a picture so you can better envision your favorite blogger almost dying
As my long suffering best friend said when I got to this point, “OMG I knew it was a dog as soon as you said ‘house'”.
So, me and the two horses are at X, headed towards the road at a walk, next to a tree because you know, puddle. A German Shepherd comes running behind me from behind the house. I can’t see it, and neither can my horses until the last minute, because it’s in our blind spot. My horses skitter forward and I look behind my shoulder and this f*cker isn’t messing around. You know how shepherd barrel towards you so fast they don’t look like they have legs and are completely silent? Yeah that.
A note about this dog. The property isn’t fenced, and there’s not a lot of “property” for the dog to occupy, and it’s always accompanied by a human. It’s a good German Shepherd with excellent recall, but it will run at you off the property if it sees you – but also 100 percent reliably comes back to the human the minute the human says “come”. Usually this isn’t a problem because the dog sees us a long ways off, there’s plenty of time for her to see us, we see her, and the human recalls the dog who very obediently leaves us alone.
But. BUT. The problem is this time we are all RIGHT THERE with no time or space to do anything.
So the human outside with the dog who was standing at the corner of the house said “come” and the dog came. And then……the human disappears behind the horse never to reappear or be heard from again.
Me and the horses had the same idea (which is the right one) which is turn around and face the dog. Kenna especially doesn’t like dogs encroaching on her space and will face down a dog with all the angry red mare energy you have seen in those funny red mare cow videos on social. Poppy is most definitely a follower and any idea Kenna has seems like a good idea to her.
Except, I hadn’t noticed the dog until the horses did, which means as the scooted forward (I’m fine), Kenna in my left hand spins in front of me to the right, and also now we are in a walnut tree (uhhhhhh), and she crosses in front of me in such a way that the lead rope is under the neck of the horse I’m riding, still gripped by my left hand.
The horse I’m riding (Poppy) starts to rear and pivot to the right as well (less of a rear and more of a very well executed roll back), which also is excellent – at least we are all going the same direction on Hell’s Merry-go-round.
But. Do you know how hard it is to stay on a horse spinning other the right while also being pulled under its neck to the outside by a rope you aren’t going to let go of ?
So. I didn’t stay on. I flip off over the left shoulder. No big deal. I’ve definitely seen this movie before, and I kept a tight grip on both the lead rope of Kenna AND my reins. Because every f*cker I’ve ever owned just runs home and that’s embarrassing.
It’s as I’m flipping off I see the back of the human who called the dog walking away, never to be seen again, and the dog settling in to watch the show from the front yard.
So, the unfortunate part of falling forward over the shoulder as I get yanked under the neck is instead of just falling off – and even perhaps landing on my feet which is what I can normally accomplish when getting dismounted this way (because I can turn it into an emergency dismount but holding onto the neck long enough for my feet to come down), is instead of just falling off, I flip in the air and land on my BACK, facing the horse with my left foot trapped in the stirrup.
It’s at this point the story becomes blog worthy, because even though my long-suffering best friend disagrees, right up until I actually hit the ground is like whatever. The part where I’m now on my back, with a food stuck in the stirrup, with a horse in either hand, and the horse whom my foot is still attached is bolting backwards and rearing is where the near death experience and the blog post started.
Spoiler alert. I lived, for those of you reading through your fingers at this point.
The lead rope pulling my left arm is (thank god) an extra long cotton lead rope with knots tied in it. The reins on Poppy are in my right hand and (thank god) I was using extra long snap on rope reins and not leather or short reins AND she’s wearing a biothane bridle that isn’t going to break, and as long as the gods continue to smile, won’t slip off her incredibly coarse head. AND did I mention she’s a short horse? Unlike my tall grey gelding who I would literally be dangling from, with my reins mostly likely ripped out of my hands, most of my back is on the ground, with just my hips a little elevated as I’m being dragged backwards by my riding horse who is truly saying WTAF.
For those non-horsey people reading this, I don’t know how much you’ve read westerns about people being dragged to their deaths after dangling from a stirrup, but it’s basically one of the most dangerous things that can happen. Once your foot gets trapped, you can’t get your foot out of the stirrup if there’s any pressure on it – like the horse moving away from you. We as riders spend a lot of energy to make sure that it doesn’t happy – the right stirrups, the right boots, the right position of the foot in the stirrup etc. I did ALL THE RIGHT THINGS. But, when the horse flipped me on my back in mid air, my toe turned UP and caught the top of my stirrup before my food slipped out of the stirrup, which is how I found myself in this position.
Never in my life have I ever.
So. In case you were wondering what they say is true. You absolutely can’t get your foot out unless the horse stops.
I had a death grip on both horses and Poppy was yanking and pulling backwards. Her shod hooves were glancing off my legs because if you think of the physics I was on my back, under her front legs, being dragged backwards towards her, but she never actually stepped on me because god bless horses that don’t want to step on the squishy human bits.
Biothane doesn’t break, but in this case, it probably saved my life, or at least a lot of grief.
We were almost to the asphalt road.
I knew that if I lost the lead rope on the pony horse (Kenna) she would bolt towards home and I wouldn’t be able to keep Poppy from following.
I knew that if I lost the reins, Poppy would start running towards home too and I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
If I lost control I would be dragged behind her on the asphalt. You get injuries because of being dragged, but most serious injuries happen because you are underneath the hind legs as they run, and since you are “chasing them” they usually just go faster and faster, panicked. (Again, to bring our non-horsey Dear Readers to the right amount of horror at my situation).
I read an article a long time ago that said if you are ever being dragged, your instinct will be to stay on your back and keep trying to read up to release your foot from the stirrup. But, because of physics that won’t work. 100 percent of the time it won’t work. So, if that happens you have to go against every instinct and turn on your belly. When you do that, your toe points downward and you have a possibility of getting your foot to release.
It’s not 100 percent but, it’s a decent chance.
So, there was this moment when Poppy stopped, and I talked to her nice and soft, and Kenna was just watching the show…
And she topped moving sideways, just long enough for me to scootch closer, which put slack on the stirrup letter, and I was able to rotate my ankle and snap it out of the stirrup.
All together she dragged me probably 20-30 feet.
God Bless Polo Ponies.
My foot was so stuck. Like vise grip. It’s one thing to read about it (and believe it!). It’s another to be truly helpless and realize that yes, short of cutting off your foot, there is truly no way to release your foot unless the horse stops.
Then, even after ALL THAT, the horses calmly stood there while I got back on (I wants going to walk 0.8 miles home).
I rode in polo chukkers the next day no problem – I don’t seem have any of the mental trauma of when I almost became a lawn dart because it was just a freak thing, which all beings involved doing the right thing except the human who just disappeared and didn’t ask if I was ok. (But on the plus side they also didn’t run towards my horses screaming?). The dog charged but recalled when asked. Horses spun around to face the dog but didn’t bolt, and after they had processed the confusing sight of me on the ground dragging towards them, they stopped and let me fix it. And then let me back on for an uneventful ride home.
I then I went home and split a bottle of wine with my husband. Because if you can’t do that on a day you lived and probably should have died or been seriously injured, then what does deserves to be celebrated?
PS – the bars on my stirrup bars were flipped up because of polo (same reason they are flipped up when jumping), and I use thick strong buffalo leather stirrups. Maybe the leathers would have slipped off with enough force or maybe not? But just that detail for those of you wondering. I didn’t get to test the theory because i was dragged sideways and back so the pressure for that period was all towards the front of the saddle.
PPS – I’m an hour late getting out the door to the barn and then to see my parents so by necessity this isn’t proof read. Not even once. But I think you will agree it was better to Publish than to Perfect!
