How to Gracefully Recover From a Slippery Saddle Incident!
It was the spring of '98 at the NATRC Border Classic Competitive Trail Ride (CTR), Linn County Park, LaCygne Lake, KS. It was a great weekend spent with many great people, horses and ticks. Well, the ticks weren't great but I didn't let them spoil my fun.
The weather was a little warm and quite humid but the trails were mostly shaded. That made it a little cooler though I still wore my cold pack in my helmet. I only overheated once.
We were about an hour out of camp for the lunch stop when I leaned out of the way of a low branch. We were also going around a corner so I was, to say the least, off balance. You remember I said it was humid? Wet horse! Well the saddle slipped sideways and I knew it had gone way beyond recovery so I dismounted, less than gracefully.
Whoosh, the saddle slipped completely upside-down. I handed the reins to my friend Nancy who was still mounted on her horse, Smooch. I loosened both cinches and slid the saddle back on top of Sally. As I was starting to snug up the front cinch, Sally decided to wipe her sweaty face on Smooch. Kwhack! Smooch didn't appreciate that rude gesture and told her so with a swift kick.
That's when the rodeo started. I certainly didn't know Sally could buck like that! Whoosh there went the saddle underneath again. Yikes, things from my saddlebag were flying everywhere. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, "Oh Sally, please stop!" She was bucking off into the brush and I was so scared she was going to get hurt. I started running after her, threw off my helmet so I could see better and was trying so hard to get her attention back on me so she would stop bucking. I was so flustered and scared! Not to mention overheated, shaking, praying and hyperventilating.
Sally started moving back in a circle toward the trail again (still bucking) and I ran back to try and head her off. Chris, one of the other riders I was with, came back down the trail so we had her between us. She stopped bucking and Chris reached down and got hold of the reins while Sally was trying to catch her breath. I was so thankful. I was shaking hard but I started looking for any signs of cuts, scratches or broken bones. I only found one little scrape about an inch long and a ¼ inch wide on the upper inside of her right back leg. Not even bad enough to make it bleed. Whew.
The saddle hadn't righted itself so I took it completely off and re-saddled her. By that time the drag riders (the riders assigned to take up the rear of the ride; they help anyone who needs help and make sure no one gets lost) had come upon us and were scouring the brush for my gear. I remounted and started to put my foot in the right stirrup. Where was it? The stirrup was gone! Hum. I hadn't even noticed in the re-saddling process. One of the drag riders went back out and finally found it.
We took a couple of deep breaths to settle down and rode the last hour to camp for the lunch break. We had half an hour before we had to start again. I unsaddled Sally gave her some hay and water and set to fixing my stirrup. It was an old western saddle and the stirrup leather (adjusting strap) had broken. Someone loaned me a leather punch (which I now carry with my camping gear) and I had some leather strings. I overlapped the straps and laced them together. The fun part came when I had to thread the strap back around the saddletree. Oops, I guess I was overheated twice that day. Whew. Those are tight quarters in there. After I finally got it on (in the right direction this time), I had to readjust it to make sure both stirrups hung at the same length. I even had enough time to quickly grab a sandwich before we were off for the afternoon section of the ride.
The graceful part of this recovery came at the award ceremony on Sunday evening. My barefoot, swaybacked old Arab got a score of 98 with 2 pluses for the weekend. The pluses are given for an exceptional job at the judged observations! Sally got 2nd place Novice horse!! I started crying when they announced it because 4 weeks prior to this she only got a score of 75 at the Rock Creek ride in NE; which was our first CTR ride. I really love that old girl!
Written by:
Trail Riding Sweetheart
