I've been riding and training horses for over 15 years, and I've competed in countless Regional and National level horse shows, earning medals, ribbons, titles and occasionally some money, and despite my success with the sport, I always try to remember that due to the danger and the unpredictability of the beautiful animal on which I sit, I must remain humble. It wasn't always this way, though...
I can remember back to a time when I was only 18 years old. I had been riding and showing for a little over 8 years and had been met with great success. People knew my name, people wanted to ride the way that I rode, wanted their horses to perform the way that mine performed...and though I've always been a very humble person, I have to admit that the tiniest bit of "hubris" had crept into my mind. I'd been on the backs of more horses than I could count, and I'd never once been thrown...most people didn't believe me until they saw me ride.
I was riding one of my own horses in my arena with a friend who boarded her horse at my facility. The little gelding I was on had mainly been versed in the movements of Dressage and Saddleseat, and though beautiful, he was a little on the "hot" side. My friend and I were riding, working our horses through their paces, and she decided to take her 16 hand TB over a small 1'6" jump that was set up in the middle of the arena. He flew over the jump with the greatest of ease, and to this day I still don't remember what I was thinking when I decided that I would take my little Arab gelding (who was not a jumper) over this small jump; I wasn't prepared, I wasn't wearing a helmet, and I wasn't even in the right kind of saddle, but "humility" had been all but erased by "hubris" and that is the recipe for disaster.
I knew it wasn't going to happen when my little Arab was approaching the fence, but I'd gone to far to back out. I held on and tried my best to urge him up and over the fence, but, as I suspected only seconds earlier, he ducked out at the last minute and left me scrambling for a handful of mane. In a cloud of dust on the ground, I gathered my thoughts as my little gelding stood several feet away eying me nervously. It was the first time I'd been thrown, and I still could hardly believe it. I wasn't hurt, but I got the distinct feeling that I could easily have been.
"You know, that was the most graceful fall I've ever seen," my friend said, breaking the silence. She could tell I wasn't hurt, or rather at least not physically. Still, in my mind, a fall was still a fall, and it was a "stupid fall" at that.
That afternoon as I was hosing off my horse I realized the thing that has gotten me as far as I am today...horses are nothing to be trifled with; riding is dangerous, and there is no place for an "over-blown" ego in the saddle. We've all got room for improvement, and there is always something that we can learn, and above all, there is never a time when any of us should forget the fundamentals of safety and humility.
