Before the drama

I went to watch Emma competing at a local indoor event. Whilst waiting for her to go in I had a chat with a lady managing 2 Bassett Hounds. They were lovely and mostly well behaved.

The competitor before Emma had a fall. Her horse stumbled over a fence and couldn’t recover his feet, eventually stumbling into the edge of the arena. His rider had slipped out of the saddle and by the time her horse reached the edge, she was between the two, getting squashed against the side as the horse finally fell.

It was quite scary to watch and happened very close to where I was watching from. Luckily all was well after a few minutes for horse and rider to recover and get their heart rates down.

Then Emma and Jack went in and fell in almost the same place. This time Jack cleared the fence but then slipped on the turn after it. He slid one way and Emma the other. She was up on her feet and had caught Jack before I could get in to the arena to help. They were fine and we went outside to a quiet practise ring to pop him over a jump before putting him back in the trailer and taking him home. Luckily he seemed unhurt and unphased by the experience.