Mac had a weird health issue around the same time Paddy passed. We spent many dollars with the vet this year and Mac had a couple months off.
When I started riding him again, he felt great! Things seemed to be going great, we were back to cantering and increasing the work and he felt better than he had in a long time. Then I got too big for my britches and impatient with him not responding to my leg quick enough so I gave him a smack with the whip and, well, I shouldn't have done that. He WAY over-reacted and dumped me really badly. Really bad. It was bad.
Basically he took off on a bucking fit and I just couldn't get him back. He can buck. HARD. I lasted as long as I could but ultimately decided the situation wasn't going to get any better so I bailed and came off hard on the ground. At least I was as close to the barn as I could have been when I came off . . .
He continued his bucking fit for a bit then ran back to the indoor arena. Meanwhile, I was stuck on the ground and couldn't get up. Well, I could roll over. I was moaning very loudly for a while. I tried to get up but the wind was knocked out of me so badly that all I could do for a couple minutes was kneel on all fours. When I tried to get up, I realized I was hurt. I had landed on my bad hip and now I couldn't really put weight on that leg. I could get up only in a bending-over fashion and couldn't really do any more than that. Mac came out of the indoor arena to look at me and then said, "screw you!" and ran into the front yard to graze. Whatever. I didn't really care. The gate was closed, if he was eating grass he wouldn't go anywhere else, and my immediate concern was walking.
Finally I could stand up. Unfortunately I had left my phone in the barn so couldn't call Colin to come out and get me. I had to hobble back to the barn slowly and almost one-leggedly (a word? it is now!), but I made it back. I texted him and he came right out and caught Mac on his way. I was sitting in a chair in the barn and asked him to untack Mac (who in the meantime had broken his reins - good thing I had his leather dressage bridle on because if he had stepped on rope reins, I don't know that the slobber strap would have broken?) and go back in the house and get me his walker from his knee surgery last year.
I walked/rolled back to the house and got in a chair and put some ice on my hip and sulked and beat myself up for smacking Mac and also steamed at him for his reaction. Ultimately, though, it was my fault.
Colin took me to urgent care for x-rays just in case (nothing broken) and I spent the rest of the day on the couch. Sigh. Here are some ugly pictures.
Unfortunately it wasn't the kind of situation where I could have just gotten back on and so I had to wait a few weeks until I was healed enough. And when I was healed enough, I still wasn't healed ENOUGH that I could do anything more than walk a few laps around our trails in the back. If that's all I could do, then that's all I could do. I eventually did a little more and then a little more, but then we had a summer full of smoky air and it was just bad to be outside so I didn't have the fun summer of trail riding that I wanted.
So now months later my hip still hurts and I'm not totally healed and I don't have my full range of motion, but I can do a little bit. Before winter comes, I wanted to open up a new dry lot area for the horses, so we spent the rest of the late summer/fall putting up new fencing in the back so the horses have more dry lot room. Back to the earlier spring health problem for a moment...Mac is IR so I've decided to forego any hopes of grazing on irrigated pasture (even with a muzzle) and just have him on hay and dry lot. It is best for his health. So now with our newly expanded dry lot in back we have about 6-7 acres of native grasses/dry lot for him and Pony to explore. It took us a couple months to put that up but I'm very happy with it!
I've kind of said screw it to this year and am just going with the flow. Next year has to be better.
