Horse weekend fail

I set my alarm early on Saturday morning, with the intention of riding first thing. I slept through my alarm.

So I took a bunch of pictures of the house, instead, for a planned Sunday post. The SD card would not talk to my computer.

Saturday night, I kept an eye on the clock the entire time. I was at my 10 year college reunion, having dinner with some of my dearest friends, but I thought, it's Belmont day, and there might be a Triple Crown! And then I totally missed it.

Not only did I miss the Belmont, this is the first year in my memory - so in at least 25 years - in which I did not watch a single one of the Triple Crown races live. Not a single one. Every other year I have found a bar, or streaming online, or sat in front of a TV all afternoon. Something.

I was legitimately inconsolable until my sports freak fiance pointed out that I was the one who reversed the jinx. Because I hadn't watched, he'd won. Strangely, that does make me feel slightly better, as did finding a replay of the race a few minutes afterwards and watching the beautiful effortless way he ran.

Sunday afternoon, I went out to ride. It was a gorgeous day, and Tristan kept bulging toward the door of the indoor. So I thought hey, ok, we'll go do our first ride in the outdoor.

It was the kind of utter shit ride that happens like twice a year. 50 minutes and the only productive period was the last 90 seconds of the last trot set. Jesus Christ. I wanted to just gallop him endlessly and lather him up and get him good and tired and obedient...except we are on a back-to-work schedule, and that would be irresponsible and cruel. I settled for gritting my teeth and just getting it over with.

Then, to cap it? I fell off.

Because Tristan had been sooooooooooo shitty and lethargic all day, and the outdoor footing is deeper and different than he's used to, he'd been quite trippy. After our last trot set, I dropped the reins and let him walk it off, and 2 minutes later, he tripped, and didn't recover. Down to his knees. Onto his face. I tipped forward, and had a moment of "should I?"and then realized he wasn't recovering, said "fuck it" and attempted some kind of ungainly safety dismount.

Only he started to get up as soon as he felt my weight shift, and my carefully planned hop off turned into a fall, and I didn't have enough mental presence to change plans, so I sort of flopped off and landed hard on my lower back and left hip, then smacked my head for good measure.

I hung onto the reins - not that he was going anywhere, he was mostly looking at me like "wtf, lady?" - and just lay there. I'd gotten the wind well and truly knocked out of me. Then I got my breath back and swore, a LOT, and LOUDLY. Then I rolled to my knees, catalogued my aches, and got back on to finish out the cool down.

Then I went home and filled our big new bathtub to the brim with hot water and Epsom salts and had two glasses of wine and sulked.

Last night, I slept like shit, because the torqued muscles in my back started to ache as the first-stage aches faded. I am moving slowly and popping Tylenol today. Back at it this afternoon. Sigh.