I learned to ride as a very young child from my mom. She always taught me how to be safe around horses from the way a lead then to wearing a helmet when I rode, even when she didn’t. As I grow older I joined pony club where I was taught the importance of safety, especially helmets. I pasted on everything I learned from my club to my mom and encouraged my mother to begin wearing a helmet. My mother wanted to be a good role model for me and my pony club friends so she began to wear a helmet more often. It started out with wearing her helmet when she was doing more dangerous riding such as jumping. It didn’t take long before she was wearing her helmet even while she was on the flat schooling young or inexperienced horses, and soon she began wearing one even when she was just going on a quiet trail ride with an experience horse.
My mom and I always have ridden together and every year around Christmas time we would go on a snowy trail ride to enjoy the weather and the horses. On one particular snowy day just a day before Christmas my mom and I got together with our horses to go on a relaxing hack. We were on our two very favorite horses that we could have a lot of fun with because they were experienced and not spooky. We had a relaxing and fun trail ride where we enjoyed galloping through the snow and even making the odd snow bank into a jump for some extra fun.
When we were standing back at the barn ready to dismount and talking about how much fun we had had my mom’s horse had the smallest spook from the cat coming out from the barn to greeting us. His little spook turned into a big problem when he found a large patch of ice underneath the snow. He then began to scrabble, trying his best to stay on his feet but he could not find solid ground. Just moments later his legs came out from underneath him and he fell, dislodging my mom from his back. My mom fell straight back, hitting her head first on the patch of ice that her horse had cleared from under the snow. I heard the impact and immediately thought she was hurt but it didn’t take long for her to sit-up and laugh it off. Thankfully she was wearing a helmet so instead of her head breaking it was just her helmet, something that is replaceable. We kept the helmet that had a big crack to show anyone that came to ride and didn’t want to wear a helmet because it wasn’t cool or it would wreck their hair.
Since my mom was wearing her helmet that day we still ride together and enjoy showing in Ontario Horse Trials, cross country training, going on nice long hacks, and schooling in the ring. The picture that I have included is of my mom (right), myself (left), and our two horses at a Hunter Pace. We had lots of fun that day and we have the future to look forward to more fun rides like that one.
-Brittany Stinson
