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It was pouring cats and dogs today when I woke up, so I called up the stables to check on the conditions in Fan Ling... as it turned out, lessons were still on, as it will be in the covered home paddock. So i forced myself out of bed, hurriedly packed everything and lugged my backpack off to Fan Ling for my riding lesson...
When I signed in, I noticed that instead of Speedster, which my instructor loves to put me on and that I always have a hard time controlling, I was on the Star Warrior (A271 星運猛將) today... was actually rather excited about trying a new horse... here's a pic of the horse on his last race before retiring... very handsome looking and striking! (yes am talking about the horse NOT the jockey)
Everything got off to a swimming start, when Star Warrior responded diligently to all my instructions~ we started trotted up the horses within a short while, using up half the paddock. Because of the weather conditions, instead of spreaded out at the various outdoor and indoor paddocks, there were over 10 horses cramped together within this only indoor paddock. There was this one guy that got on my instructor's nerve since he was galloping round the tiny paddock to show off his horse, ignoring us novices' presence.
When my coursemate and I could both do a bit of turns, my instructor decided to let us go round the whole track and we started trotting a bit faster. Star Warrior was still very strong, since it's been less than a year since his retirement (meaning he is still relatively young amongst the horses here) and we were going faster and faster, intersecting with the other more experienced riders here. Suddenly, he started cantoring without any specific instructions and no matter how hard I tried reining it in or forcing it to stop it just got wilder and wilder. I was off balance so much that I decided I had to fall and I finally let go of the reins and the stirrups and fell on my right, back down first. Obviously it did hurt, but luckily as it was sand grounds and there were no other wild horses around me, expect for some bruises and pains I think I am fine.
Was told by my coursemate afterwards that my horse seemed spooked by a blue umbrella that was placed by the entrance and suddenly went out of control, and when it got near the galloping horse it decided to follow suite... My normally demanding and scary instructor was very kind today, he asked me to take a rest while trying to calm the horse down... I just sat there watching all the horses speeding around me, while my coursemate kindly kept me company...
After 10 minutes (which felt like an eternity), I got back on Star Warrior and we did only small circles this time round, since once we got round the whole paddock he started acting weird again and wanting to cantor out of nowhere. When we stuck to the little circle, he performed excellently and I had a good time in the end, although didn't manage to learn much new tricks because of the incident.
When I went to shower I noticed every single piece of my belonging, including my hair and my back was all covered in sad/mud/dirt. In fact, it was only then that I realised how lucky I was, because there were fresh dung pieces within 1 meter of where I fell and had I fallen on that, it'd probably take me much longer to rid myself of all the scum and smell!!!
When I got back I decided to check on the specifics of this horse and saw that it came first in two races in its hey days and collected over HK$1mn in prize money in the past http://www.hkjc.com/english/racing/horse.asp?HorseNo=A271 ~ accordingly to my dad, this was ok performance but nothing stellar. To me this was still pretty impressive.
Wonder which horse I will be on next weekend, while I had this scary incident this time round, I actually prefer Star Warrior to Speedster, since the latter is a very old horse and it takes all my efforts to get it moving properly.
Am still slightly spooked, because this is the first time I have ever fallen off a horse, both from my boarding school days and also this time round~ what's worse is that my uncle got into a riding accident a couple of weeks ago and is still in hospital, so my mom is quite worried...
My head still feels a bit dizzy now... probably need a massage soon~
When I signed in, I noticed that instead of Speedster, which my instructor loves to put me on and that I always have a hard time controlling, I was on the Star Warrior (A271 星運猛將) today... was actually rather excited about trying a new horse... here's a pic of the horse on his last race before retiring... very handsome looking and striking! (yes am talking about the horse NOT the jockey)
Everything got off to a swimming start, when Star Warrior responded diligently to all my instructions~ we started trotted up the horses within a short while, using up half the paddock. Because of the weather conditions, instead of spreaded out at the various outdoor and indoor paddocks, there were over 10 horses cramped together within this only indoor paddock. There was this one guy that got on my instructor's nerve since he was galloping round the tiny paddock to show off his horse, ignoring us novices' presence.
When my coursemate and I could both do a bit of turns, my instructor decided to let us go round the whole track and we started trotting a bit faster. Star Warrior was still very strong, since it's been less than a year since his retirement (meaning he is still relatively young amongst the horses here) and we were going faster and faster, intersecting with the other more experienced riders here. Suddenly, he started cantoring without any specific instructions and no matter how hard I tried reining it in or forcing it to stop it just got wilder and wilder. I was off balance so much that I decided I had to fall and I finally let go of the reins and the stirrups and fell on my right, back down first. Obviously it did hurt, but luckily as it was sand grounds and there were no other wild horses around me, expect for some bruises and pains I think I am fine.
Was told by my coursemate afterwards that my horse seemed spooked by a blue umbrella that was placed by the entrance and suddenly went out of control, and when it got near the galloping horse it decided to follow suite... My normally demanding and scary instructor was very kind today, he asked me to take a rest while trying to calm the horse down... I just sat there watching all the horses speeding around me, while my coursemate kindly kept me company...
After 10 minutes (which felt like an eternity), I got back on Star Warrior and we did only small circles this time round, since once we got round the whole paddock he started acting weird again and wanting to cantor out of nowhere. When we stuck to the little circle, he performed excellently and I had a good time in the end, although didn't manage to learn much new tricks because of the incident.
When I went to shower I noticed every single piece of my belonging, including my hair and my back was all covered in sad/mud/dirt. In fact, it was only then that I realised how lucky I was, because there were fresh dung pieces within 1 meter of where I fell and had I fallen on that, it'd probably take me much longer to rid myself of all the scum and smell!!!
When I got back I decided to check on the specifics of this horse and saw that it came first in two races in its hey days and collected over HK$1mn in prize money in the past http://www.hkjc.com/english/racing/horse.asp?HorseNo=A271 ~ accordingly to my dad, this was ok performance but nothing stellar. To me this was still pretty impressive.
Wonder which horse I will be on next weekend, while I had this scary incident this time round, I actually prefer Star Warrior to Speedster, since the latter is a very old horse and it takes all my efforts to get it moving properly.
Am still slightly spooked, because this is the first time I have ever fallen off a horse, both from my boarding school days and also this time round~ what's worse is that my uncle got into a riding accident a couple of weeks ago and is still in hospital, so my mom is quite worried...
My head still feels a bit dizzy now... probably need a massage soon~
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