I just found out someone I know recently died - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**space virgin** · 08-09-2004, 03:09 PM

Okay, so pretty much most of y'all know that I'm a horse person. The main focus of what I do is Eventing, which is basically a sort of triathlon. It's a lot of fun and honestly, well, it's dangerous, but we don't really dwell much on what *can* happen-- until someone ends up really hurt (like Christopher Reeve-- he was competing in a 3-day event) or dead, which is what happened recently to someone that I know. She was at an event in Montana a couple of weeks ago and the horse she was riding freaked out, flipped over at a full gallop and broke her neck and burst her spinal cord. In eventing we're required to wear special gear designed to help protect the body as much as possible, but there are never any guarantees (of course.) The fucked up thing was that the horse spooked on flat, open ground while they were galloping from one jump to another-- usually the danger occurs with taking the jumps themselves. The horse was a very expensive, very well-trained creature. I don't know what happened to him, if he's still alive or unharmed.

Here's a pic of cindy going over a bitchin' fence at an event in Oregon several years ago:

Getting hurt is part and parcel with riding horses, and especially when doing any jumping-- and *especially* when doing eventing. But it's still really sobering to hear of something like this happening to someone you know.

**omisan** · 08-09-2004, 03:53 PM

Sorry to hear that..

You have my condolences.

I'm not too enlightened on the world of horses, but a lot of people in my company are heavy into motorcyles. We have a run of injuries, both from the track and the street, all the time - it's a known risk - but we haven't been immune to losses "in the family," either. So I know how it feels, not knowing whether to blame the rider, the bike (or horse) or fate... it just sucks either way...

**pinion** · 08-09-2004, 08:44 PM

I'm sorry to hear about your loss SV.

Not to highjack your thread or anything....but last week at work we had two people in our firm pass away from cancer within 12 hours of each other. It was a pretty rough day to say the least

**TheJake** · 08-09-2004, 09:16 PM

Death and jake's thoughts on it.

The pain hurts, but really only as long as we allow it to. There are 6 billion some people in the world and we individually hardly know any of them. and yet when they come into our lives and we connect and begin to love them I find it amazing that their departure to heaven or hell or another life is such a painful farewell. I have thought about this alot since my grandfather passed away and I have come to believe that a persons death, though it hurts, is really in no way different then them moving to a distant land or even sometimes a neighboring state. Our lives continue with or without them. In death the phone connection is a bit more staticy i'll give ya that. but in almost every religion death is a means to something greater.

Over the past 8 years I have worked at various summer camps and traveled around the states quite a bit. I have learned that I can connect and love people on an intimate level really rather quickly. After my first summer at a camp when the end of the summer came and everyone left, I stayed and there was only a ghost of the bustle that had been so alive just a week before. The pain hit me harder then anything I have ever felt and I wept for a week straight. All of my friends, my brothers and sisters, for the past 3 months had left. i must say I have never felt quite so hollow in my entire life. The pain eventually subsided and then before I knew it I was at the end of another summer and the pain hit all over again. I prayed it would eventually stop hurting. Although it did in fact dull over the years and not hit quite so hard, it never stopped. I lie to myself now and tell my heart that the friends I surround myself with mean next to nothing in the long scheme of things. But I know that is just a fabrication of my mind. The pain doesnt quit and yet I cannot keep myself in one spot long enough to let it heal. I am plagued as all of us on this site are by that accursed, yet somehow blessed, travel bug. So we hid it deep and pretend that the ones who stay behind are the ones hurting themselves. Anyway Im done now I typed too much emotion into this post.

You have my sympathy SV

**Mocassin** · 08-10-2004, 05:27 AM

I'm sorry SV...Be careful when you ride baby!!! We don't wanna loose you!

**zylah** · 08-10-2004, 06:19 AM

"dont cry because its over,
smile because it happened"

**my retro career** · 08-10-2004, 06:38 AM

Sorry to hear about that, SV.

Too bad it takes an incident like this to remind one of the dangers of any sport, but especially eventing.

Hope you will still get to enjoy equestrian during the Olympics.

**voyd** · 08-10-2004, 06:49 AM

Sorry for the loss SV, and GREAT post Jake!

**blinkchick2134** · 08-10-2004, 09:35 AM

Sorry to hear SV! Riding is great (I did it for like 4 years - religiously) but sometimes things just don't go as planned.

I stopped because my horse got spooked really bad one time and started galloping (I've never really gone that fast before) towards the main road. I couldn't stop it or do anything. He eventually stopped right before the road, but I was so scared.

**space virgin** · 08-10-2004, 03:24 PM

thanks for the kind words, everyone. I should say though that I didn't know this woman very well at all, I had only met her once or twice. But it's a tight-knit community and even though hospitalizations happen all the time, deaths usually don't. A close friend of mine had a serious accident about 10 years ago that put her in a coma for 3 months-- she was riding alongside a deserted country road, a car went by, her usually-bomb-proof horse freaked and she hit her head, then bam!-- a vegetative state for 3 months. She spend weeks re-learning how to do mundane things like tie her shoes. She's pretty much back to normal but not quite 100% even now.

amber, I have had that happen to me several times (crazy ex-racehorses) and you're right-- it's fucking FREAKY-- like sitting on a bullet that you can barely steer. A good remedy for that is to run them straight at a wall, if you can find one, or just bail out and try to roll so you hopefully don't break anything. I've had to do that before, haha, but I don't really recommend it since you could be in for a long walk to retrieve your horse.