July 16, 2026 
“They say, you are not a proper jockey until you have fallen off seven times,” a fellow horse girl once told me.
I was 17. She was 14. We were standing in her yard in rural England, chatting as we brushed off our horses. As a backyard cowgirl from Colorado, that day was my first time in an English saddle. Even though she called it a head collar and I called it a halter, this fellow equestrian and I found that we spoke the same horse crazy language.
It has been 20 years since my British friend shared this little adage and I use it to this day.
I have said it to small children after watching ponies use them for cornhole practice. I have said it to my fellow adult amateurs while swapping stories in the barn aisle. I don’t really feel qualified to say what metrics we should or should not be using to determine whether or not someone is a “proper jockey,” but there is something appealing about having such a precise and achievable number.
What I can say, for sure, is that I have definitely fallen off more than seven times.
For the purposes of this essay, I tried making a list of every fall I could remember. It included the horse’s name as well as the number of times I fell off that particular animal. Every time I thought I had finished writing down the final tumble, another incident would pop into my head.
Most were from my own stupidity, lack of balance, or I didn’t listen soon enough and the horse felt compelled to communicate the message louder. I have been a “proper” jockey for a long time, but my proficiency is up for debate.
Then, of course, there is the adage for what comes after you hit the dirt: “If you fall off the horse, you need to get right back on.”
This idea is so common that non-equestrians use the phrase “get back on the horse” all the time. It, of course, means, “try again.”
For me, the ethos of this is so engrained that I have limped to the mounting block even when I should have been making my way to the emergency room. I know I am not alone in this regard. Many of my fellow equestrians can relate to this pig-headed stubbornness—the voice that insists we swing our leg back over even if our limbs have turned to Jello.
This dogged persistence has oozed into the rest of my life too. If I really want something, good luck persuading me otherwise—I learned my tenacity from cantankerous broodmares.
But sometimes the fall happens in the arena of life. These past nine months have been some of the most challenging I have had in a long time. Between my horses, my cat, my dog, and my boyfriend there were four emergency medical trips and two unexpected surgeries. I had two cars die, and I got caught in one of the worst blizzards in 50 years. Lastly a big bit of forward momentum in my professional life fell through and it left my confidence in jagged chunks strewn all over my psyche.
My friends began to refer to the latter as the “great buck off.” Mostly because this moment had the exact same markers as the worst type of fall. The kind where you ride along and everything is fine one second and the next you are eating arena dirt like it is a free sample from Costco.
Even if it didn’t have the physical bruises, the psychological injury had the exact same feeling as an unplanned dismount. Writing became nearly impossible, and I crawled along at work. I was exhausted, and because of all of the other mishaps, when the buck came I found a big empty hole where my fortitude usually resided.
After far more rest and space than I would have preferred, I have found my way back to the writing desk. The animals and the boyfriend are either all healed up or close to it, at least for now. I realize that bravery isn’t never falling off, but falling and climbing back on even when your bones are shaking.
It also means that sometimes we need to rest and recover just as much as our horses do. We return to the saddle each time a little changed. If we are lucky we learn, adapt, adjust, and discern. Introspection is a gift, so is a good helmet.
Maybe, the big buck off and all of the other mishaps have shaped me for the better. At the bare minimum I hope they make me a little bit more present when things are going well. Then again I think the maxim that “everything happens for a reason” is a steaming load of victim-blaming manure.
Still the voice calls to put my pen to the paper and my hand to the reins, ready to try again.
