Coaches and instructors can sometimes take things way too far.

For this person, their riding lessons instructor made them push a horse to it’s limits, and the result was a dangerous fall.

Let’s hear the full story…

Ride my hot-headed horse full speed at the jump? Okay what do I know …

Back when I was 16 I was a regular at our Pony Club. For those who don’t know, that’s a club where you bring your own horse or pony, and get riding lessons from instructors.

Our sole instructor was interesting. If your parents were useful to her then you got a free pass, but if not you bore the rough edge of her tongue and were set up to fail.

You can guess which camp I fell into.

Things took a turn one day…

My usual mount was not a jumper, and this day we were concentrating on tricky jump spreads and pacing, so I borrowed a friend’s backup horse who was a known spicy ride.

The owner was adamant I not “wind him up” as he would lose his mind and go full throttle.

So I’m carefully taking him around the course, dropping to a trot between jump approaches, then gunning him a little just before the jumps.

Exactly as his owner wanted, and we were clearing the jumps just fine.

The instructor got involved…

Instructor (we’ll call her Dee) tells me I’m going too slowly, and to keep him at a fast canter the whole way. I respond that he will get overly excited if I did that, and we went back and forth a bit.

Finally Dee roars at me that she’s the instructor, I’m just the rider, do what I’m told or go home.

“Gun it!” she yells, so I gunned it. I heard his owner’s gasp from across the ring.

Somehow we cleared the first jump, turned, and instead of steadying for the second jump I let him go for it. He absolutely went for it.

Things took a turn…

We had no chance with the second jump. We were going too fast for him to judge take off, so we hit the jump (literally), and cartwheeled.

I flew over his head. His front hoof came down on top of my riding helmet, slid down the front, taking off the visor and the very tip of my nose.

Concussion for me, a destroyed helmet, the horse was fine if a little spooked, and Madam’s expert opinion took a hit from the horrified parents and students watching.

“I told you he’d lose his mind if we gunned it …”

Let’s see what Reddit thought about this story…

This commenter had a similar experience.

Some Reddit users weren’t happy with this dangerous act.

Another commenter notes the severity of the jump.

And this user thinks the instructor should have a taste of her own medicine!

I’ve never been on a horse, but after this story, I’m not sure I want to!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.