I'm sorry that you had an unfortunate experience that ended the enjoyability of horse riding for you!
I'm far from being considered a "brave" rider, and I'm also TERRIBLE at falling off (I have a friend who may fall off more regularly than me, but she has mastered falling off without hurting herself whereas I have been fractured, broken (actually the only broken bone came from being trodden on but still), sprained EVERY time).. so I can definitely understand why you never rode again.. but I'm still sorry to hear your horse riding "career" ended before its time, as its so much fun However, it could of always ended worse as it did for this little girl so maybe you were lucky


I once noticed on myspace all these girls had "rip jessica" on their profiles, so I googled her and found out she was a teenage girl who had been riding her horse around bareback and without a helmet and decided to jump the fence out of the arena rather than go through the gate.. her horse's back legs clipped the fence (if it was a proper jump the pole would have fallen and it may have been okay but it was a solid fence and not for jumping bareback and helmetless!!), and he flipped and landed on her completely crushing her skull. There are some horror stories with horses..


With regards to the not standing behind a horse, I think sometimes "experienced" horse people get over confident (as the story I just wrote about clearly shows) and think that they will be fine. My instructor once told me its safer to be right up against the horse's bum if you need to go behind it, not only because it knows you're there but because its legs can't get as much momentum and power in a kick if it decides to have a go.. and I think sometimes people dont realise how far back they really do need to stand to be at a safe distance.
Its so unfortunate for the little girl it must be so hard for her family.


I'm curious to know what will happen with the pony/what people think should happen..?
I dont really think that its a situation where it could now "have a taste for blood" and do it more often now.. I wonder if its always been a kicker. I dont know about here, but in Australia at shows if your horse kicks you have to tie a certain coloured ribbon to its tail and its the responsibility of everyone else to keep themselves and their horses away from those ribbons! I'm surprised the kicking horses are allowed there at all..