We are riding 78km over two days around Dartmoor raising money for devon sir ambulance after nearly needing them to help whilst we have been training our horses.

Whilst we have been training we decided to ride from Buckfastleigh to Princetown following the abbots way. Even though we were following the OS map for the correct route, my horse fell into a bog up to his belly, this was on a well used wide pathway, he managed to keep me aboard and pull us both out. Then further on we had to cross a small stream but because of the bog incident my horse was worried so I dismounted and was leading him over, because he trusted me so much he likes to follow my footsteps exactly and as I was moving out of his way I stumbled just as Twosox was crossing so he also stumbled and we both fell, unfortunately he fell on top of me so I was crushed underneath his 470kg of bodyweight. Bless him he pulled himself off of me without stepping on me and I just thought to myself I had broken my back. Twosox walked out the way and started grazing and I realised I could move so carefully sat up. The pain was excruciating. My sister Naomi had at the time got broken ribs from a fall she had had a couple of weeks prior so I knew she couldn’t lead my horse whilst riding hers to get to princetown where her partner was going to meet us for refreshments, I wasn’t sure if I was able to walk let alone ride but I just couldn’t face the stress of worrying about my sister and my horse if I called the air ambulance.

I stood up and could hardly weight bare on my left leg.

I have Ehlers Danlos syndrome and fibromyalgia so I am in constant pain and because of this I do have the ability to cope with high levels of pain so I knew that if I could just get on Twosox again I could get to Princetown and then if needed get an ambulance from there.

Twosox is used to me struggling to get on sometimes and stood perfectly whilst I screamed getting back on. I had to sit so still the pain in my pelvis was terrible. We manged to get to Princetown slowly, Twosox was also now lame, so we knew once we got to Princetown, Naomi’s partner would need to go and retrieve the horsebox to trailer the horses home.

I decided I could manage to lie in the car and then at least I would know my sister and the horses were back safe, then I would go to A&E, the ambulance service has so much to deal with so unless I cannot move I wont call them if I have a way to get there myself.

Luckily and I think thanks to my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome making everything have the ability to squash and move abnormally, I had not broken anything but had a lot of bruising and soft tissue damage.

I felt like a cartoon character that had been flattened and then re-inflated!!

I had just over a week off from riding and then we were back training on another 25km+ ride, a bit sore, still sporting colourful bruises but the competition in October was getting ever closer, unfortunately due to covid this is now cancelled so we made a plan to still ride the same distance and decided to raise money whilst we did it.

So that’s the story of why I nearly needed the air ambulance this year, and last year on the Golden Horseshoe ride where we also raised money, we were doing 40km and at 20km Twosox tripped and we took a full rotational fall where I actually suffered a bad AC joint injury, which is basically a separated shoulder, again I was determined to finish the ride so for the last 20km, I rode in agony feeling sick and dizzy at times to complete the ride, 6 weeks later I had surgery on my shoulder to have a false ligament put in and 3 weeks after surgery was on the south west regional team for the inter-regional championships held in Cirencester.