My Very Patient Mare

This is Misty, my very patient mare. I took her trail riding two summers ago with my new friend Todd, who was riding my gelding for me at that time, as it was the first time the gelding had been out on the trails and I wasn't sure if I could handle him. Anyway, this goes under that catagory....Won't do that again. Misty has a tendancy to hold her breath when you cinch up the saddle and I knew this, but I didn't bother to pull up the slack and mounted anyway( I used my trusty mounting bucket). As we're on the trail, probably about an hour into it, Misty moved left to side step a particularly large mud puddle and I leaned right to avoid the brush and low and behold, the saddle slid under Misty with me still in it and I was upside down head first in a mud puddle. She stood perfectly still. Such a good mare. Todd tried not to laugh and attempted to see if I was ok. I was fine, pride a little muddy, not to mention how stupid I felt. We ended up laughing so hard it took me a few tries to get my bottom back up after I recinched the saddle........very snuggly.