Jewelry and horses don’t really mix. I’ve had a couple of near misses.
Once, a managed to break the chain of a necklace when I was jumping a fence and the end of my crop got tangled in the chain. It sent my favorite amethyst pendant flying into the grass. After my lesson I walked and crawled through the areas where I’d jumped. The only thing I found was poison ivy. This hadn’t been on my radar screen because as a child, I’d been immune to it. Unfortunately, that proved to be no longer true. The poison ivy left me with such terrible itching and swelling I looked as if I had elephantitis. As for the pendant? My now husband, then boyfriend, rented a metal detector and we found it — not even close to where I thought it would have fallen.
The next near miss happened right after Christmas a few years back. I’d forgotten to take off the new bracelet that I’d gotten and rode in the indoor arena. It was gone when I dismounted. Luckily, the barn manager knew I’d lost it and spotted it a few days later, glinting in the dirt.
Fast forward to this week.
About six years ago, a friend and I were heading off for a ride. When she realized she was wearing a nice pair of earings, gifted by her husband, she took them off and put them on the dashboard of my car.
We both forgot they were there.
By the time she remembered, they were deep in the air ducts. My husband managed to recover one of them, but the other was too far gone. Last week that car went to its final resting place: the junk yard. Offered a reward, they took the dashboard apart and the earring turned up. The two are rather tarnished, but nothing that a bit of silver polish won’t fix.
What is your rule about jewelry and riding? Do you wear it? I know people who’ve taken their engagement rings off only to lose them, so I’m super conscious about taking anything nice off at the barn. In fact, I don’t wear anything expensive to the barn any more figuring it is safer at home!