‘My dad was my guardian angel’: rider’s lucky escape after bridle breaks and horse ‘takes off like Seabiscuit’

American showjumper Lauren Hough had a very lucky escape at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida, USA, last week when the hackamore bridle she was using on a new stallion snapped in the ring.

As can be seen in the video above, which Lauren posted on social media, the panicked horse then takes off, twice careering over the wings of one of the fences on course – and continues round for a dozen more laps after the video ends.

The Olympic showjumper explained to H&H what happened to cause this terrifying incident, and it all stemmed from the stallion having a playful kick as Lauren put her leg on when she got in the ring.

“So I gave him a little tweak on my inside rein and as I did so, the front of the hackamore broke – the leather snapped clean off the metal,” she explained. “So I was left holding the reins, but then he panicked and took off like Seabiscuit!

“Obviously people didn’t want to alarm the horse, so they kept quiet, but more and more people got in the arena to try to help – probably about 15-20 people – but the horse kept going and kept jumping the wing of the fence.

“Some people actually told me to jump off the horse, but I’d have been in the hospital if I’d tried that.”

It took until “the 11th or 12th lap”, but fortunately for Lauren, a pair of quick-thinking Olympic champions came to her rescue.

“Nick Skelton, Uli Kirchhoff and one other guy used some poles to try to pen him in by getting around him with the rails and he finally got startled – and tired, probably – and he stopped,” said Lauren of her saviours that day. “Nick grabbed hold of the horse and just told me to get off.

“Throughout it all, I stayed really calm, I don’t know why. I was never scared at all. But I lost my dad [Olympic showjumper Champ Hough] last Monday and I’m pretty sure he was my guardian angel that day, because it could have gone so much worse.”

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