You’ve Fallen Off Your Horse…Now What?

You’ve Fallen Off Your Horse…Now What?

Few scenes are more painful to watch than the accident in the movie Seabiscuit when jockey Red Pollard agrees to help an old friend by exercising an unfamiliar horse at Suffolk Downs. By then, Seabiscuit (and Pollard) had become a national symbol of grit and resilience during the Depression era. He and Seabiscuit were preparing for the race of a lifetime against champion horse War Admiral. The stakes were enormous. All eyes were on them.

Then, in a moment, everything changed.

As Red began galloping the unfamiliar horse, a nearby tractor backfired. The horse bolted. Red was thrown backward, one foot trapped in the stirrup, his body dragged across the ground. The horse slammed him into brush, fence posts, and debris, shattering his leg so severely that doctors warned he might never ride again—or even walk normally.

In an instant, Red was not only out of the race. He no longer knew if he would ever get back up.

Most of us will experience our own version of Red and the spooked horse.

Maybe it was a job loss, a betrayal, a divorce, a health scare, a financial setback, or a dream that suddenly collapsed. One minute you are moving full speed toward something that matters. The next, life throws you hard to the ground and drags you through every fence post, thorn bush, and piece of debris in its path.

I have been there. It hurts. It is disorienting. It is demoralizing. And for a while, you wonder if you will ever get back up again.

In 2013, I entered the Colorado U.S. Senate race during a difficult financial quarter. The campaign had a slow start, but just as it was finding its footing — and I was leading in the polls — a Congressman struck a deal with the Senatorial Committee to enter the race with more than a million dollars cash on hand.

When he told me he was getting in, I gripped the table like Red Pollard trying to hold onto that spooked horse.

I made the decision to step aside.  I knew he could win and so a graceful exit was my only option. I encouraged my supporters to rally behind him. The papers called it statesmanship – “rarely seen these days” they said. And I was honest with him about what stepping aside mid-campaign cycle meant — vendors to pay, obligations to meet, a financial hole that didn’t disappear just because my race did. He understood. He said there would be help.

There wasn’t.

What came next felt like a Peanuts cartoon — you know the one where the whole gang rushes past Charlie Brown, leaving him flat on the ground in the dust, everyone too busy running toward the next thing to notice. That was my 2014. Everyone had moved on. I was still on the ground. Overwhelming debt, no support in sight, and a sense of failure so heavy it was hard to breathe.

My husband quietly worried I was sliding back twenty years — back to the darkest days of infertility and depression.

But here is what I know to be true: falling is not the end of the story.

The strongest women are not the ones who never get thrown. They are the ones who survive the drag, heal from the injuries, and eventually find the courage to climb back into the saddle — wiser, stronger, and far more aware of what they can endure.

During that season I came to understand something I had known in my head but now knew in my bones: we do not have the option to give up on life and quit. We are commanded to run and finish our race. Run in such a way as to get the prize. We may encounter circumstances where we limp across the finish line, but we are to run — for a crown that lasts forever.

So I made the hard decision to get back on my horse.

It did not happen overnight. Healing never does. There were days I was not sure I had what it took. But I got up each day and I kept going.  

Women always ask — okay, but how? How do you actually start?

Honestly? I listened to endless inspiring podcasts. I took classes to get back into community. I was honest with my close friends about what I needed. And I found a great counselor. I showed up. They showed up. And eventually – we got through it.

That is it. Nothing magical. Just one day, then the next.

I am still running. And if you are reading this from the ground right now — so are you.