Horse riding can be an extremely fun and thrilling experience, and while it’s not every day that accidents happen, something can go wrong. These 5 celebrities have all had accidents while riding horses. Some enjoy riding as a hobby while others were on set filming a role when they injured themselves. From broken bones to sprained fingers and even life-threatening moments, these stars have shared their own horse riding accident tales.
Johnny Depp
Johnny was dragged by his horse on the set of ‘The Lone Ranger’. He recalled the incident: ‘We’d been running the horses pretty hot that day and went down a couple of paths. That all worked out fine until we changed paths in order to get close to the camera car. Scout decided to jump over a few obstacles. So year, user error. You would expect to be riddled with fear or adrenaline, but I saw everything very clearly, which was the horse’s muscular front legs moving at dangerous speed. I was still holding on to the mane like an idiot trying to get back up and at a certain point you have to make a decision, do I go down and hit the deck on my own? Or do I wait for the hoof to split my face in two? So I decided to go down on my own and then, incredibly, the horse lifted its front legs and he missed me.’
Kaley Cuoco
Kaley was in a freak horse riding accident. She fell from her horse and her leg was trampled, leaving her bone crushed. The actress was told by doctors that she may lose her leg when she arrived at the hospital for surgery: ‘I’m hysterical and the doctor comes in… and says, “OK, gotta go over your options; one (of) them is amputation.” All I’m thinking is, “I’m gonna have to call work and tell them I only have one foot,” ‘He really was telling me that they were thinking there was infection… (I thought) my foot was gonna be gone… They had to tell me because I was going into emergency surgery that I might be coming out with one foot.’
Katherine Heigl
Katherine was left with several small injuries while riding: “I have no idea what I’m doing… it’s very difficult. He (the horse) is great and he wasn’t trying to kill me but I just lost control and I couldn’t stop him. The more upset I’d get, the faster he’d go. He was running into the walls and I just leaped off of him into these iron bars and I stood there bleeding watching him go berserk and I went, ‘What have I done?’ I split my fingernail open and cut my knee, it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t break anything.”
Kristen Stewart
Kristen was worried about getting back in the saddle for her ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ role because she once broke her elbow riding: ”I was shaking like a leaf when saddling up. Riding horses terrifies me. I’ve felt that way ever since I fell off a horse when I was nine and broke my elbow.”
Morgan Freeman
Morgan owns several horses on a private ranch and once had a terrifying riding experience: “I was riding my favourite horse Sable. His bridle snapped and he bolted. “We’re in the wilderness, but we’re heading for a country highway at 35 miles per hour and the traffic is going 75, 85 miles an hour – and my horse isn’t going to check to see if a log truck is coming. I thought, ‘I’ve bought the farm.’ “But he turned and headed for this stump. He stopped before jumping. I made the jump first. He came afterwards. These things happen. And this was just two weeks after Christopher Reeve made his jump.”
