'I will be in pain for the rest of my life'

Equestrian Melissa Smith won €575,000 after being left with life-changing injuries when two dogs that weren't on leads spooked her horse. Here, she shares her story

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December 28, 2018, was meant to be a typical day for Melissa Smith. As the owner of a livery yard who trains the dressage horses stabled with her, she'd already taken one horse for a ride and was taking another, Loti, out.

She then planned to meet friends at fancy brasserie, The Ivy for dinner.

Instead, Melissa, now 48, found herself being airlifted to hospital with life-changing injuries after she was crushed by Loti in a horrifying fall when the horse became spooked by two dogs who weren't on leads.

"It was a normal ride," she recalls, about the incident in Crooksbury Common, Surrey, a beauty spot popular with dog walkers and riders.

Loti had been stabled with Melissa for 18 months, was used to dogs, enjoyed twice-weekly hacks and was familiar with the route along the bridle path, a track that gives horse riders right of way.

"I saw some walkers who had some dogs running around with them - this is not unusual when you're on the common," she says. "It was one dog walker talking to a man. I stopped and called out to them to make sure they knew I was there.

"She had four dogs and she said she didn't know if they were good with horses. She caught two big dogs quite quickly but the two smaller dogs were running in the opposite direction. They weren't going to come back to her to be put on the lead."

VULNERABLE

Melissa, from nearby Godalming, stopped on the path and as she was waiting, she saw the white dog running towards her.

"I decided I felt vulnerable standing still, so I arced and made a loop round where the dog was running so I could go down the path to go home," she says.

Instead, the white dog ran behind Melissa and Loti, and the other little dog ran out of the bushes straight at the front of the horse.

"Loti was trapped with one at the front and the other behind her," Melissa says.