Rebecca Johanson-Hofmann kept the crowd on the edge of their seats during the $25,000 Pennsylvania Big Jump at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show. She lost both her stirrups on her way around the course but carried on and finished with just two rails down.

“That was one of those totally freaky things that happen. I was jumping around, and the first stirrup leather broke at 3B, which was in the middle of the triple combination,” she recalled. “The hardest turn in the whole course came next, so I didn’t really even have a chance to realize what had happened.

“Then, I was clear with one stirrup, but I was in the air over a vertical at the end of the course when the second leather broke,” she explained. “I kind of came down on her back and had the rail there. From then on, I was kind of just hanging on and trying to keep her going forward. I’ve never had a stirrup leather break before, let alone two, so it was very strange. The actual leather broke on both of my stirrups.

“I didn’t have a chance to pull up. When I had one stirrup, I definitely thought I was fine to keep going. When the second leather snapped, I figured I had nothing to lose,” she said with a smile. “I’ve practiced jumping without stirrups, of course, so I just kept going. It would take a rock falling on me to pull up in a grand prix.”