Gisele Bündchen Praises Daughter Vivian for Getting Back on Her Horse After Breaking Her Arm (Exclusive)

"I was there watching that whole thing in slow motion, and it was one of the worst days of my life," the mom of two tells PEOPLE

Gisele Bündchen is reflecting on a scary moment she experienced with her daughter.

The model and mom of two, 43, recently spoke with PEOPLE after a panel for her new partnership with Gaia Herbs in New York City, revealing that her 10-year-old daughter Vivian broke her arm three years ago while horseback riding.

"She had a fall. That's another thing, she had a fall and she broke her arm," Bündchen tells PEOPLE after discussing her daughter's requests to perform higher jumps on her horse. "Three years ago, and then she didn't ride. She had to put a pin."

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"I was there watching that whole thing in slow motion, and it was one of the worst days of my life."

Explaining that it happened right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bündchen recounts the "crazy" experience. "It was intense. And then she just was like...for six months, she had to have the cast and she had to do another surgery to remove the pin."

"You would think after going through all of that at 7 years old that you wouldn't want to do it anymore. After a year, after the pin was removed, we started going to ride horses again," Bündchen says. "Just the western kind. It was just easy on the beach."

"When we went to Costa Rica, we were just riding easy. And then she, little by little, at first she was just riding with me on the saddle, and then she started riding alone a little bit, slower."

"A few months, she's running on the beach. I'm like, 'Hold on!' And then after that, she was like, 'Mom, I want to go back jumping again.' And I'm like, 'Okay.' She overcame that fear that was really real for her," the proud mom, whose debut cookbook Nourish is available for pre-order now, remembers.

Speaking about how resilient Vivian was, Bündchen reflects on her own fear after watching her daughter get hurt. "Sometimes I feel like it's us who put our fears, because I was so afraid," she says. "Because I had that, watching her go through all of that. When she got up from the horse the first time she hurt herself, her arm was bent. And she was like, 'Mom!' And I'm like, 'Oh my God.' Imagine."

Instead of freaking out, Bündchen says that she kept it together and helped her daughter calm down. "'Oh it's okay," she recalls saying. "'Let's just come with Mommy. We're going to put a thing around.' But I feel that, at the end of the day, if we can show them confidence and be like, 'It's okay, let's go ride.'"

"And then, she feels like she's okay, I'm okay. And now, she's back at it, and she's loving it," the model tells PEOPLE.

Bündchen shares her daughter and her son Benjamin, 13, with ex-husband Tom Brady, 46.

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