Past Article:

Confidence Part I

There is passion in life with horses.  It’s a magical connection of mind, body and spirit that we search for.  Passion comes to us as children in dreams and story books, and then as horse owners in reality.  We strive to find our balance, understand the signals from our horse, and reach out to become one with them.  It may only happen every now and then, but these moments are what horse-owners seek and achieve more and more as they develop understanding and confidence.

Reasons for a Lack of Confidence:

• Feeling out of control.

• You don’t understand the horse’s mind.

• Past experiences that affect your relationship with your horse.

• Peer pressure to do something you or your horse is not ready for.

5 Steps to Structuring Confidence

• Be comfortable with your goals
  Why do you ride? What do you want to achieve?

• Have a compatible horse
  Type, experience

• Have a compatible trainer
  Knowledge and ability to train for things you want

• Be comfortable with your program
  Understand the horse/conformation type. Understand the ‘steps’ of the program, and how long these steps may take.

• Evaluate and learn from your mistakes
  “He who never made a mistake never made anything.”

What Makes Riders Confident:

• Familiarity with the horse and the tack

• Familiarity and trust with the instructor

• Familiarity with the exercise

• Familiarity with the situation

How Do Riders Handle a Lack of Confidence?

• Don’t do it. Who says you have to? It’s all about you having fun.

• Do it aggressively. A loud voice and rough aids don’t allow the horse time to relax and understand. 

• Take very small steps. Tell your trainer or your peers.

Confidence is a fragile thing.

It takes many little steps to build, yet can be destroyed in a few bad moments.

Exercises to Help:

• Close your eyes and count/ride the rhythm, or say when a certain foot hits the ground. This gives you something positive to do.

• Ride with the stirrups a hole shorter than normal.

• Ride in a light half seat rather than trying to sit down into the saddle.

• Ride a course of poles before riding a course of jumps. Build up fences gradually.

• Compete at a level below where you ride at home.
   

Things NOT to do:

• Don’t listen to the barn chat about why aren’t you doing something

• Canter on the lunge is very stressful for the horse. The centrifugal force makes riders grip.

• If you feel tired or stressed, why take on another problem? Wait until you are fresh.