I like to go back to square one and do baby steps for the horse and myself. Its probably confidence issues for him as well. I know my mare doesnt know how to jump very well, and because she knows me and knows I will take care of her, she jumps fine, but when someone else is on top of her, she freaks out a little and is not sure what to do so she takes off running after the jump, or she takes in half a stride, or she doesnt jump at all and does this weird thing where she half jumps and kicks out over it, but still makes it. I would take him over ground poles and cavalletis for a little so he can build his own confidence and so he can learn how to ride with you. I look at riding a new horse like breaking in a new pair of shoes. It takes them a while but once they start to get used to your feet, man do they feel great! Just give it time… but I would lay off the jumping for now, just to keep any bad habits from forming as well.

I haven’t ridden since I was a girl. You can’t be nervous/afraid, otherwise your horse will pick up on it. If you are confident then they are.

Another thought could be the jumps. Has anyone had trouble with him and jumps before? Maybe he has a problem with jumping. It sounds like things were fine until you made him do that, but you may not have explained the whole story either.

dont you hate it when youre out on your horse and you come up to an area where a mountain biker has dropped a big hot steaming pile of crap right in the middle of the trail? the nerve of those people.

It’s tough. I find that the older I get the lower my confidence level is, so I think it’s a part of growing up and realizing that we’re not immortal youth anymore 😛 Though I’ve got some years on you, so maybe that’s not your problem at all.

I don’t have much advice since I haven’t ridden longer than a few months at a time in the last couple years, but what helps me is to stick with one horse long enough to work out the kinks and not advance faster than I’m comfortable with. I’ve had trainers who said “Oh, you can jump that! No problem. I know you can do it.” If I don’t know I can do it, I shouldn’t be doing it because it just leads to bad rides that make me more nervous. Sticking with one horse helps too – as you said, you can eventually get to the point where you know the horse’s quirks and just ignore them rather than freak out. I rode at a place a couple years ago where I switched horses every other lesson or so and it was so hard. As soon as I got a read on one horse, I was figuring out another. When I was a more confident rider I could do this, but now I realize that I need to build my confidence on one horse for a little while or I end up nervous on all of them.

I think you should stick with this horse because he makes you nervous, but maybe lay off the jumping and just really work on your flat work for a while. Get him really responsive to you before moving up to things that make you uncomfortable.

I don’t have any advice but I really admire that you’re tackling this and trying to find a solution (and that you can ride a horse…that’s so amazing!)

Good luck, and please don’t be harsh on yourself. I think if you expect a lot of yourself then you can make the situation worse by not recognising your achievements and only focussing on the negative things that happen during the session.

Posted By longhairmike on 01/03/2012 11:07 PM
dont you hate it when youre out on your horse and you come up to an area where a mountain biker has dropped a big hot steaming pile of crap right in the middle of the trail? the nerve of those people.

Your random oddball comments never fail to crack me up.

I can certainly relate here. I used to be absolutely fearless in the saddle but now I get nervous when riding strange horses.

But maybe it also was due to the fact that I was nervous, making him nervous,

As a very high-stress person, I can tell that horses are EXTREMELY tuned in to how you feel. If you are stressed out/nervous, the horse is going to wonder why. My horse was perfectly at ease on the road with traffic, one trail ride I was really stressed out about random life stuff and I just felt nervous and my mare bolted. It took a long time before I dared go on the road again and since then, I’m still nervous and don’t ride out in traffic much.

One thing that I do to calm my nerves while riding is listen to music or even sing. It makes you focus on something else and I find playing relaxing music on my CD player actually helps calm both my horse and me down.

Try to build a bond with this horse on the ground too. It will help your confidence in the saddle. Have you every tried free-lunging?

It’s tough. I find that the older I get the lower my confidence level is, so I think it’s a part of growing up and realizing that we’re not immortal youth anymore 😛

Ditto that! I did some crazy stuff on horses back when I was a teenager! I’m a lot more cautious now! Falling off hurts a lot more too!

LPT, I used to be fearless about jumping – not that I ever jumped very high (not on lesson horses) but I never worried about getting a distance and just rode with it. Sometimes I missed but we got through it and moved on. Now I psych myself out over every distance even on small jumps and just make a mess of things and of course the messier it gets, the more nervous I am about it. It didn’t help that the last place I rode switched horses on me every couple lessons so I wasn’t sure if the new horse would take care of me over the jumps like that or just stop.

I find that free-lunging is good for building a bond with a horse.