Losing and Gaining Confidence: Dealing With Unpredictable Situations
When dealing with the unexpected leads to a scary situation with your horse, getting your confidence back can be difficult. Here are some tips on how to move forward from a negative, unpredictable ride.
Horse Nation is excited to announce a new series that will focus on one of the trickier parts of riding: confidence. Confidence is one of those fragile elements that, once shaken, can be hard to regain. In this series, staff writer Marcella Gruchalak will discuss a variety situations that can cause a rider’s confidence to crumble and practical approaches that have helped her rebuild her confidence.
As riders and competitors, we know there is a nearly infinite number of situations that can decrease our confidence level while riding. These situations can be anything from taking a fall to losing a trusted equine partner to browsing other people’s social media successes too often. Any of these factors can create uncertainty, fear, and/or difficulty finding enjoyment in the sport.
Photo by DeAnn Long Sloan
In this series, I want to focus on a variety of these situations and discuss ways to work through them. These are all things that I’ve experienced, and the methods I am discussing are things that have helped me regain confidence as a rider.
Horses have their own minds and sometimes they’re not in tandem with ours while riding. Sometimes the situation is out of the control for both the horse and rider. The best example I can provide happened while out on trail. We were out in the tall grass and all of a sudden one of the horses stumbled upon a turkey that was bedded down.
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The turkey startled and ended up trying to get up and fly while under the horse’s belly. This startled the horse and he took off. It was enough to break the confidence of the middle-aged lady riding him. So much so, it took some time to get her to go out riding again.
How do you regain confidence after something like that?
- Don’t dwell too long on unpredictable situations. It will lead you down a rabbit hole of “what ifs” and you will begin creating worst case scenarios that most likely never will happen.
- Reflect and provide yourself with some ways to deal with unpredictable encounters in the future. Learn from the encounter and move forward.
- Desensitization. The more you desensitize your horse to anything and everything, the less reactive it will be when something unpredictable happens. Plus, you’ll be more familiar with what its reactions to those situations look like so you can be prepared.
- If you know your horse can be unpredictable, give it space to work it out safely. Dealing with the unpredictable in unsafe scenarios is a recipe for decreased confidence.
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When it comes to rebuilding your confidence with your horse, keep going. There is no one cure-all method to regaining confidence. Riding horses is hard work that takes courage and mental toughness. Every rider, amateur to professional, has points in their riding career where they experience fear, self-doubt, and insecurity. Keep working at it and trying your best and you’ll find the confidence does eventually come back.
