Being super brave

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Emily thorne

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HOW TO GET SUPER CONFIDENT?
I've had a bit of a bad time jumping my old pony, however I have recently brought a new one. I'm not always scared to jump, I'm fine with small courses.

However, I have brought a horse with the ability to jump big, and it is what I WANT to do aswell. However I'm scared. I have real confidence issues and would love to become super brave again.

I wouldn't say I'm scared of my new horse. She is lovely and doesn't put a foot wrong, ever. I think I'm just a little nervous of jumping In general, despite how much I really love it!!!

Has anyone got any advise that could help me, anything would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
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Umm, I'm afraid the only thing that makes you confident is competence. Fear is really just your body telling you that it isn't happy doing whatever you're asking it to do. Most of the time your body is right! Really good riders are sure they can do stuff, so they don't need to be worried.
 
Just get a lot of lessons and get an instructor that's really going to encourage you to do things as once you've done something you will feel more confident
 
Thanks for the reply.
The problem is, my instructor is telling me I can, easily. He had told me my nerves are what is holding me back. He is qualified instructor and jumps BSJA foxhunter himself. I trust him and believe he knows what he is doing.
 
Cortez said:
Umm, I'm afraid the only thing that makes you confident is competence. Fear is really just your body telling you that it isn't happy doing whatever you're asking it to do. Most of the time your body is right! Really good riders are sure they can do stuff, so they don't need to be worried.
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I'm not sure that's entirely true. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Pippa Funnell had sessions with a sports psychologist when she moved up into the 4* levels. The big jumps aren't called 'rider frighteners' for nothing. Plus we all know that accidents can happen on even the most docile of happy hacks, so to some extent it's perfectly rational to be nervous whenever you ride at all.

So you could try a sports phychologists, if it's really bothering you, but I'm told that they basically use positive thinking techniques which you can do yourself: just picture everything going exactly to plan.

I'd wager that the thing most likely to give you bags of confidence though is time. You've only just got your new girl - enjoy getting to know her and building up to bigger and bigger courses together. Riding is all about building a relationship between yourself and your horse, after all, which is bound to take time, as with all relationships. You don't have to do the biggest courses right away :)
 
Hi Emily_thorne. My bff could have written your post. He had an amazing horse for 14 years, they competed and won loads of hunter trials. The horse was very on going and very eager. But he got old and friend decided to retire him so he bought a lovely new horse. However, he and old horse had a bad fall and friend lost all his confidence and didn't trust the new horse at all and was frightened to jump anything over 60cm. This is a man who used to jump open hunter trials. Having bought the new horse he persisted riding, if not jumping and the odd time he would pop a small pole. It took 1.50 years but his confidence has been coming back now for over 6 months and he is comfortably jumping 90cm. He thinks it was a combination of the bad fall and trying to adjust to a new horse. The new boy is very laid back and needs to be pushed to the fences, the opposite of the old boy and honestly, friend did not know how to deal with this type of horse. He has been using an excellent instructor for the last 6 months who has been re-educating him on riding and it has been working wonders. He has been working a lot on flat work and the jumping has come naturally from that and as the horse has been getting more confident in my friend, my friend has become more confident in the horse.

Is this in any way helpful? To sumerise, a lot of the problem was lack of confidence in the new horse because friend did not know how to ride the new boy and the right instructor has been setting him straight by going back to basics and not focusing on jumping. Friend is looking forward to some riding club eventing over the summer at AP level, which is 80cm max and is now confident that maybe next year he will be jumping confidently over courses of 90cm and 1m.
 
Kittykins said:
I'm not sure that's entirely true. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Pippa Funnell had sessions with a sports psychologist when she moved up into the 4* levels. The big jumps aren't called 'rider frighteners' for nothing. Plus we all know that accidents can happen on even the most docile of happy hacks, so to some extent it's perfectly rational to be nervous whenever you ride at all.
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Agree with this, and yep - that's true! She said that even now she struggles before big ODEs and has to take her mind off of things beforehand.

Getting confident is really about just getting on with things, even if you're worried. The more you do it, the more normal it will become.

Maybe have a week of just doing a few little jumps every day.

Confidence with come once you believe in your ability.
 
Is your instructor maybe pushing you to jump too high too soon? Tell them you are uncomfortable going over a certain height and work to build your confidence on the lower jumps. Another thing that can help is seeing someone else riding and jumping your horse.
 
I'd agree. Of course you want to make sure you're competent as I'm sure you can control your nerves better, but a lot of it is mental attitude once you get beyond the basic competence to do what you want to do. So I'd say it's a combination of making sure you're improving your ability, practice within your comfort zone, a good instructor and a good horse and work on your mental attitude. I haven't cracked it yet, but my recent attempt is using rescue remedy which did seem to help, although whether that was placebo or not, I'm not sure! I've also done confidence clinics, intelligent horsemanship lessons, which did work for specific issues.
 
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