Confidence building/mindset coaching?

AthenesOwl

AthenesOwl

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I wonder if anyone has any recommendations for someone decent who does equestrian confidence/mindset coaching online. I'm having a bit of a wobble, and I don't want it to get any worse. This is after I rebuilt my confidence following a nasty fall at the start of the year.

I've had my horse just over a year, and today I fell off him for the fourth time. One fall was entirely my fault, when I was unbalanced when we landed after a jump, but the other three times it's been when he's spooked at something stupid and taken off with me. Twice, this happened in the school and today for the first time my coach/YO saw it happen. He's been a bit spooky in one corner of the arena, where there was sharp contrast between light/dark shadows, but when one of the ponies in the next door field wandered into view, he was off. Turned sharply and I couldn't stop him, despite all efforts. YO's son, who is an eventer, got on and rode him until he stopped being daft, and then I got back on and rode again, which was OK. My instructor thinks that it was a combination of being ridden less because it's winter, having been clipped, less turnout (he's now in overnight) and today being really cold, on top of his generally sharp and spooky nature. All of which is probably right, and it wasn't anything particular that I did. But that makes it harder because I can't really control any of those things.

I'm now feeling anxious about getting on again, although also pretty annoyed at him, because I thought that he was getting much better as he hadn't done this for several months. On Saturday, I was schooling him and by the end, doing leg yielding/changes of rein on a really long rein, with only my seat/leg aids, because he felt so chilled and listening to me, and today, this nonsense. He didn't even have the decency to come over and check if I was alright on the floor!

He's a 17.1hh ISH, with quite a turn of speed, so it's a long way to the ground. I keep hitting it fast and I'm getting fed up. I'm generally reasonably good at just taking myself in hand and JFDI if I'm anxious about something (eg I hadn't hacked for about 4 months after my first fall, then decided one day I was sick of not hacking, and just went out for 10 minutes and did it), but my determination and confidence is starting to wane. This is on top of a general crisis of confidence in my riding skills, which I think is for no reason other than continuing to come last every time we do a dressage test, and me being menopausal.

I want to be able to trust him, but I'm not sure I can at the moment, and I don't know how to get past this. I'd love to go out and ride on a local beach, but I'm too nervous, and although we have great hacking through fields where the livery yard is, I generally stick to walk and trot in case he takes off, which he has form for. I did stay on despite him heading downhill at an alarming speed and having only one stirrup though, which seemed like a win at the time. I'd love to go on a fun ride with him, or out with the local "clean boot" hunt, but that seems a million miles away at the moment.

Any advice for building my confidence? And I'm very keen for online confidence/mindset coaching recommendations. There seem to be quite a number of people out there who do this, but I don't want to spend money unless it's with someone decent. Thanks!
 
A confidence coach is a brilliant thing if you had a freak accident, or lost confidence on a horse who was unwell/too much for you and now need to ride something else/your fixed horse.

Gaining your confidence back on a horse who is, at times, outside of your ability to ride safely, involves first fixing the problem. That could be a you issue - improving your skills so you don’t come off and can stop. It could also be a horse issue - training, changing their environment/exercise etc. Once you have a horse who is no longer ditching you (or threatening to do so), the confidence coach can help.

Example: my daughter had a wobble last summer. Everything she sat on seemed to run off with her. I took her out on her own and we spent time analysing her riding and what she was doing to cause the issue. It was a combination of things - we fixed it, life went back to normal. Now if her overly enthusiastic sports pony whooshes to the front, I hear her crossly telling her off while stopping her. No fear because she has the skills she needs. Equally, one of the others spooks sideways and she kept tipping off. We discussed stirrup, leg and foot position and I showed her what I do on my spooky mare to stay attached - improvement in staying on occurred, confidence went up. Now, if she comes off I ask, ‘Did you….?’ She can always tell me where she messed up. So again no fear because she understands.

What has your instructor said about helping you?
 
I am sorry you are going through this AO, but well done you for identifying the collection of triggers - your hormones are wonky, you have a new, very large and quite sharp horse and you are not surprisingly feeling out of your depth a tad. JFDI is an useful technique , ( I recently learnt that the legend WFP uses it!) but it has its limits.

I do agree with Maya that you need help with improvng your skills and relationship with your horse, because otherwise no amount of confidence coaching can help. I think the fact that you are cross with him points to cracks in your relationship ( totally understandable) and that needs repairing.

I know groundwork is a buzz word, but if you can, find a non wishy-washy horsemanship trainer, whose aim is to get you riding, not spent years wandering around an arena on the ground.

My daughter has had problems with her mare, and had got to the point where she was avoiding riding her. We were recommended a trainer who has helped her re-build their relationship on the ground and in the saddle, which has had massive positive impact on the horses behaviour( the trust goes both both ways so she feels safer and has less tension so is less explosive).

My daughter has more skills to deal with her, and therefore her confidence has increased. Before this she had listend to ENDLESS mind set podcasts, hypnothereapy, meditations etc - all utterly ineffective when the horse is a ball of nervous tension as well, and reacts beyond the riders current skill set.
 
These are very good points, all the confidence in the world won’t help if nothing else changes.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty downhearted, thinking how hard it would be to trust him again because it had been an unpredictable incident. But actually, it wasn’t. He’d been spooking a bit at that bit of the school since we started working, I just hadn’t dealt with it very well. So that’s one thing to change. He’s also doing less work at the moment, because for a while I was managing to ride one night a week after work, which has stopped since the nights have drawn in. My yard owner/coach was also riding him for me once a week, which has also stopped.

I’ve been able to come back from similar setbacks with him before, so I’m sure we can again. I didn’t have a chance to discuss with my YO as she had to head off for something else, but I’ll catch her later for a proper chat. One thing we did briefly discuss is having her son school him for me one or two days a week, which I think will be helpful.

Some of my confidence blip is also definitely related to other things, like work and hormones. Hormones are hormones, but I have a meeting with my boss tomorrow about work. Not sure much will change, but at least I might get some stuff off my chest. I’ve generally not had a lot of confidence in my rising recently, even before yesterday, so perhaps my horse has been picking up on this?

I do generally have a lovely relationship with my horse on the ground, where he’s a bit of a poppet who never puts a foot wrong. He’s very tolerant, friendly and pretty chilled.
 
Absolutely never any shame in accepting help from other people riding your horse. Even if it is to just give yourself some breathing space and headroom. I have found it a benefit in visualisation of seeing the horse do the thing you are struggling with. It sounds like the yard owners son is ideal to help you both tick over during winter. I think you'd be surprised what a difference you'd find in one or two rides a week.

Working on yourself and getting help is hard work but it's great to feel like you want to work on the issue. One thing I would say-after a variety of therapy and counselling, don't worry if you don't feel like the person is a good match for you. You've got to gel and sometimes you need to try one or two people or techniques to find what works best for you.

My top tips for distracting yourself to help prevent you feeling tense are:
1. Chatting to a friend whilst you are riding, doesn't need to be about riding! My back up plan for this if noone is about is to tell the horse every minute about your day from the moment you woke up, or pick a playlist to play music from your phone you can sing along to.
2. Set up some poles, it's something to aim for and focus on riding towards rather than riding past.

Good luck! Just remember to be kind to yourself if you are having a bad day ❤️
 
Thank you, @HopefullyRiding, your post was very timely and reassured me that it’s ok to ask someone else to ride him for me. I had been using that need as a bit of a stick to beat myself with. It hasn’t helped that I’ve not been having the best time at work recently.

My horse isn’t the easiest, and having someone else ride him too will be good for us both. My YO’s son will be a great person to do this, as he’s previously worked with a pro-eventer and is used to riding big sports horses.

I rode today for the first time after coming off, and it actually went really well. On my YO’s advice, I lunged him first, but I felt much better than I expected once I was on. I embraced my JFDI approach, which stood me in good stead. I had also reminded myself that when I had felt really nervous at a dressage day camp recently, getting on board and riding had actually made me feel calmer and come in control of my nerves.
 
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