Do you ever lose the "holy s*** that's huge" feeling?!

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Olliepop

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I've just done my first BE80 course and I had a look at the BE 90, 100 and Novice fences on my course walk. All I could think was omg that's enormous!! I even thought that about some of the 80 fences to be honest. How can you get rid of that feeling and be brave and try it? Is it just doing more and more at a level until it seems small and you feel ready to tackle higher fences. Tbh I can't see hoiw I'd ever jump Novice fences. And things like the Cottesmore Leap - well that's just bonkers!
 
No, you don't... but with practice, the jumps you think look huge get bigger. Lots and lots of repetition, with a good instructor who will push you out of your comfort zone slightly but not overface you.

If you think a fence you're jumping looks huge on the course walk, take a look at the next level(s) up, then back at yours. It always seems smaller then :D
 
Yes, but if you don't do it for a while it will come back.

I didn't used to think about anything up to 1.20m course wise and would quite happily go out an jump anything on an XC course, on the right horse. Now I look at a fence that's 1m and worry!
 
You do, but only by doing it regularly and having the confidence that you and your horse can jump this safely. Jumping 60 cm on a green baby is considerably more scary than a 110 on an experienced horse.

Sadly (for me anyway), as soon as you stop at that height...you have to rebuild the confidence again from scratch!
 
Eventually. Then you move up a level and it all looks big and scary again. ;)

I tend to stick at a level until I'm comfortable - I jumped discovery for a good year before moving up to 1.05m whereas I've been jumping 1.05m for about 3 months and I'm already thinking about making the move up to newcomers.

As for being brave - sometimes you just have to go for it. You can always pull up.
 
Luci07 said:
You do, but only by doing it regularly and having the confidence that you and your horse can jump this safely. Jumping 60 cm on a green baby is considerably more scary than a 110 on an experienced horse.

Sadly (for me anyway), as soon as you stop at that height...you have to rebuild the confidence again from scratch!
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^^ this for me too :o

I used to continue at a level until it got a bit boring, and then I'd know we were ready to move up :)
 
Breaking through the barrier the first time is the hardest. Once you've done "the impossible", you can do more things that seem impossible. Of course the level above looks huge if you're not used to it - you wouldn't be ready to jump it! It was your first 80 - well done! Once you've done some more, it won't look as big. Your comfort zone will change as you gain experience and confidence.

This time two years ago, I did my first CIC* and I honestly thought that someone was going to come up to me, drag me off my horse, tell me that CIC* wasn't for people like me, and I should just go home. But I did it, I did what was impossible.... And now impossible things don't look so impossible any more.
 
I think that all the time. Even putting up fences at home I think that. At shows they look even more ginormous with fillers ect. Then I jump round and my horse skips over them and afterwards I think they look too small! To be fair last year when I was out jumping regularly 95cm started looking (and feeling) small and 1m was doable. Now I've had a break with my 2nd child I'll be back thinking 80cm looks big which is a shame but hopefully that won't last.
 
Luci07 said:
You do, but only by doing it regularly and having the confidence that you and your horse can jump this safely. Jumping 60 cm on a green baby is considerably more scary than a 110 on an experienced horse.

Sadly (for me anyway), as soon as you stop at that height...you have to rebuild the confidence again from scratch!
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Yep - same for me! I thought 90 was huge when I first started, I'm now at 100 and eyeing up the novice courses thinking that doesn't look so bad. But I am regularly jumping my mare at 1m-1.15.
 
hah you think you have problems I used to love showjumping (sorry never had much nerve for cross country) but now I nearly have a heart attack at a small cross pole - sorry not much help I know.... I have even thought of hypnotherapy.....!!!
Olliepop said:
I've just done my first BE80 course and I had a look at the BE 90, 100 and Novice fences on my course walk. All I could think was omg that's enormous!! I even thought that about some of the 80 fences to be honest. How can you get rid of that feeling and be brave and try it? Is it just doing more and more at a level until it seems small and you feel ready to tackle higher fences. Tbh I can't see hoiw I'd ever jump Novice fences. And things like the Cottesmore Leap - well that's just bonkers!
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Yep, I used to walk all my friends XC courses with her, starting from Novice and over the course of a few years, it was worrying when we were going round the 2* ones and I was thinking, 'yeah, this looks ok'.

Except if you put me on a horse to do it, then I'd need the brown jodphurs on :D
 
same here, when we go schooling I look down at them from the horse and generally just pop them, then find out afterwards they are pre novice fences!

but on a 80-90cm course walk i start to freak out a bit, when i get up close.

my method is not to stand to close to them and try to imagine how they look from on the horse...lol

crystalclear said:
I always think they look bigger on foot, wish you could course walk on horse back :)
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I always think about the fact that the horse does not know the height and does not have a tape measure!��
 
I used to be brave, then I broke my leg, then I broke my arm and owned a 'stopper' for 5 years now anything over 75cm looks huge. And it makes me so sad that one horse has put me in that position. I hope one day when I can afford to buy another horse that I will find one that fills me with confidence and makes it seem easy again, but until then I'm the nervous nelly I never wanted to be!
 
I'm not sure it ever really goes, your comfort zone just shifts! it can change by horse too, on my little cob everything bar the ridiculous feels achievable, yet I was a wobbly mess walking the course for my 4yo's first spin round the 1ft9!

Girl Racer - I can so relate to your position, but do remember that as easy as it is for one horse to take all that confidence away, it can so easily be re-built by one horse too!
 
It never goes. Just the size of the jumps that make you feel that way change!

1ft cross poles two years ago may as well have been 1.20. Earlier this year, 50cm was too big, but now I am jumping 70cm with moderate comfort.

80 looks huge to me still. But I hope to do my first BE80 next season, so I hope I get used to it quick! I won't feel like such a ninny if I can say an 80 looks ok, but 90 is still too big :)
 
Girlracer said:
I used to be brave, then I broke my leg, then I broke my arm and owned a 'stopper' for 5 years now anything over 75cm looks huge. And it makes me so sad that one horse has put me in that position. I hope one day when I can afford to buy another horse that I will find one that fills me with confidence and makes it seem easy again, but until then I'm the nervous nelly I never wanted to be!
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Sorry to hear this, I thought you were making progress with King? Once you find the right horse, you will get it back.

Having found B, he is slowly giving back what my last horse took away. If I can do it, you certainly can.
 
I think it all depends on the horse you're on as to how big jumps look. I used to do tp to CIC* no problem with my now-retired horse, sure it felt massive whenever I moved up a level but your horse gives you the confidence to jump them. I actually found I rode better when faced with something decent. I've only just started introducing my new mare to BE80's and at her last event I thought some looked big - not big in general, but big for us as a combination. The more you jump at the level though, the more confident you get and then you get a bit bored with it and want more of a challenge which is when you move up.

I also find its good not to daudle when walking the XC course, I just keep walking because if I stand and really look at a fence then I start to think its huge.
 
Embo said:
Sorry to hear this, I thought you were making progress with King? Once you find the right horse, you will get it back.

Having found B, he is slowly giving back what my last horse took away. If I can do it, you certainly can.
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Thanks, yes I certainly have made progress, and I will jump round an 80 now relatively happily - in fact I did an 85cm SJ round the other week, and it didn't even look big :D. However his owners have had to sell him and I'm not in a position to buy, so un-fortunately that's the end of that. That's twice in the last year, as I had another really wonderful mare on loan last summer who's owner had to sell not too long after I had her. It's one of those things, but sometimes you just feel frustrated by it all. But I will keep working hard and maybe I'll be able to buy my own in a few years time :)
 
I would have said 'NO', except that an Olympic rider i had some lessons from said YES (i.e he wasn't bothered by the height of the jumps).

Agree with other posts though that you do get used to a height and then it is just the higher classes that look 'huge'. You'll probably find that once you've done a season or two at one height, you start to think 'well, I can do this okay, I'm sure I could do part of the 90cm course. So then one day you get up courage (or have a mad moment) and go to a training course and put your name down for the 90cm, then find that yes you can do that height and it wasn't so bad. Then in another season or so you think 'well, some of the 1m jumps look quite inviting .... ditto..... 'some of the 1m 10 jumps look quite inviting' .... ditto.... and before you know it you horse is leaping enormous monstrosities, while you close your eyes and hang on tight, wishing that you had entered the lower class after all.

But then, all us horse riders are mad anyway, or we would stay in a nice comfortable (cheap to keep) armchair, and I have a theory that lots of butterflies in your stomach help the horse to jump higher?????? :)
NB: on a more serious note, one of the top riders (I think it might have been andrew nicholson??? but my memory is old) recommends popping over a jump or two each day to keep your hand in and make it less scarey.
 
I used to think BE90 was huge and anything bigger was just out of the question. Then finally BE90 started to look easy so we did BE100. This year BE100 finally started to look easy so we're kind of considering a Novice although they still look pretty massive. Same with SJ - I started with British Novice 2yrs ago which was scary enough. Now doing 1.05m and contemplating Newcomers.
 
It also depends on the horse, as a previous poster says. If you know your horse is capable of more than you are asking, and you trust them to jump, then it gives you a huge boost of confidence

If you are not sure that the horse knows what it is doing , or that it might stop, then it can make the smallest fence look like the Great Wall of China
 
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