My friend has lost her nerve!

[Nellycob]

I have a friend who is a good rider but has gradually started to lose her nerve jumping. She is now at the stage where she will just ride down to the first fence panic and retire. Her horse is super and it doesn't seem to matter about the height, Ive seen her pull out of a cross pole!! This is a girl who has jumped for her country at amateur level. I noticed her starting to pull out more often a couple of years ago but she is paralyzed by it now. Has this happened to anyone before? Would a sport psychologist help?

 

[sally87]

is she bothered by it? it doesnt matter how good she is if she is happier not jumping & sticking to flatwork/ hacking then there is no problem. if however she wants to be able to jump but the nerves are stopping her then something needs to be done. i dont know anything about sports psychologists but what i have found out from my own experience recently the only way to get over a fear is to face it.

this needs doing on a graded approach & so needs to start with the basics i.e. just walking over poles (i am assuming from your post that she has confidence with flatwork & is happy until there is a jump involved). this may be difficult for her or it may be easy depending on how deep the phobia is. if it is difficult & causes panic then she needs to keep trying until she has done it. this may need someone to lead her over the pole or maybe following another horse over the pole. once she can do this then she needs to do it on her own. then in trot, then canter. next raise the jump to a few inches off the floor (tiny so the horse wont jump it, but raised so your friend sees it as a "jump"). slowly build the jump up until it becomes what most people would consider a jump.

it is vital that you do not introduce a new challenge until your friend has accomplished the last one without panic. this means it may take a long time. it may be weeks before your friend is ready to tackle an actual jump, or you may get there in one session. each session start with a pole on the floor & go on from there. go slowly & let the pace be decided by your friend's reactions. if the nerves are bad but your friend really does want to get over them then gentle encouragement is necessary. Encourage your friend to try the next step but dont push her too quickly.

Everytime something goes wrong it will knock her confidence. unfortunatly with horses & jumping you can never be certain that something wont go wrong but you need to take precautions to make sure the chance is minimal. you said the horse is super but does this mean super talented or super well behaved. to build up confidence you dont need a BSJA showjumper, you need a horse that will (as close to as possible) certainly go over the jump in a predictable way, with no surprises. once your friend has more confidence then she will be able to jump more difficult horses & this will be a challenge for later but to begin with stick with safe horse.

hope this is useful & makes sense! good luck to you & your friend. it is difficult to overcome fear but the more times your friend does it the less the anxiety will be there & eventually she will be able to jump with no more nerves than is normal. however it means pushing through the panic so it requires determination from your friend to get over the nerves to be able to jump again.

Sally

 

[NELSON11]

I have felt like that, had a really nasty accident 6 or so years ago and suffered severe back injuries in a fall.

I never thought my nerve had gone until I thought about jumping again. But it had. For someone who used to compete reguarly I fell apart at the thought of a cross pole. Not frightened of doing it, but falling off and damaging my back again.

Anyway my friend is helping me restore things on her lovely sensible warmblood. We are starting slowly and building up and I really hope my nerve returns.

 

[Teasel]

Hello, I've had this problem, although never jumped at the levels it sounds like your friend used to!

I totally lost my nerve after seeing someone killed in a jumping accident. For a year I struggled on attempting to get my confidence back by starting small and slowly building up, but my nerves just kept coming back, and I was honestly petrified of even walking over a pole on the ground.

After a chat with a friend of mine about our fears (hers was none horse related, and was to do with driving following a nasty car accident) we made a pact and both went to see a councillor in an attempt to resolve our issues. The one I saw was not a sports psychologist as such, but had dealt with post traumatic stress cases (which I suspect I had a touch of after witnessing the jumping accident). I went to about 10 sessions, which were excellent, and got me exploring why I was scared of jumping, the pressures I put myself under etc etc. and these sessions coupled with confidence building lessons at a very slow pace with a sympathetic instructor have got me jumping again.

I wouldn't say I was fixed - but I can now handle my nerves and have a 'tool box' of ways to cope. I managed to jump a course of 2'6" fences this summer - a major break through!

The important thing is whether your friend wants to resolve her issues (as someone has said above). If she is happy just doing flat work then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If her fear is stopping her from doing something she really wants to then she (like me) may need a little more help from a professional to get to the root of her fear and to learn how to cope.

Best wishes to her whatever she decides to do!

 

[Birker2020]

I have felt like that, had a really nasty accident 6 or so years ago and suffered severe back injuries in a fall.

I never thought my nerve had gone until I thought about jumping again. But it had. For someone who used to compete reguarly I fell apart at the thought of a cross pole. Not frightened of doing it, but falling off and damaging my back again.

Anyway my friend is helping me restore things on her lovely sensible warmblood. We are starting slowly and building up and I really hope my nerve returns.

I worry that if I fall off I will be in agony as I have a slipped disc like Nelson 11 but I realise that I might also fall off and it won't hurt as much as I think it will or hopefully I might not fall off at all. Its my horse that Nelson 11 is jumping at the moment and whilst he is very safe jumping poles when it comes to fillers he is very spooky and has in the past run out thus causing me to fall and injure my back. I went for cognitive therapy with a hypnotist approved by the hypnotists regulatory body and found it helped me considerably. I have also spent months and months getting my confidence back starting by jumping small fences and gradually exposing myself to larger fences at home. I have also done loads of grid work which has helped with my balance and confidence. I have been to loads of different shows and jumped lots of tracks and feel much more confident than I did so that I am able to jump 2ft 9" without too much bother now.

It will come eventually, but small steps repeated often is the best way forwards. Then one day 2ft 3 will look really small to you, then a few weeks later 2ft 6" will look really small to you. It will happen but it takes time.

 

[Nellycob]

Thanks everyone for your advice and glad to hear some of you have managed to control the problem. Ill pass on all your advice. Her horse is very safe and talented so at least she has that to work from.