they're so big and scary!

[amadeorider]

they are!
i really want to jump and be a 3day eventer but when it comes to it, i am soo scared! how comes none of you get scared? i always think that the horse is going to stop and i'l fall off, or my horse will get hurt. i wish i wasnt scared. is there any way of over coming this? for my horses sake?

[Maria]

I get scared sometimes. I think there are very few riders that don't.

At one point I was on the verge of giving up riding but I found a really good instructor and he helped me to get to the point where I was happily jumping courses between 2 ft and 2 ft 6 on my mare. And you need to be fairly confident on her as she can go from bowling along at speed to stopping very quickly if she is worried.

If you have lessons, talk to your instructor and see if they can work out a plan with you to build up your confidence. They'll probably break it down in to small achievable chunks to help you build your confidence.

[kedwards]

Everyone gets scared at some point. The best you can do is prepare yourself and your horse properly, hope for the best, and respond "as though" you aren't scared. Stick with things that are within your boundary of relative confidence, and plan to move up only when you can convincingly say, "that looks like fun!"

[lynz+ollie]

pippa funnel is known for her nearves b4 xc! she always say she just has think about anything but negative thoughts,

before her second round xc at badminton this year she was thinking about the christmas pressies she was gunna buy!
and it took her mind off it and u see how confidently she went round even if it didn''t end that well!

[Nikita88]

Oh my gosh yea i get nervous doing them sometimes with my horse Nikita. Horses are smarter then we think, my lesson teacher always told me horses can tell when your nervous and when your loosing your balance. If your horse is anything like Nikita, your horse will not go over the jump if they feel your not ready for it. For example today was my first time going over a 3'0 jump, and i was soo nervous but i was cantering up to it and i was starting to loose my balance i was so nervous and nikita just ran around it....i woulda probably fallen off if she took the jump. So if you have trust in your horse (sounds corny i know! lol) you can do it!!! Its always that first time to get over a jump. Try getting 2 barrels and tip them on their side and set 2 poles so they make an X...its a nice small jump, you'll do great! on my website (listed at the bottom) i have a picture of me and my horse going over a cross rail that i just explained and you will see how small it is.

Just get yourself over the first time, trust your horse! Your horse will never do anything to put you in danger!!! they are smart.
If you dont like it, thats alright...If you fall thats okay too i've fallen lots of time(infact i just fell today going over a jump thats 2'0) , just get back up and do it again! eventually you will love it!!

Good luck, you'll do fine :)

*Jen*

[starlight-horse]

hi i need to say u are goin to be able to do it coz other wise the horse knows ** nervos so he/she will not move i know what u mean coz it happend to me when it was my frist time i couldnt wait but when it come to getting on the horse i was so scared but then i said to myself im goin to do this and i keep saying it in my head and i love it now its so fun i do it again and again just remamber say to urself u will do it u wiill go far belive me go for it girl now i love it so most im in show jumping compition have fuunx

[Secret Smiley]

Hi,

Feel free to debate me on this but, i think that sometime doing something on horseback can actually be LESS frightening than to watch and imagine doing.
Some of the things my horse does and the things i have experienced on him are downright scary, but i feel that had i seen them from the ground they would have appeared much more daunting.

Jumping is about taking educated risks, infact you could almost say the same for horses and life in general. Sure the higher you jump, the nastier the fall, but if you go clear the sense of achieivement is overwhelming

[Esther.D]

but i feel that had i seen them from the ground they would have appeared much more daunting.


I lost far more nerve watching Stephen get thrown badly than I have ever done when I got thrown myself....

[NuttyMare]

http://www.confident-rider.co.uk

[Tor&Warrior]

I'm a permanent bag of nerves when riding. I find the most ridiculously stupid thing to wind myself up about. It drives me mad because I know my nerves hold me back so much and I know I could be doing so much more, because I was before I lost it! So don't worry your not alone.

I've found the confident rider CD's have really really helped.

And setting yourself really small, easy goals and making a big thing of achieveing them.

When I first lost it completley I was so fixed on trying to do what I used to do a couple of years previous (I was competing at 3ftft and winning in SJ & XC on youngsters, would ride anything, hack anywhere on anything and never ever got nervous) but then I couldn't jump anything, wouldn't even do trot poles, wouldn't hack out, wouldn't even ride novice rides!
But I was trying to do things to quick, I expected to be jumping 3ft straight away when I couldn't even do a pole and hack out my idiot TB when I wouldn't even ride him in the school.

I spent months going nowhere. It wasn't till I realised how important the tiny little things were that we made progress. Within a couple of weeks I went from jumping nothing to jumping 2ft6 easy and it was because I started with the jump about an inch high and just jumped it again and again until it wasn't an issue.

Set yourself realistic goals and only do what you feel totally happy with. oncentrate on what you do well and enjoy and feel comfident doing and not of the things that make you nervous otherwise they will take over and make riding no fun at all!


I lost far more nerve watching Stephen get thrown badly than I have ever done when I got thrown myself....

This is so true! I have been thrown so many times its ridiculous and I have broken, sprained, ripped, dislocated, smashed, bruised (you get the picture) more parts of me than I ever care to remember and although it was slowly over the years starting to make me a little nervous and slightly more careful about who I sat on and what we jumped it was my friend being killed jumping that really did it. I was nervous before but I would still do it. I have never jumped propally since then. Jumpings never been the same since.

[Waltzin]

i laways get really nervous walking the course, and think that all the fences are massive or way too technical, but once i'm riding i try to concenrate really hard, so I forget to be nervous:cool: I think you have to build up gradually so as not to knock your confidence, but as others have said, nerves are to some extent a part of riding and the example of pippa funel that "lynz + ollie" gavereally illustrates this .