Horse Riding - Overcoming your fears
Did you always dream of owning your own horse? Now you have achieved it, has the reality become akin to a nightmare?
Have you always been around horses and full of confidence? But since you’ve had a fall or a fright or are responsible for your own children has that confidence disappeared?
Do you ride well at home or in a training session, but as soon as you go to a show and ride down the centre line it falls apart?
Do you forget your test or the course you should be jumping?
Are you worried about what other people think of your riding or your horse?
You come out of the arena and feel that you have let yourself or your horse down?
You would like to hack to the forest, or go to the beach, or join a pleasure ride but just can’t quite pluck up the courage to do it?
If any of these situations sound vaguely familiar, I can help you rebuild your confidence or overcome these obstacles your current thinking is unhelpfully creating.
With a little help, you can change the way you think so you can find the joy and passion for your hobby that you have either lost or didn’t materialise when you got into horses.
Here’s my riding back story.
This was the catalyst to become a coach and therapist.
I have ridden horses since I was young, I worked with them for five years when I left school. Those days were carefree and great fun despite the responsibility of looking after someone else’s pride and joy.
I had several years away from horses with little or no riding but came back to them nearly 20 years ago when I was fortunate to get my own horse for the first time. I discovered I wasn’t very brave anymore; and really, my horse, Jeremy wasn’t that suitable.
He was a retired eventer and I adored him and we became happy hackers – he was bombproof on the road and we had a lot of fun out and about in the forest, and on the beach. We did a bit of showing, low level dressage and some small one day events.
Jeremy loved to jump despite the odd aches and pains and, whilst in my heart I wanted to go back to those halcyon days when I would jump a 5ft hedge, my head always got in the way – negotiating a twig on the ground was now an issue time after time. The last time I jumped Jeremy I got it wrong at the first part of a cross country treble – he had been trained to never stop and he carried on through and I fell off... thus confirming the story I was telling myself about how rubbish I was!
We had another couple of years happy hacking, and he had a short retirement before arthritis got the better of him and I was heartbroken.
I then found another totally unsuitable boy Tiggy who is so handsome (and knows it) and so cheeky with it. He’s pretty sharp yet afraid of his own shadow. Tiggy needed a leader from the start to give him confidence which I wasn’t so we regularly got in a muddle together. For the first three years we worked on flatwork and started competing at dressage – with limited success, and to be honest I spent quite a lot of time terrified of him when I was on his back, but loved him to bits when I was on the ground and in the stable with him.
There were many times I thought I would have to sell him. I went to a show jumping trainer Lorraine Buchan to do pole work to help his canter for dressage, but really in my heart of hearts I wanted to jump. I was turning up for lessons in a dressage saddle and she kept saying come jumping, she was so adamant that I should that she even loaned me a jumping saddle to get me off the ground.
We started very small and have progressed and Tiggy loves to jump, even though he’s probably not a natural. Unfortunately, Tiggy had some time off due to feet issues which have now been resolved, and in the meantime, I rode my husband Don’s old horse bought for him as a schoolmaster Czar, and whilst Czar did jump his heart wasn’t in it.
My aim when I started to jump was to compete over a 1m track. I’ve had some stops and starts with Tiggy and we went to a few competitions but I was so crippled with nerves and anxiety about competing and what other people would think that I never rode like I do at home or in training. I have all of the tools and I am more than capable, as is Tiggy, but I was constantly self-sabotaging.
Enter ‘A day to change your life with Ali Campbell’. From that moment I have worked with Ali on what started as riding issues but it became quickly apparent this was more than horse riding. It mostly centred around what I thought of myself as a person which wasn’t very much. At the heart of it all were issues about my identity, self-esteem, and the value I placed on my ability and capabilities.
I can confidently say I am in a different place now. I know that I am a work in progress but I feel better placed to enjoy and appreciate the next phase of my life without the need to criticise every single thing that I do. For the first time in my life, I have a sense of contentment and importantly authenticity. I feel very fortunate to have realised this because so many people never achieve that.
I am regularly jumping a meter in training with Tiggy and in July 2019 I bought a specialist jumping horse May who is educating me – we did our first 1m class in December.