Part 1: Losing Confidence

Hello, and welcome back to the blog. Today, I am sharing the first of a six blog post series called ‘The Confident Rider’. In today’s post, I am discussing some causes for riders to have confidence knocks and how this topic came to be important to me at this time. I will also relate these to my own experiences.

It all started with a podcast, the ‘That’s Lame’ podcast by Joanna Thurman-Baker and Evelina Shrieve. They were speaking to a lady called Jackie McCormick who is a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist specialising in the Equestrian Mindset.

The first thing that caught my attention was when she was talking about two parts of the brain; the Amygdala- the part of the brain which deals with emotions (the emotional brain) and the Pre-Frontal Cortex- the part of the brain which controls intellect, decision making and stress controllability (the ‘boss brain’). I realised that throughout the entire year of 2023, I have been living in my emotional brain and my ‘cortisol tap’ has been running consistently (with varying intensities). I’ve felt emotionally reactive and unable to make informed decisions which has been so frustrating and debilitating at times; this would be why. Mind. Blown.

I then also started to think about where I’m at with horses. I have blocked out, I guess, how I have been feeling so it wasn’t until I sat down and seriously considered it, that I realised I’ve lost my nerve, my bottle, my confidence. Why? Good question.

Thinking back to this year, I have looked for excuses not to ride, especially the trickier horses at the yard. I’ve fought off nerves whenever I have ridden them. I’ve had a fall. I’ve also had a very stressful year personally. It’s no wonder I’ve not got much left over actually.

It got me thinking about some reasons why riders have confidence knocks in the first place. These are by no means the only reasons but they are the top reasons that I came up with due to my own experience. If you have other reasons, be sure to leave them in the comments below.

1. Your pre-dispositions and riding history

Your personality and the riding experience you have had so far can have a huge influence on your rider confidence. For example, if you are a naturally anxious person, then this will be more likely to weave its way into your riding. On the other hand, you could be a confident, non-anxious person and perhaps an experience in the past stripped you of your confidence, causing a knock. When considering this, consider how you are in your daily life. How do you deal with difficult situations? How do you overcome challenges? Are you already quite emotionally reactive? Have you had any falls or ‘scary’ riding experiences that could have created new neural pathways affecting your confidence? Are there certain situations, people or horses that peak your worries?

For me, I have always been an overthinker and struggled with anxious tendencies. This has definitely gotten worse as I have gotten older. Due to this being something that I am always trying to manage anyway in my daily life, it’s no surprise that it makes its way into my riding.

In respect to experiences, when I was 12 years old, I got my first horse; Laurie. She was in really bad shape when we got her and when she was better, she was a handful. She stripped every bit of confidence I had and it took years and years for me to start to feel more confident again. Even before her, I don’t think I was a super confident rider and often suffered from self-doubt in my ability, but she certainly didn’t help in that regard ( I did my first flying change and extended trot on her though at 12 years old, so that’s something). I also struggled with performance anxiety where I would often ride alone so no one could watch me and go back to walk if someone came to the arena.

So both my nature and my experience as a child still have major influences on my current confidence levels. When I first moved to Australia, I obviously hadn’t bought a horse yet so I found the place where I keep my horse now and started riding other people’s horses. In time, I grew in confidence. I never felt 100% confident but I felt I could ride and I wasn’t shaking like a leaf. Then, I got a young horse, stopped riding, started a really stressful job, sold the youngster, got a thoroughbred, continued in the stressful job, rode inconsistently, dealt with vet issues, stopped riding completely due to vet issues and here we are.

2. Unpredictable horses

A second reason for having a confidence knock is due to unpredictable horses. Now, I’m sure you know that all horses have an element of unpredictability due to their being fight or flight prey animals. However, some horses, due to their own experiences, do have more unpredictability. Not knowing what they are going to do or how far they will go is a scary feeling and it is absolutely enough to knock your confidence. Even more so, if the horse is inconsistent with their reactions and you really can’t work out how they will respond or where their buttons are.

I have ridden almost all the ‘tricky’ horses at my yard and done bits and pieces of training with each of them but there are certain horses that I will come up with lots of excuses not to ride now. One mare has a really bad buck if she is pushed too far and she is the most sensitive horse I have ever met. I’ve ridden her and worked her out a bit but it’s always in my head that she is unpredictable and I never know how she will react on a given day. There was one day when I was riding her around and she flicked a bit of sand on the bars of the round pen and she shot forward. Then, there was the time I gave too much leg and she shot backwards. Both of these gave me a fright and set my teeth on edge because the events which caused the behaviour were so miniscule that I became afraid to make a tiny mistake or to even move in the saddle for fear of that deadly buck. In addition, she threw a man off a couple weeks ago with her bucks. Not ideal. He is fine, luckily.

3. Inconsistent training

If you do anything inconsistently in life, you often feel like you are not as good as perhaps you used to be or as good as you could be. Or, you can often feel a little nervous about doing the thing again, just because you’re out of the swing of things.

This is the same with riding; the more inconsistent you are, the more likely you are to have a confidence drop. For some people it might only be temporary and then they are back to where they want to be again, for others, it drags on and on.

I was laughing on the phone to my friend a while back because I was telling her about the informal instructing I do at the yard I am at. I was telling her ‘I know all the theory and how things should look and feel but I genuinely feel like I couldn’t do half the stuff I am asking my students to do, I reckon I could barely sit a canter let alone ride without stirrups or make it over a cross pole!’

I have ridden inconsistently for the past I don’t even know how long! Between university and weather and Bo getting older back home, a move to Australia, a young horse I couldn’t ride yet, a busy work life…. the list goes on, it is often quite a struggle to squeeze in a couple of rides a week.

This inconsistency for me has led to me starting to question my ability. As a result, this leans into the performance anxiety I get and is coupled with the fact that I have the assumption that my students think I am a really good rider, because I know the theory yet I myself feel I am not that good. Resulting in self-doubt, resulting in low self-esteem and confidence.

4. Lack of trust

Your confidence can be low if you have a lack of trust in your horse. This might be because they are new to you and you haven’t had too long to get to know them, it could be because they have done something which makes you trust them less (rearing, bucking, bolting, refusing a jump etc) or it could be that you just haven’t taken the time to get to know your horse.

I have only owned Harry for 8 months and I feel like I have gotten to know him on the ground reasonably well but because my riding has been so inconsistent, I don’t feel I know all his buttons and sometimes I wonder if he will get spicy (he’s a big horse and it’s not so fun if a 16.3hh thoroughbred decides to mess around!). It’s definitely something that contributes to my confidence but not the biggest factor in my case.

5. Your personal situation

Horses are sensitive and intuitive beings. When you don’t feel your best, your horse can feel that and they will then feel the need to worry too, though they don’t know what they’re worrying about. That’s why people always say ‘if you’re nervous you’ll make your horse nervous” which I agree to be true but also very unhelpful. You will then try not to be nervous which will make you more nervous and then an association is created; riding = nervousness.

I find in life it is helpful to compartmentalise. Work stays at work, home stays at home. It’s easier said than done and often one bleeds into the other which can’t always be helped. I think it’s important with your horse too. If you bring the stress from that email, the overwhelm from your to do list or whatever it is to your horse, they will likely react and perhaps not favourably, potentially causing knocks in trust and confidence.

Overall, I think this post is my way of saying that confidence knocks are normal, unavoidable and something that can be overcome. I hope this provided a candid insight into a regular equestrian’s life. Additionally, I hope this can be taken as a first step to reflect and consider where you are in your own journey.

In the next post I’ll discuss some steps you can take to slowly re-build your confidence looking at topics such visualisation, relationship building and riding rituals.

Happy Horsing!