Anyone who has ridden for any length of time would be dishonest if they told you they have never felt fear. If you have any common sense at all, you should have a certain level of “healthy fear” whenever you get on a new horse. Call it “respect” if you prefer, but there is always an awareness that the 1000-pounds or so of bone and muscle you are sitting on is, physically, more powerful than you are.

Horses can jump sideways in the blink of an eye, rear, buck, or reach speeds over 25 miles per hour in a matter of seconds. They are also capable of using that physical power to perform incredible athletic feats like jumping, dressage, cutting, or reining. Our desire to become partners with our horses in those athletic endeavors makes us willing to take the risk of being thrown off or finding ourselves on a panicked runaway.

A bad experience, usually something that could not have been avoided no matter what the rider did, can turn healthy respect to fear. Once a rider has been physically hurt in an accidentor even just really frightened it can take a while to rebuild confidence. The old rough-and-ready, cavalry-style philosophy promised that if you just got right back on again, everything would be fine. However, suppressing fear seldom works. Neither does it help to tell someone to “just get over it.”

Fear is usually related to the rider’s skill level. The best way to overcome riding fears is to work on developing a completely independent seat. An independent seat gives the rider the confidence the he or she has the ability to ride through just about anything the horse might do. Riders also need to develop habits that allow them to stay mentally and emotionally centered in a rhythmic and relaxed way when their horse becomes excited or frightened. One of the partners has to stay calm in order to bring the other back to that state.

It is hard to get past your fear when you work by yourself. Finding a competent instructor who acknowledges your confidence crisis without either belittling it or catering to it is important. You need someone who understands how to back up and find the point where you are comfortable riding and how to help you work forward again from that point in a logical progression to regain your confidence.

Having the right horse or horses available can also be critical when you are trying to rebuild confidence. People who are afraid of riding often have good reason to bethey may have realized that they are over mounted on their own horse. Trying to work through fear on the same animal that caused your fears can be very difficult. We are fortunate here at Meredith Manor to have the luxury of 130 to 150 horses to choose among when our instructors sit down to make weekly horse assignments for individual students. When we get a fearful student, we can put them on goldie oldie school horses that give them a lot of positive reinforcement and gradually rebuild their confidence by moving them onto horses that take greater skill.

Fear around horses is not limited to riding. Many people feel intimidated when they have to catch, lead or groom an unruly, ill-mannered horse. Even if they manage to dominate the horse using a chain lead shank or other artificial means, they may still have a queasy feeling because they know they are not really in charge of the situation. Here, again, a good instructor should be able to help a fearful student learn how to confidently and safely work around and re-school a spoiled horse with bad ground manners.

Training methods aimed at making the trainer “dominant” work only as long as nothing scarier or more dominant than the trainer is in the horse’s immediate environment. Handling techniques that depend on chain shanks or war bridles do not result in permanent changes in the horse’s attitude or true confidence on the part of his handler. We use a groundwork system we call “heeding” because it teaches the students to pay attention to their horses at all times and teaches the horse to pay attention to its handler at all times. Through consistent handling with rhythm and relaxation from the moment they enter a horse’s stall until they put him away, they learn how to develop a rapport with their horses. The goal is to make the horse feel like the trainer or rider is always the safest place to be whenever exciting or unusual things happen.

Learning how to approach and work with horses on the ground in a rhythmic and relaxed way not only keeps the horses calm, but also teaches the students how to relax and stay calm. Using rhythmic breathing and rhythmic movements while they groom or lead their horses becomes a habit they can carry into their riding. The habit of staying rhythmic with their breathing, their seat, or their reins when things start falling apart helps both rider and horse relax and become calm again more readily.

Every rider must eventually face fear and overcome it. Fear is not something to be ashamed of or to hide. When it happens to you, find an instructor with the right attitude, the right program of progressive skill training, and the right horses to get you back on track again.

1997-2004 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. All rights reserved. Instructor and trainer <a href="http://www.meredithmanor.com/about/staff.asp#ron"> Ron Meredith</a> has refined his "horse logical" methods for communicating with equines for over 30 years as president of <a href="http://www.meredithmanor.com/"> Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre</a>, an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.
Rt. 1 Box 66
Waverly, WV 26184
(800)679-2603

Developing an independent seat is absolutely essential if a rider aspires to the upper levels of any equestrian sport. An independent seat is wonderful to have, beautiful to see, but difficult to describe in words. A rider with an independent seat can move each body part independently. Each part of his or body is flexible enough and strong enough to do its job without any compensation in another part. He or she can balance perfectly over the horse’s center of gravity at any gait without any hint of gripping or tilting. She can shift her pelvis to half halt without tensing her shoulders or falling behind the vertical. He can shift his weight on his inside seat bone and bring his shoulder back to ask for a spin without collapsing a hip or grabbing with his legs.

An independent seat starts on the ground. If riders cannot independently control their body parts before getting in the saddle, there is not going to be a sudden transformation when their feet are in the stirrups. A rider whose balance on the ground is a bit shaky or who is physically unfit will not be able to achieve a completely independent seat once mounted. Activities that help develop both strength and balance such as skating, skiing, yoga, dance or martial arts can help riders cross train to achieve an independent seat for riding. Mounted riders can work without stirrups or reins on a longe line or in a jumping lane to achieve balance without gripping. The more control a rider develops over his or her own body movements, the more precisely he or she will be able to use body language to communicate with a horse whether on the ground or from the saddle.

Relaxation is absolutely key to development of an independent seat and relaxation, too, starts on the ground. Meredith Manor’s “heeding” system of groundwork teaches students to move with relaxation and rhythm so that their horses will move that way, too. Students learn that their body language communicates a huge vocabulary of nuances to their horses. This attitude of rhythm and relaxation and the understanding that even small movements can create huge responses in the horse also figure in the development of an independent seat when they carry them over from handling the horse from the ground to working with it under saddle. Starting out on reliable schoolmasters can help more timid riders relax as they develop balance and other skills on their way to achieving an independent seat.

The rider who is gripping with her thighs and knees and whose heels angle downward from a locked ankle may look like she has good form. She may even win ribbons. However, her stiff form blocks full communication with her horse. Her aids will be like cell phone static. They may be garbled. Worse still, the batteries may go dead and communication may stop altogether because the horse starts to ignore her constant aid pressures.

The rider with an independent seat is completely relaxed yet able to use any muscle independently of any other muscle at any time in order to use that muscle as an aid pressure whenever she wants. Her ankles, knees, hips, and elbows are relaxed, flexible, and soft. Her head and shoulders are loose, nodding almost imperceptibly at the top of her spinal column in rhythm to the horse’s gaits. There is no unproductive tension anywhere in her body. She is able to communicate with her horse with great nuance.

There is a mechanical level of understanding of horse communication that tells us what combinations of aids communicate what patterns to the horse when we ride. Riders need to comprehend this mechanical language but they also need to understand that it is like speaking only to their horses in the present tense. Communication may be clear but limited.

Developing an independent seat is like developing an understanding of more sophisticated verb forms. Now the rider can talk to the horse in the present tense, future tense, future perfect and so on. They can fine tune their performance by small degrees. Muscle memory develops over time so that the rider no longer even thinks about each mechanical aid sequence every time he or she asks the horse for a particular maneuver. Now they communicate so effortlessly that they appear to be of one mind. Both horse and rider have reached a level of athleticism that is a beautiful thing to see. This should be the ultimate goal of every serious rider.