Losing Confidence

So after my post about going out and having fun, I have been out bloodhounding more and more. It was going fab, G was absolutely flying up until last week.

We went out with The Farmers Bloodhounds, when they met at Harley Equestrian, Daventry. G was rather naughty, doing his usual trick of showing everyone else his belly 🤦🏻‍♀️ I decided that he probably wanted to let off some steam and pop some jumps, so followed the jumping field master and waited inline, I popped in behind one of the girls on the yard and fired at a “**** off” tiger-trap (Apologies for those of a delicate nature, but these were the words I have used to describe said jump 😂). We got to the take-off of the jump and G managed to scare himself by refusing, getting his leg caught in the jump, and unfortunately enough the horse behind us have banked on us jumping so ended up on top of us.

We walked it off and didn’t attempt to jump it again as I was trying to be sensible and there was now an open gate. I tried to jump a few afterwards and he wasn’t having any of it. It had clearly messed with his head so much that it completely knocked his confidence.

I have never been the most confident rider on G, I had always had keen ponies, so had never really had anything back off before I purchased him. One thing about G, is he takes his confidence off his rider, which when I was riding up to this jump thinking "Jesus Christ, I might as well be jumping round Burghley!" He knew instantly I wasn't sure about jumping it!

I attempted to jump a few more jumps whilst we were out but knew he was shaken but what had happened. Kicking myself, why is it with horses you go 1 step forward and 3 backwards.

A week off for G, so he had the opportunity to forget about it and just chill. I got him back into the school jumping some tiny fillers just to get him keen again. He refused at every one the first time, but managed the course by the end of our quick schooling round.

Even if it means me jumping 60cm for the next couple of months to get him feeling better again, It will be worth it to get his confidence back! One thing I have learnt is that riders lose their confidence all the time, but so do the horses and you just have to go back to basics!

Girl in Tweed x