We all know that horses are really sensitive creatures. If they pick up on any nervousness from the rider, that immediately tells them their “must” be something to be frightened of. Riding must be the sport where mind over matter makes a huge difference.

You can imaging the situation – the nervous rider is anxious approaching something he or she thinks will make the horse react badly. The rider tenses up, breathing quickens all of which tells the horse…. “this is scary” … “you really should be running away”… which of course is exactly what happens. The horse naps, or spins, or worse could rear or bolt.

The next time the rider gets on he/she is even more anxious because the horse behaved badly during the previous ride. And so it goes on, in a downward spiral of anxiety, fuelling reaction from the horse, fuelling more anxiety.

There are, of course shades of grey in all this, a confident horse can tolerate and not react to a timid rider and equally, some horses are naturally timid, no matter how able or confident the rider.

Here are some ways that you can improve your riding, without even getting a horse.

Hypnotherapy – how I discovered my riding “secret weapon” by accident

Before I start writing this next piece, I have to say that until quite recently I was the worlds biggest skeptic about this. I though it was a load of old mumbo jumbo.

However, I was given a self hypnosis CD at Christmas and tried it out just of curiosity, and the results were very very surprising.Not only is it the most pleasant experience in which you are completely in control all the time (just like having a day-dream really) it has some very positive effects on my riding – confidence and calmness.

This was even more surprising as this particular CD was not even for nervous riders, but something completely different – in fact it was one of Paul McKenna’s books and CDs about business success! After just a couple of days I found that my confidence was way up, I was having some of the best rides and hacks I have ever had and I was actually waking up in the morning feel really refreshed and “ready to go” ( I listen to the CD last thing at night). This really is an amazing secret. You can find out more by clicking the links below.