Rider jitters....

IMHO, rider fear is nothing to "push through". I want to be motivated that I can do it, and I don't mind somebody saying, "You need to canter some to get over it, or you'll be afraid forever", but what I don't need is somebody yelling at me.

July '05, Chewie and I fought about everything one evening. We argued about trot, we argued about canter, we argued about backing up. It was nuts.. he was being an idiot, IMO. I finally got a half-decent trot, and asked for canter. Wrong lead over and over and over again. I finally let him stay in that lead, and tried to turn him so he'd be right so we could end and I could go home. In the middle of my figure 8 to turn him, he threw out his back feet, I lost my balance, he threw up his front end, I leaned forward, he threw out the back end again, and by then, I was already leaning forward to help him out, I suppose. Went flying forward to the right of him, hit the ground, helmet cracked, saw stars, etc. Chewie took off to the back of the pasture. Got him caught (right leg half asleep), took off tack, lunged him just a little until he woudl at least "whoa" when I asked. Went to the ER, got oodles of pain pills and an otherwise clean bill of health. The next day a friend lunged him and we discovered his teeth were allllllll messed up. Lunge in a bit - No Way! lunge in a halter, oh sure, no problem! Since then, every so often, he'll test his "ability to unseat Momma", and so I always have to be on my guard, trying to trust him to take care of me.


(Past experience)
Trainer: "Well if you'd stop standing in the stirrups & putting your hands down pulling on his mouth, he wouldn't buck like that. It's your own fault, so fix it!"

My response was, "If I knew I was wrong, I wouldn't be paying for lessons."

Trainer: "Stop being so negative, shut up, and listen to me. You know what you're doing, so fix it."

New trainer: "Horses have to allow for some of our imperfections, and they need reprimanded if they don't allow for us to mess up sometimes. If they buck and rear everytime we make a mistake, they need to learn that we don't over react to their mistakes, and they shouldn't either."

So which one makes more sense to you? For me, I don't beat Chewie everytime he refuses a jump, even if it was a weenie-8" high flower box minus the flowers. I don't holler, yell, and kick if he gets the wrong canter lead. I just go to 2-point, ask for trot, and try again. If just because I don't ask for canter perfectly, he gets to throw a temper tantrum... no way hosea! Sorry, sir, but that just doesn't cut it.

Last night, we avoided jumps all together. We worked on trot to canter to trot transitions, good to the left, not staying in canter to the right. Me thinks we need to start off going to the right tonight, and then left later. I have gotten to where I can ask for canter with a little kick and a little kiss-kiss, and that's just going to have to be good enough for the hunter show Nov 4. I don't intend on having a perfect horse, or be a perfect rider. The goal of the show isn't to win. It's to hear "canter your horse" from the announcer's booth, ask Chewie to canter with the other horses in the arena, and confidently know I won't fall off, and he won't hand-gallop away from me. If we ribbon, great, that's just gravy. If we don't ribbon, and I stay on, that's perfect.

If I were in this to win, I would've saved more money and bought a finished horse with more patience and better posture. But I got into this to have fun, and nothing more. I want someday (maybe 10 years down the road) to be able to get on Chewie stone-cold, take him to a warm-up arena at a show, and scare the beejeebers out of the other riders with his beautiful performance. I want to ride up to a dressage arena, score good in first level, take him out on cross-country, zero errors, and then meander up to a show jumping arena, and let him take care of the rest. We won't get there overnight, and I'm sure after the flowers there will be other fears. I'll be afraid he'll throw a fit... he'll be afraid the rolltop will bite him, or the water ponds will swallow him whole. But I have my goals, and we'll get there, eventually.