Fear of the horse can both significantly inhibit a person from taking up horseback riding, and it can discourage the activity altogether. “Love and fear,” some might say, is strange. Why engage in something that makes one’s knees tremble? But let’s start by figuring out why a person might be afraid!
Fear of the unknown. A huge living thing that is unpredictable. This fear often accompanies beginners and goes away with experience. In order not to be afraid of the horse, we must know how it thinks, in what situations how it acts. And it’s not just the horse that’s important! Read books, watch training videos, come to our courses – there are many sources of knowledge available today.
Fear due to some kind of accident. And this is where the variability is enormous. Falls from a horse, unfortunate interactions that lead to injury… sometimes it can also scare you when you see it from the outside. This can happen to an experienced rider and a beginner. This fear is treated by systematic competent work of a man and a horse under the supervision of an experienced instructor or trainer. The horse to get rid of fear should be calm and not scare even more.
⠀
Every rider experiences fear at a certain step of his or her equestrian journey. And if fear were a 100% barrier to learning to ride, there would be no equestrians left at all! So before you give up, you need to analyze the reasons for the fear. And if you know that horses are definitely YOUR thing, you will find a way out of any situation.