If you’ve ever seen Olympic equestrian sport and appreciated the grace and talent with which the riders participating in the events pull off their part, then you need to likewise appreciate the radical coaching and hard work underlying the superb performance. Just how long did the rider train his faithful steed for, and using what techniques, to achieve such fantastic end results? Well, before you start asking such deep questions, you need to begin at the beginning: eliminating fear—whether it’s in the horse, the rider, or both.

When you begin coaching your horse on the way to dressage level routines, it’s all about making her understand what you need her to do. The fundamentals of horse riding are establishing cues and building a cooperative partnership. But before that, she must first be utterly at ease around you. This means that you can go near her, touch her and stroke her, and clean even her sensitive areas (like her feet and ears) without incident. To be well placed to achieve this, you have to 1st dump the fear obstructing your progress. Otherwise, your mare would respond the correct way when doing one thing and react adversely when doing others.

All animals have 2 main reactions to danger or discomfort: fight or run. They either turn hostile toward the danger or stress, or escape it. For horses undergoing equestrian coaching, the trainer and rider is usually the source of both discomfort and danger. Before it’s possible to even dream of working on your dressage routines, you first have to be certain that around you and with what you do together with your mare, she is completely comfortable and she knows she’s safe.

Handling the fears of your studs and mares would entail that you rid yourself of your fears. A rider or tutor often fears those times when she’s stuck, or at a loss, of what to do next. Your partnership with your horse is like the relationship of a herd leader and herd member, and you’d want to be the leader. The thing is, though many horses don’t truly have a dominating leader instinct in them while in such an environment as a training pen, they’ll assume the role if you do not—even if they are mares.

To rid yourself of any fears that will distroy your herd leader role, try doing easy to achieve exercises that help you gain confidence. For your horse, the trick is systematically replacing her reaction with a desired response—from fight or flight to actual equestrian moves and manoeuvres when you cue for it. For you as a tutor and rider, the key is to gain confidence thru gaining greater measures of control over your mare and the situation via being conversant with what to do irrespective of the circumstances… such that what you must do next immediately unfolds.

You first must dispose of the fret that stunts the growth of your partnership—make this the very first step of your horse riding training program. But before you rid your horse of her fear, commence with yours.

Horses are Heather Toms’ passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100’s of articles with other horse lovers… like all things about horse rugs.