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Riding a horse and confidence are synonyms. If you are not confident, first of all the horse knows it and might give you a hard time riding her, second of all you won’t have any fun riding. So here are a few tips you should keep in mind while riding a horse to relax a bit and make sure you are in control and improving your confidence day by day. 1) Make sure your horse is reliable: Make sure she/he is stable mentally and knows how to ride your basic walk, trot, and canter. Make sure you see your instructor or someone experienced ride her first to make sure she is OK for you to start riding. 2) Make sure your horse is healthy: Horses show discomforts when their bit is hurting their over-grown teeth, wrong bit is being used for them, when they have hoof problems, or especially when their saddle doesn’t fit them well. Make sure your horse is in good health condition before you get on her/him. 3) Feed your horse an hour or so before riding her: A happy well-fed horse is a lot more cooperative than a hungry horse. At the same time make sure you don’t ride your horse right after you feed her. You will have to wait at least an hour after feeding before you can ride or exercise her. 4) Get to know your horse: It takes some horses some time to get used to you and to know you (a new predator) won’t harm her. Pet her, groom her a bit, and maybe give her some treats so she starts liking you. 5) Exercise you horse: You can show your horse a bit of authority and teach her to follow your lead through exercising her before jumping on her back. You can long her with a longing robe or use a lead robe and walk her around. Just the fact that we humans with our arms having such wide radius of reach impresses horses and shows them our superiority. This will also warm up your horse before riding and prevents some injuries that might happen such as pulling muscles and such. 6) Slow your horse down and keep your legs wide: One of the first things your instructor should be teaching you about is that if you push your legs against the horse’s body he will go faster, and that’s exactly what people tend to do when they are tense and the horse is going fast. So when your horse starts un-intentionally speeding up, you have to pull the reins and keep your legs off the horse’s body. 7) Be ready to fall: Guess what? If you talk to any real rider, they have fallen at least once from a horse so be ready to fall. What you have to make sure not to do is to fall behind a horse because there would be a possibility getting kicked by the horse if he bucks. You also have to make sure your feet are not too tight in the stirrups so you can pull them off real quick if you decided to jump off. Make sure you exhaust the option of stopping a horse before you drop yourself down from his back. When you pull the reins say loudly “whoa” and your horse will more likely than not come to a complete stop. Make sure you don’t fall over when your horse suddenly stops. 8) Relaxation is a mental game: In order to be relaxed on a horse you need to make sure you have fun and stay calm. You sometimes have to literally talk to yourself in your head and say “it’s OK, everything is going to be fine, and this is so much fun and so relaxing” and then you will feel relaxed. When you start relaxing you will immediately notice how your horse calms down as well and listen’s to your orders more carefully and calmly. Have fun riding and stay safe. Please visit our website for Anaheim Hills Horse Back Riding Lessons, for Anaheim Hills Horse Boarding stalls and for Anaheim Hills Horse Therapy. We are The Mesa Stables in Anaheim Hills and Orange County, located in Southern California
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