I need suggestions to help a good arena rider gain confidence riding outside the ring. 14 year old girl that takes jumping lessons and has shown locally for the past year. She’s a decent rider, pretty confident even on new horses when she’s in an enclosed area. Every summer her grandmother and I do a 1 week “horse camp” for her, a couple of her friend and my grandniece. The other girls prefer trail riding but this child will often chicken out at the last minute and not go with us. It doesn’t help that her grandmother is also very timid on the trails. We spend at least 2 days working on trail obstacles in my pasture to build rapport and confidence and she enjoys that but again, we’re in a fenced 3 acre field.
Do any of you have ideas, exercises we could do or whatever to help her enjoy trail rides? Our trail rides are usually 4-5 miles, not too challenging, walking unless we have a safe, flat trail for trotting. The horses are all well behaved and have good brakes. She’s never had a fall or runaway on the trails. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Agoraphobia. Not really. But I was a really adventurous trail rider and road rider as a kid. When I went back to rerider lessons, after a winter in the indoor I felt unmoored even in the outdoor arena. I eventually got over it! I think very short rides outside of the arena maybe just 5 minute cooldown on the driveway or even leadline. Working in a big field is a good intermediate step. However if the grandmother is timid too and if she is vocal about that, this really sabotages things.
Have you asked her why?
And you may want to make sure that you dont use the phrase " Chickened out" when you talk to her.
Is there any reason she needs to go on a trail ride?
If she truly doesn’t want to go why force the issue?
You may want to build her confidence by having her walk her horse out of the arena and take a few steps outside before dismounting.
If and when she gets comfortable doing that you could have her walk her on a trail for a few steps halt and turn back. Gradually increasing the time .
Give her a chance to face her fears and challenge herself without shaming her for being afraid.
I too think it might be good to introduce trail rides in shorter increments, maybe as a cool down or warm up after rides?
Also on her own or with just one other person. It might be even more difficult for her to overcome her fears/get started if she feels like once started she can’t turn back, or if she feels she’ll be ruining the fun for a whole group.
4 or 5 miles is actually quite a long ride if she’s used to 0 miles of trail rides, and she might feel a bit “stuck” if she starts a ride and then decides she’d like to turn back, it may feel easier to not even start.
I also think asking her is a good idea, especially now, when if she wants to do the trail rides you can start building that skill months before camp time.
One other (potentially odd) thought, but it would have been an issue for me when I was that age. I had a lot of anxiety around peeing in front of people, or needing to go the bathroom, but not being able to. She may have some reason she doesn’t feel comfortable being away from “civilization” for a couple of hours, whether it is medical, an anxiety, or just a desire to maintain proximity to air conditioning!
Third-ing the suggestion to ask what specifically makes her nervous about hacking out.
For instance, I - to this day - have a fear that if my horse and I part ways she’ll leave me there and get lost forever. I know this is largely irrational because I only hack by myself less than a mile from home and the only place she’d be running is back to the barn, but it’s hard to unwire some of those thought patterns.
If she can express why she’s nervous, that gives you a chance to come up with a game plan to address her specific fears and hopefully if trail riding is what she really wants, she’ll feel comfortable to do it.
I agree with asking her about trail riding and tell her the benefits to the horses of taking them out, and that it’s nice toget out of the ring from time to time. I think it’s a great idea to start/end a lesson with a stroll around the field and increase the time as she becomes more comfortable, maybe start giving a lesson out in a field from time to time too. She might be more comfortable going on with just the 2 of you initially. might be that a group makes her nervous and she might be self-conscious about holding people back if they want to trot or canter or ride longer than she’s comfortable with. Baby steps.
How long are your trail rides? Any way a horseless adult could volunteer to hike along side? She may be embarrassed to be on a lead line but a person on the ground nearby might give her confidence. Or take her out on lead line when friends aren’t around to give her the confidence boost she needs before she hits the trails with friends?
If she doesn’t want to trail ride why should anyone care? She’s doing what she likes to do, and IMO, it makes sense to wait until she wants to do something before getting involved in figuring out how to go about it. Liability is a big enough issue without pushing anyone to do things they don’t want to do. I personally, would be happy she didn’t want to expose herself, and me, to more risk.
The way to conquer fear is in itty bitty steps, incrementally expanding the comfort zone. Expecting a person who is fearful about trail rides to move from riding inside a 3 acre field directly to a 4-5 mile trail ride is too much of a leap. If you want her to trail ride, you need to introduce it in much smaller doses, gradually, over time.
This. As someone who has dealt with legit agoraphobia and panic attacks, even now I get a bit nervous thinking about going on trail rides or car rides or places where I can’t just turn around and go home when I want. 4 or 5 miles is way too long for someone who needs to build confidence. If she just doesn’t like trial riding that’s one thing, but if she really has anxiety, it has to be dealt with by slowly building up her “bubble of comfort”. You can’t rationalize anxiety like that. And if you try to push through it and, say, try to force yourself to go on a 5 mile trial ride when you get really nervous after a half mile, all you tend to do is make yourself dread feeling panicked the next time you go.
Short trail rides, where she can easily be able to go home if she needs to, building it up to longer and longer times out, is probably the best way to go about it if it’s anxiety.
Thank you all for the suggestions. The only time her unwillingness to trail ride is a problem is at horse camp when the other 3 girls want to trail ride and she says she’s ok with it until it’s time to actually mount up and ride. She’s better if the ride is absolutely flat (Rails to Trails). We always do our trail rides at a walk and pick places that don’t have “risky” parts like road crossings, steep hills or rocks to cross over. She’s the most experienced and technically the best rider of our little group.
There is an arena at the farm with the best easy trails so we’ll try doing arena work and then take short “mosey” outside the arena and see if that helps.
Thank you again.
Maybe she simply prefers to ride solo in the arena, or doesn’t really enjoy the horse camp or riding in a group. Many capable riders never go on a trail. Why pressure her?
It may be that her competence in the arena is fueling some of her anxiety about being out of the arena. She may feel that trail riding will expose whatever fears she has to others who have seen her as a model rider.
I’d agree that shorter rides outside of the arena might help her lose the anxiety. It might also be helpful to do other kinds of gymkhana type exercises on horseback, maybe exercises that ask her to ride both in and outside the arena in the same ride, or jumping similar obstacles inside and outside the arena, or placing a jump at the entrance to the ring and the riders have to jump in and jump out, etc.
I do think that learning to ride and be comfortable riding on trails is a skill that riders should have,
