Confidence

I have been wanting to write about confidence for a while now, because in riding a horse, confidence is everything. You can be doing the right thing, but if you are not doing it with confidence and conviction, then you will not get the results you want or expect. At the same time, finding a good example of confidence is hard, but I think I've got one.

I brought Lilly in for training, and while brushing her noticed that she has a small cut (about the size of my thumb nail) on her left hock. The hock also looked more swollen than the other hock. It would be a shame not to work her at all, so I decided to start slowly, and just see if the hock was a problem or not.

As a starting point, I lounged Lilly, first at the walk, then at the trot, to check if she is lame. She wasn't. Then I started riding. I rode her the way I normally do, sticking to the same routine, but the back of my mind was still thinking about that hock. Was she really ok? Was she in pain? Was she maybe unable to do some things?

While my mind was wondering, Lilly started playing up. Nothing serious, just a bit of falling out, minor rushing off, bit of getting prancy.

I thought about that hock one more time, and then I decided that if she is well enough to ride, then she is well enough to be ridden with confidence. And so I rode on. With conviction. And all of Lilly's problems vanished.