Developing fear after years of confident riding is more common than most riders realise - and as you read this, you may already be starting to understand that it has nothing to do with your skill level, your experience, or your relationship with your horse.
It's a neurological response that can happen to anyone, including riding coaches with 30 years experience in the saddle - and working with “problem” horses.
I know, because it happened to me.
The day everything changed
I was waiting for my coach, Heather, and getting my young horse, Dooley ready.
Dooley is the son of my thoroughbred mare, Gemini. I had bred him. I was there for the whole pregnancy, for his birth.
And for the first couple of days after he was born Dooley's easy going nature was so obvious that he didn't even want to get up to nurse. I
had to go down to the barn once an hour and say 'come on Dooley, get up and eat' and push him to get up and latch on to his mother's teat.
And I loved riding him. Whatever you asked him to do, he would do without any resistance. He was so balanced and willing. He floated.
He never bucked or bolted. I had only been riding him again for a few weeks.
As a 4 year old, he'd had surgery to remove a bone chip from his hind leg followed by 8 weeks of rest and rehab. He'd recovered fully and I’d only been riding him again for a few weeks.
He was back to his easy going self. And I was so glad to be training him again.
I saw Heather's car coming up the driveway and watched as she parked outside the sand ring.
I called out, “Hi!” from the mounting block, put my foot in the stirrup and swung my leg over the saddle.
With almost just a thought, I asked Dooley to walk away from the mounting block.
Heather called over, “Drop your reins to the buckle and let him stretch”.
So, I let out the full length of my reins holding them gently with the fingers of one hand allowing Dooley to stretch and lengthen his neck.
I turned slightly in the saddle to look back at Heather, laughed and quipped, “You're such a task master!”
As I looked forward again, I realised that Dooley's head had completely disappeared and I felt his back lift as his back feet left the ground.
Suddenly I was being tossed up out of the saddle trying desperately to keep my feet in the stirrups, hold my legs around his barrel and stay centred over his back so I could stay with him.
Up and down. Up and down.
As we got near to a set of jumps, Dooley veered right to avoid the standard and I lost my balance, left his back, fell on my shoulder, rolled onto my back with a thump and all the wind was knocked out of me.
As I’m lying on my back. I heard him buck a couple more times and then stop. I tried to get my breath back, refocus my eyes.
I hurt - everywhere.
Can I move my fingers? Wiggle them. Yes I can.
Can I move my toes, Wiggle them. Yes I can.
I slowly rolled over onto my knees. Are there any shooting pains? No. Good.
I sat on my knees feeling confused, shattered and scared.
Heather was running towards me and asking, “Are you okay?” and I answered, “Yes. I'm just shaken up.”
She walked towards Dooley and asked again, “Are you sure you're okay?”
As I'm slowly getting to my feet, I answered “Yes, I just don't know what happened. Why did he do that?”
And Heather replied “I don't know either. I don't think you should get back on him right now. Let's do some ground work instead.”
While we were talking about it later, we decided we must have missed something in his retraining after the surgery. And we'd need to take a few steps back.
The next day, I was on my own getting another horse ready to ride. Ever was another young horse I'd known since he was a foal, owned since he was 3 and done most of his training.
Walking towards the mounting block, I noticed butterflies in my stomach.
Stepping on the mounting block, I feel tension in my chest, but I ignore it. I put my foot in the stirrup and I'm shaking.
When I go to swing my leg over – I can’t do it.
“Oh my god,” I thought. “I can’t do this.”
Inside my body I felt frozen and nauseous and I couldn't breathe.
I took my foot out of the stirrup and stepped back on the ground.
I felt devastated because this is what I do for a living.
It's my life.
I can't get on this horse - and this isn't even the horse that I came off – then what am I going to do?
What's going to happen?
I tried again with another horse.
Same thing happened. And another horse. And another horse.
5 different horses I couldn't get on.
Same result every time. I was frozen.
And I was a professional riding coach.
Why this happens - and why you're not broken
When your brain registers a threat - a fall, a spook, a loss of control - it files that experience in your threat-detection system.
It doesn't matter how many years of good rides came before it.
Your brain's job is to keep you alive, and it's really good at generalising danger.
One fall from one horse might create a warning signal around all horses.
One moment of losing control becomes hypervigilance at every mounting block.
Why did that one fall trigger the fear in my brain?
I don’t know. I just know that it did.
There's nothing wrong with you. And somewhere, part of you already knows that.
This is simply your nervous system doing exactly what it evolved to do - and what can be learned can be unlearned.
What makes it worse for experienced riders specifically is this: you know what can go wrong.
You’ve seen it. You might even have experienced it.
Your experience, ironically, gives your fear more material to work with.
And if you're in your 40s or 50s, there's an additional layer at work.
Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause directly affect your brain's threat response
- cortisol regulation changes,
- anxiety sensitivity increases,
- sleep disruption affects your nervous system's resilience.
Riders who were fine at 38 find themselves suddenly struggling at 49, and nobody has told them that their body chemistry may be part of what's changed.
What doesn't work
- "Just get back on" - pushing through without addressing the nervous system response often makes it worse, not better
- Avoiding entirely - every time you avoid, your unconscious mind files another entry under "riding is dangerous." And you already know that's not the story you want to keep writing.
- Telling yourself to stop being ridiculous - your brain doesn't respond to logic when it's in threat mode
- Riding through it alone and in secret - isolation amplifies fear
- Keeping it secret and beating yourself up - feeling like a failure while suffering alone is one of the most common and most damaging patterns. I know because I lived it.
What the path back actually looks like
I realized that I had to do something. So I started reading books and studying everything I could find about overcoming fear.
I learned to pay attention to how I feel physically, to how to release tension, and how to stop focusing on the 'what ifs'.
I created routines and rituals. I did lots of ground work.
But first, I put my foot in the stirrup. I swung my leg over. And I jumped off immediately when my seat touched the saddle.
Slowly, I was able to sit in the saddle for a few seconds and then a few minutes – always jumping off if the horse so much as twitched!
Gradually, I was able to ask the horse to take a couple of steps without having to jump off; walk a small circle; a larger circle, change directions and eventually trot and canter again.
I stopped needing to jump off at every twitch, head shake or hesitation.
In the meantime, I ran into my vet who suggested that perhaps Dooley had a muscle disorder.
We did some blood tests and she was right.
I felt so much relief to know there was a physical cause for his behaviour – it wasn't because I had missed something in his training.
It’s fall, and I’m standing in a chilly, indoor arena, watching the six horses being worked on the last day of a Chris Irwin Train the Trainer clinic.
It’s going well - I feel like I’m getting close to my old self!
“I know he’s a problem horse,” says Chris.
He’s talking to me and another trainer about a black quarter horse gelding.
This horse has a history of bucking off every trainer who'd gotten on him.
Chris continued, “It's time for someone to get on that horse. And it's got to be one of us three.”
I want you to imagine, just for a moment, what it would feel like to face the thing you're most afraid of - and discover you're more capable than you thought.
My gut clenched. I took a deep breath, looked at Chris and I said, “I'll do it.”
As I walk towards the horse, I feel nauseous and shaky. But I remember my techniques.
I breathe deeply. I look for the tension and I release it. I stay focused in the moment.
I put my foot in the stirrup and I swing my leg over.
I'm terrified but I'm using all my skills to manage my fear.
My awareness, my breathing and releasing the tension, and I start walking the horse around the arena.
Suddenly, I notice a grey gelding at the other end of the arena has bolted and is galloping towards us!
And I think to myself “Anne, just keep your horse in a bend and keep breathing. Just keep your horse in a bend and keep breathing. Oh my god, this horse is going to lose his mind. Oh my god I'm going to die.”
Internally, I'm a mess – I froze.
The horse galloped past.... and nothing happened. Holy crap!
The horse is fine. We're fine. I'm fine.
My heart was pounding - not with fear now, but with something that felt remarkably like joy.
As I dismounted, I noticed the smiles, heard the congratulations, and felt something shift permanently inside me.
Not just "I did it." But: I can do this. I am someone who can do this.What I learned that I now teach
The techniques I used to rebuild my own confidence - understanding the nervous system's role in fear, releasing physical tension, managing catastrophic thinking, building back gradually - became the foundation of the work I now do with riders.
I trained in NLP and hypnosis specifically because I discovered how powerful these tools are for rewiring the fear response at a level that logic alone can't reach.
One of my clients, a rider in her 50s struggled with fear that caused her to ride with such tension and poor position that her dream dressage horse (imported from Germany) was unable to perform well.
Her tension and fear was stressing him out!
She couldn’t canter or let him walk on a long rein - both requirements for the level of dressage she wanted to compete at.
She was doing both beautifully within a few weeks.
Not because I pushed her through her fear - but because we worked with her nervous system instead of against it.
If you're an experienced rider who has found yourself frozen at the mounting block, avoiding rides you used to love, or keeping your fear secret because you feel you should know better - I want you to know this:
You are not broken. You are not weak. And you've already taken the first step just by reading this far - because part of you is ready to find a different way forward.
If you'd like to talk about what's showing up for you and whether working together might help, I offer a free 30-minute discovery call.
No pressure, no obligation - just a conversation.
And if you're not ready for that yet, start here: Winning The Mental Game
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes - and it's more common than most riders realise. A single fall, a spooking incident, time away from riding, or a period of life stress can trigger a fear response in the nervous system regardless of how many years of experience you have. It's not a lack of skill. It's a nervous system response, and it can happen to anyone - at any stage of riding.
Your brain's threat-detection system doesn't take into account all your years of experience before deciding something is dangerous. It registers a threat - a fall, a loss of control, an injury - and generalises that warning to similar situations. One bad experience can override years of positive ones. There’s nothing wrong with you. It's your nervous system doing its job.
Absolutely! And experienced riders can actually be more vulnerable in some ways. The more you know about what can go wrong, the more material your brain has to work with when it starts catastrophising. Professional riders, coaches, and trainers are not immune. I'm a riding coach with over 35 years of experience and it happened to me.
Yes, and it’s something often not talked about in the horse world. Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause affect cortisol regulation, increase anxiety sensitivity, and disrupt sleep - all of which affect how your nervous system responds to perceived threat. Riders who were confident at 38 sometimes find themselves struggling at 49 or 52, and the hormonal cause is rarely considered.
Yes - with the right approach. Pushing through fear or avoiding riding entirely are both unlikely to resolve it. What works is understanding what's happening in your nervous system and working with it rather than against it. Many of my clients have rebuilt their confidence fully, including riders who hadn't cantered in years or couldn't get on their horse at all.
The most effective path involves three things: understanding why your brain is responding the way it is (which removes the shame), learning techniques to regulate your nervous system before and during riding, and rebuilding in a way that creates new positive experiences without overwhelming yourself. NLP and hypnosis are particularly effective tools for rewiring the fear response at a level that logic alone can't reach.
