horse riding anxiety Archives

The Window of Tolerance – Horse and Rider

Have you ever wondered what’s behind a successful horse and rider partnership? Why are they so in sync, confident, capable of mastering any challenge that arises?

The mystery lies in expanding your, and your horse’s, window of tolerance.

What is the window of tolerance?

It is your comfort zone. Where you feel calm, confident, and in control of your emotional and physical state. You are nor scared. You can breathe, trust in your ability, trust your horse.

For your horse, it is his safety zone- he is wothout fear, calm, trusting in you, and his world.

How does it work?

Say you are riding towards a jump. On the approach you feel scared, your heart rate goes through the roof, you can’t concentrate, so you hang on, and leave it up to your horse, hoping he will get you over it. So what does he do? He refuses. he feels scared and runs away.

You panic, you feel afraid, and vow that jumping is not for you. Your window of tolerance is slammed firmly shut. Your horse’s too. You are left feeling disappointed in yourself, and feel you have failed your horse. Your fear tolerance level is zero.

So how do you expand your window of tolerance?

Breathe. Yes, I know it sounds simple, but there’s more to the effect of conscious breathing. Your nervous system has two parts: the adrenalin activated side which gears you into action, (feeling nervous or excited) and the calming part, for rest, recovery, safety.

The same goes for your horse. He either feels scared, or safe. His nervous system will pick up from yours whether the world is safe or not. So the remedy starts with you. You need to be your horse’s’safe person’ horse for him to trust you.

Going back to the jumping example, if your horse pricks his ears, hesitates in his stride, he is asking you ‘is this safe?’

If you answer is”Oh that’s too big, we’ll never get over that!’ you are compounding his fear, so he refuses.

On the other hand, if you answer him with,’we’ve got this, come on!’ and are confident, he will trust you.

Building your safety zone

Learn. Build your expertise and knowledge. Belief in yourself. Trust your physical ability and be aware of your emotions. Trust your horse. Nervousness will pass. It is this recovery that builds your ‘window of tolerance’. It is the belief that you will land safely over the fence, and carry on to the next.

Building the Partnership with your horse

Practice finding the flow between feeling a bit scared (challenged), and back to calm. This flow expands as you get to know what you are capable of.

You can choose to return to your comfort zone at any time by closing your ‘window of tolerance’ when you need to. This choice gives you recovery time, control, calmness, time to reflect on your achivements, be proud of yourself and your horse.

For more information, see the links below:

The Psychology of Horsemanship Book by Claire Lilley

The Psychology of Horsemanship Webinar with Claire Lilley

The Psychology of Horsemanship Webinar

If you prefer to buy your webinar without going to our on-line shop. you can purchase it here by bank transfer.

Please email claire@wiltshire-wellbeing.co.uk for bank details to make your payment, and allow up to 24 hours for the manual link to be sent.

An informative webinar for both coaches and riders with the aim of developing the partnership between horse and rider. We will be covering the development, the challenges faced, and the goals of successful horsemanship.

The Psychology of Horsemanship by Claire Lilley

As human beings wanting to bond with our horses, we must use all our available skills: our senses, our intelligence, our physical body awareness and intuition. Horses are better at doing this than we are, so there is a lot for us to learn from our equine partners.

Historically, horsemanship is about developing mutual trust, respect and understanding and love: the foundations of a rock-solid relationship:

Join me to gain a deeper understanding of developing mutual trust, respect, understanding and love for the horse : the foundations of a rock-solid partnership.

PART ONE: Equine Psychology (Understanding the horse), we take a look at the horse’s senses, primary responses and emotion.

PART TWO: Training Psychology (Understanding yourself as a rider)

The rider’s communication, training and learning from past experiences.

PART THREE: Relational Psychology (Understanding the partnership)

We look at the goals, the development and the challenges faced in successful horsemanship.

Accessing your downloads

You will receive the recordings from Zoom once payment has been received.You will have access to the recordings for 30 days.

Please allow up to 24 hours for the manual link to be sent.

British Horse Society

2 BHS CPD POINTS are allocated for each of these 2 webinars.

To claim CPD points with the BHS, please click on the link below:

BHS Link for CPD Feedback form

For more information, take a look at The Psychology of Horsemanship book by Claire Lilley.