Coping after a fall from a horse: the fear of it happening again

You rarely fall off. In fact, you had never given it a thought before yesterday. It happened without warning. Ever since, you have found yourself hesitating before getting on. Yet all you need to do is apply the practical tips below and you will start to feel better.

The right equipment

For a rider who has come off once, the most important thing is to feel safe on their horse again. Their confidence in themselves has already taken a knock. What they need now is something solid to lean on psychologically where safety is concerned, if only to be sure of not falling again. So they need to find the right answer. The best option is to kit themselves out with proper safety equipment.

Head to a shop or to La Sellerie Française to pick up all the accessories you need for riding. Only then can the process of looking after yourself psychologically begin. First, take care to fit everything correctly, following the instructions. Every fastening must be properly in place and checked before you get in the saddle. Once you have finished, it is best to clean all the equipment properly and put it away somewhere safe.

Talking about it

Fear is part of everyday human life. Even if, now and then, a few exceptional minds manage to master it to the point of believing it does not exist, it lives alongside every one of us. So you have to try to live with it and tame it in order to feel more at ease. That means working it out of your mind. To do so, psychologists recommend a simple approach: talking.

You need to talk about your fear with other riders. Tell them as clearly as you can what you are feeling. They will tell you, in their own way, how they got through it after their first fall. Even if they do not share their experience with you, it will at least be a personal step towards regaining your confidence. Once you acknowledge the problem, it can be solved far more easily.

Keep riding

Riding, like every other sport, tests you from the very start. You have to learn to put things in perspective and know your goals in order to move forward more easily. After a fall, you need to give the best of yourself to come through it comfortably. That means giving yourself the means to succeed by staying focused on the challenges ahead. It also means getting back in the saddle after that first fall.

Quite simply, it is about finding your balance again after the fall. You need to take up riding again and ride enough to get the most out of every session. Spend as much time as you can with your horse, or at the yard around horses. If you keep at it long enough and take on bigger challenges, there will come a point when the memory of that fall is no more than a small anecdote along the way.