The past few days I have been struggling with my own confidence in the saddle... I've been burnt out before and I've struggled with my riding in the past but nothing like this. I feel like I can't ride any horse I am on, including my own and that's a rough feeling to have considering that riding is part of my job.

Nothing major happened, nothing tragic or the sorts like that. I've done almost of all the riding on my gelding (he has had someone else ride him maybe a total of 7 times in almost three years.) I know there are holes in our training and we are working with a professional to smooth out our creases. That being said, in almost three years we have learned together.

I had a rough stadium jumping lesson on him recently. He was amazing and took me to every fence. It started out great, I warmed up well and did the first few isolated jumps well. The first course we did was great and I was feeling good. The jumps were bumped up to Novice (Eventing level). We've gone higher and they are no problem for both me and my horse in regards to physical or mental difficulties. Normally. I couldn't seem to get him straight to an in and out and my trainer and I attempted it over and over again and nothing. I walked away from it feeling defeated as if I wasn't a good enough rider to get my talented horse through that single in and out. I was frustrated at myself because I know we can do it with ease considering that we took it from basically a stand still at some point. My gelding tried his heart out and was very kind to me which made me feel even worse that I for whatever reason wasn't able to set him up correctly for it.

.

Today we were at an xc schooling. We warmed up well and I was feeling pretty good and excited to get out into the field. That was until the first refusal. My gelding never refuses. I had panicked before the fence we'd done four times already with no problems and suddenly the SJ in and out doubt started creeping back into my mind. After that we had a refusal at nearly every fence because of me. I would back off five strides out and then pull him up two or three strides out. At some point I remember going up to the beginner novice coop thinking "I can't do this." He stepped in and took me to the jump, allowing me to just sit there and take a deep breath as he guided me along. I've never been more grateful for my horse than in that moment.

I've had never ever thought to myself that I couldn't do it before today and thats a frustrating thing to experience because I can do it and I know I can. Towards the end of today's schooling we got better and had no more refusals. Walking back to the trailer my trainer told me that she'd never seen me look tense or tight while riding him and asked if everything was alright. From there we had a conversation about it but that got me thinking of why I was so tight on my poor horse and it made me feel bad that he had to basically support me the entire time and left me feeling like I've just destroyed both my confidence and my horses.