The title and the next paragraph come from my daily devotional written by Cara Whitney “Unbridled Faith.” For some reason it hit me that I should write about it.

It reads – “Giving your trust to a horse after it has hurt you can be a hard obstacle to overcome. Even after a “naughty” horse has spent a good thirty days with a trainer, you are still left to wonder if he has changed his ways. The horse’s behavior may have changed, but how we see him is still the same.”

Well this leads me to something I wrote about probably several years ago. “Fear is the single most dangerous and destructive force in a relationship with a horse. Eradicate fear and you begin to develop trust.” Well now isn’t that easier said than done.

As I’ve mentioned, the new horse came with a laundry list of cautions. My immediate reaction was, this horse is going to kill me. One step at a time and I found that most everything was over played, but I’m thankful that I was given a heads-up, and more thankful that I was wise enough to take one step at a time and give him the benefit of the doubt.

So here you have a horse that hurt you. Fear is a normal instinct to keep us from getting hurt again. You have a catch 22 situation here. Horses, as we know, know us better than we know ourselves. We can’t walk up to a horse and lie to them. Telling them “I am not afraid” will not work. If you have fear they will do one of two things; take advantage of you, or be fearful themselves.

I could write for weeks about how to overcome fear, but the best way I have found is to just keep chipping away at it. Start at square one with your relationship with your horse and when you are both comfortable move to square two. The more you do something, the more comfortable you will become.

Once you build up the trust between the two of you, everything will fall into place. You may need a professional to help you work through your fears. We’ve all had them at some point in our lives. Maybe with your horse or maybe with something else. Repetition is the only way to get beyond it.

I was in a car accident almost 50 years ago. I was stopped at a red light and a DUI slammed into me. I haven’t stopped driving or given up stopping at red lights, but I do watch my rear view mirror to make sure if someone is not going to stop, that maybe I should just move out of the way.

Your horse and riding means too much to you to let fear determine your life. Take back control and move forward. Don’t totally throw caution to the wind. If the thought presents itself, ask yourself if this is something you need to work through or is your unconscious mind trying to warn you to rethink things that may be harmful to you.

Keep an open mind, but use the mind you were given.