How to overcome fear when you’re riding a horse

Have you ever thought about what happens in your body when you or your horse are afraid? Whenever you are scared and not only when you might be feeling fear while riding a horse  your body is given the danger signal by your nervous system. Information travels from your senses to your brain via your nervous system which then floods your body with adrenalin and cortisol giving the alarm signal to react. You react in one of three ways fight flight or freeze.
The same process happens in your horse when they are afraid but the locomotion part of their brain is much larger than ours so they are hotwired to run away from danger whereas we are more likely to bottle it up and carry on as normal. Horse are very good at managing adrenalin. They will do what they need to do which is spook and run away. Horses will also pick up on any little shred of adrenalin in their riders body. In my early showjumping days my horse Tango would steam around the course and I would just point him at the fences. We were very good against the clock more by luck than judgement and I thought we were doing well until a fall out hacking really shook my confidence. The next day I felt really afraid at the thought of riding I had lost my nerve