Rachael Liddle Dressage

01/08/2026

🐴 What if confidence isn’t something you have… but something you build?

So many riders tell themselves they’re “just not confident.”

But confidence isn’t a personality trait—it’s a skill. And like any skill, it can be developed.

If you’ve ever…
• Lost confidence after a fall or setback.
• Felt your nerves take over at competitions.
• Avoided doing something because it felt overwhelming.
• Wondered why you ride brilliantly one day and doubt yourself the next.

…you’re not alone.

That’s exactly why I created Core of Confidence.

This isn’t about positive thinking or “just believing in yourself.”

It’s about understanding how confidence is built, why it disappears, and giving you practical tools you can use every time you ride.

You’ll leave with strategies you can put into practice straight away, whether your goal is to hack out confidently, enjoy your schooling more, or perform at your best in competition.

📍 Houghall Equine & Equestrian Centre
📅 Tuesday 4th August
🕕 6:00 pm
⏱️ Approximately 90 minutes

No horse needed—this is an unmounted workshop suitable for riders of all disciplines and experience levels.

If you’ve been waiting for confidence to magically appear, this workshop will show you how to create it instead.

💬 Bookings close soon so comment CONFIDENCE below or send me a message to reserve your place. Or follow the link to book online!

I’d love to see you there.

https://horsevents.co.uk/events/?e=54221

28/07/2026

Picture the colour blue. 💙

Simple enough, right?

But here’s the interesting thing… I bet everyone reading this has pictured something slightly different.

Some people will imagine a solid block of blue, like a paint chart. Others will see the sky. The sea. A favourite jumper. A horse rug. A flower. A completely different shade.

The word is the same, but the picture it creates is unique to each of us.

That’s why communication is so important in coaching.

As coaches, we use words to explain feelings, movements and ideas. But the meaning those words have to me isn’t always the same as the meaning they have to you.

The equestrian world is particularly challenging for this, for example we’ve all heard “shoulders back”, “sit up” or “grow tall”, for ourselves. But is your version of those the same as my version?

Unless we check that we’re both talking about the same thing, there’s a chance my instructions could lead you to do something completely different from what I intended.

That’s why, when I’m coaching, I’ll often ask questions to check your understanding. It’s also why I encourage riders to stop me if something doesn’t make sense or ask me to explain it differently.

To me, communication is one of the most important parts of the coach–rider relationship.

Without clear communication, instructions are just words.

With it, real learning can happen.

💬 I’d love to know… when you’re riding, what’s one instruction you’ve heard that you realised meant something completely different to someone else?

Pictured is the yard cat who had decided she needed to guard the horses ❤️

27/07/2026

The biggest myth about confidence?

That confident riders are simply “born that way”.

They’re not.

Confidence isn’t something you either have or don’t have — it’s something that develops through experience, understanding, and gradually stepping outside your comfort zone.

Many riders tell themselves:
🐴 “I’m just not a confident rider.”
🐴 “I used to be braver.”
🐴 “I trust my horse, but I don’t trust myself.”
🐴 “I need to get my confidence back before I can do more.”

But confidence doesn’t come from waiting until you feel ready.

It grows when you learn how to take small, achievable steps that challenge you in the right way — without feeling overwhelmed.

That’s what Core of Confidence is all about.

A workshop designed to help riders understand:
✨ how confidence is developed
✨ why our comfort zone matters
✨ how to create positive experiences that build trust in ourselves and our horses

If you’ve ever felt like confidence is the thing holding you back, this workshop could be the next step you need.

📅 Tuesday 4th August
📍 Houghall Campus, East Durham College
🎟️ Spaces are limited — message me to reserve your place.

Let’s start building confidence, one step at a time 🤩

21/07/2026

This! Let’s stop downplaying our successes and start celebrating them 🤩

"That was a really good round." "The horse did all the work, really."

A judge writes something genuinely positive on the sheet. Straight past it, to the one comment that stings.

A friend at the yard says how well your horse is going. "Well, we've had a lot of lessons."

Sound familiar?

I do it too. Someone tells me a session went well and my first instinct is "well, I've been doing it a long time, I guess" - anything but just saying thank you.

Here's the thing about deflecting praise: it doesn't just feel awkward in the moment. It means the evidence never actually lands. You can be told you're doing well a hundred times and still feel exactly the same as before the first one because you never actually let any of them in. The compliment bounces straight off, handed to the horse, the lessons, the years, anything except the truth: that you did that.

That's why some people can rack up genuine wins - good rounds, real progress, honest praise - and still feel like they're getting away with something. It was never about needing more proof. It's that no amount of proof gets through if you're not letting it.

Next time someone tells you something went well, try just saying thank you. Nothing else. No qualifier, no redirect. Let it land for three seconds before your brain finds a way to wave it off.

It'll feel strange. That's fine. That's the bit worth noticing.
💙🐎

20/07/2026

This is so relevant to schooling for dressage too. It’s a lot nicer for horses to be in a calmer state when we’re working with them, and for us it’s also safer and more productive.

Prerequisites for training 🐴

I often use the phrase “not in a trainable state” and I want to explain what I mean by that. If you’re having issues with your horse it seems logical to think the answer is to get straight into training but often these horses are too anxious and stressed to learn.

When horses are stressed gentle asks won’t work so this is often used to justify the use of high-pressure. If I ask quietly the horse is ignoring me so I have no choice but to use more pressure right? I used to spend a lot of time disengaging horses quarters, moving their feet and backing them up out of my space until they “relaxed”. I would often cause explosive behaviour as I added more pressure on top of an already stressed horse. I wasn’t achieving relaxation, I was achieving obedience and probably pushing horses into shut down.

If we cannot train gently then the horse isn’t in a trainable state.

I used to struggle with this years ago when I first started to move over into more ethical horsemanship. I still felt pressure to achieve “results” with clients and I remember going to a pony who was extremely stressed. He was box walking frantically and was lead around in a chain. I spent 45 minutes walking this pony around an arena trying to gently ask him to halt for a second and walk with me, it didn’t work he continued to scream the whole time and I was conflicted because I knew how to get a “result” using my old methods, but I wasn’t comfortable doing so any more. I tried to explain to the client that he wasn’t in a trainable state and offered some advice on how to improve his general stress-levels, but I’m sure that client was left disappointed and rightly so. Not because I should’ve produced a “result”, but because I was still trying to people-please instead of advocating for the horse and offering other solutions right off the bat. If I met that pony now we’d be going to an area he felt comfortable and eating some low-value food out of buckets and playing treat scatters until he was able to down-regulate.

So if we have a horse that is not in a trainable state, how do we get them into a trainable state?
🐴 We need to address their chronic stress levels, this means looking at their management and adjusting it accordingly so their needs are met and they feel safe.
🐴 We need to address pain and discomfort.
🐴 We need to improve the horse’s associations with people and the training environment by using positive reinforcement to help down-regulate their nervous system.
🐴 We need to stop handling, riding and training them in ways that scare them or cause high-stress.

Loud and difficult behaviour is not a justification for being hard on horses and using high-pressure or punishment. It makes great click-bait but it is not ethical no matter how you try to dress it up. If we’re seeing rearing, bucking, bolting, kicking, biting, pulling back etc we’ve already pushed too far. We need to learn about behaviour and nervous system states so we can see what the horse is actually experiencing when we see this sort of training and not be taken in by the pretty narratives we’re sold.

Horses are not testing you, they are not being stubborn, they are not "too clever for their own good" and it is completely illogical to think pushing an already anxious and often frightened horse into even more stress to get compliance is helping them feel better. If we do this we are not just getting compliance but also creating horrible associations with people. If we cannot train gently then we need to go back a step and work on the horse’s emotional state first. 🐴

19/07/2026

🐴 CORE OF CONFIDENCE – Frequently Asked Questions 🧠✨

Thinking about joining the Core of Confidence workshop? Here are some of the questions I get asked most often…

❓Do I need to bring a horse?
No! This is an unmounted workshop, so no horse is needed.

❓Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is for any rider who wants to feel more confident.

Whether you’re getting back in the saddle after a confidence knock, feeling nervous hacking out, lacking confidence in canter, battling competition nerves, or simply wanting to feel calmer and more confident in your riding, you’ll find something valuable here.

❓How long is the workshop?
Approximately 90 minutes.

❓When and where is it?
📅 Tuesday 4th August
🕕 6:00pm
📍 Houghall College, Durham

❓Do I need to bring anything?
Just yourself, an open mind, and a willingness to learn. I’ll provide everything else.

❓Will I have to speak in front of everyone?
Not at all. You’re welcome to join in as much or as little as you’d like. It’s a relaxed, supportive environment, and you’ll never be put on the spot.

❓Will I leave with practical tools?
Absolutely! You’ll leave with practical, easy-to-use strategies and a clear understanding of how confidence works, so you can start building it from day one.

❓Can I come on my own?
Definitely! Lots of people come on their own, and you’ll be welcomed into a friendly group of like-minded riders.

💙 Confidence isn’t something you’re born with—it’s something you build.

If you’re ready to stop letting self-doubt hold you back and start riding with greater confidence, I’d love to help.

📩 Send me a message to book your place or ask any questions. I’d love to hear from you!

17/07/2026

Have you ever found yourself saying things like:
“I used to love doing this but I’m too nervous now.”
“I know I can do it… I just don’t trust myself.”
“I’ve lost the confidence I used to have.”
“I want to enjoy my horse again.”

Then my Core of Confidence workshop is for you.

Together we’ll explore what confidence really is, why it’s completely normal for it to fluctuate, and the practical strategies you can use to build it back stronger than before.

Because confidence isn’t about never feeling nervous.

It’s about knowing you have the tools to keep moving forward anyway.

If you’re ready to enjoy your riding again, I’d love to welcome you to the workshop. Drop me a message for more info.

16/07/2026

Countdown fun, quite a nice like exercise to check Jenga is listening rather than counting himself (which he’s quite good at!)

15/07/2026

Every new skill follows the same learning cycle, whether it’s riding, playing the piano, learning a language … anything really! Understanding it can make the frustrating days so much easier.

We all start with unconscious incompetence – the stage where we don’t know what we don’t know.

Everything seems achievable. “How hard can it be?” Or “it looks easy enough” (think of all the people who think riders just sit there 🙈)

Then reality arrives…

You move into conscious incompetence, where you suddenly realise just how much there is to learn. It can feel overwhelming, and it’s often the point where riders question themselves the most.

With practice comes conscious competence. You can do the movement, but only if you’re concentrating on every single detail. This is the bit where your brain feels like it’s overflowing all the time!

Where are my hands?

Where’s my weight?

When do I half halt?

Which leg goes where?

It works… but your brain is frazzled!

Eventually, after enough repetition, you reach unconscious competence. The magical bit where the movement simply happens. You no longer have to think through every aid because your body—and your horse—understand the conversation.

Take half pass as an example.

At first, it looks fairly simple. You’re just travelling sideways… right?

Then you discover timing, balance, bend, straightness, impulsion, rhythm, positioning, and suddenly it’s far more complicated than it looked.

Step by step it starts to click, as long as you concentrate, and then comes the day where half pass feels easy 🤩

So naturally feeling full of confidence… you decide to ride a zigzag.

Suddenly you’re back at the beginning of the cycle!

Now you have to think about changing the bend, rebalancing the horse, maintaining the quality of the half pass, and perhaps even adding a flying change between each line.

Once again, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And that’s the beauty of learning.

Every new challenge takes you back to the start of the cycle, but this time you’re standing on stronger foundations. Each layer of understanding makes the next one easier to build.

Learning dressage isn’t a straight line. It’s a series of circles that gradually spiral upwards.

Yes, it’s frustrating at times.

Yes, there will be moments when you wonder why something that looked so simple feels impossible.

But when that movement eventually becomes effortless—when you simply think it, and your horse does it—that feeling makes every difficult lesson worthwhile.

Trust the process. Every expert was once standing exactly where you are now.

What are you working on right now and which stage are you in right now?
🟢 “How hard can it be?”
🟡 “My brain is melting!”
🔵 “It’s starting to click.”
🟣 “I can finally do it without thinking!”

Drop your colour below. 👇

14/07/2026

I saw a fun exercise on Facebook suggesting using half steps to improve the tempi changes. It took Jenga a little by surprise so the counting is sketchy but it’s definitely helped the changes… one I’ll be practising some more 🤩