Problem with verbal arrangement

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I have a loan on a horse supposedly suitable for a novice i.e. I pay and get to ride. I am a novice but very nervous. The horse is trying it on with me which today resulted in me getting very anxious and he ran off with me a few times as freaked out at something. It really shook me up. I my mind he was bolting, when I posted online I was told he was saving me from the scary thing by running off as I made him nervous/trying it on.

In my lessons the horses needed pushing forwards so I'm not used to pulling them back. There is some other stuff I am not happy with e.g. it is very expensive. He is quite strong.

I am unsure if a) I am doing a really foolish thing and she is taking advantage of me and I should just have lessons as I am not good enough or b) it is OK but the wrong horse and I need one more ploddy or c) I will be alright if I push through the anxiety.

I have a lot of trouble with anxiety but would never do anything if I stopped because of anxiety e.g. job interviews.

Unless you have horse knowledge the advice I need is with the owner. She just says I need to be stronger with him and show him there is nothing to be nervous of and she would have given him a belt if he had dared do that with her. She is offering for people to ride out with me to give me confidence back. The horse helped her confidence and has never done that before (apparently). She is going to ride him out alone as he is getting fitter and stronger to see what he is like with her.

I was ready to break off the agreement but she sometimes talks me round and I feel powerless. She is talking about needing to find someone else if I am to give up. I have somehow agreed to think about it but keep going and to ride out on Saturday. On my own I was about to give up completely. I'm utterly confused about whether she is manipulating me or not for money. I could have lessons but it is £30pw for the loan and a lesson could be £20-30pw and that would only be half hour at a good riding school or maybe £15-20 for a group lesson. The owner pointed out that riding school ponies were like robots. I have found that there is a huge difference between riding in a lesson and hacking out and again riding alone as opposed to with someone where the horse takes confidence from you. I am utterly miserable now. I am completely obsessed and spend every minutes thinking about horses, before it was nice thoughts, now I have spent hours online feeling I can't resolve it and think I had a meltdown earlier. The owner doesn't know I have aspergers. The internet forum has told me to go back to lessons and that maybe it is too soon for this or to get an instructor out to the horse and not go alone or even drop the loan for a year.

I know this is an old posting, but thought I'd give a quick reply.

If you want to get along well with animals, you must cease thinking about humans, and think like that animal. Keep trying to see things from the perspective of the horse, and you'll quickly learn how to calm them down.

The first time I rode a horse, it moved oddly and I fell off sideways, where I hung upside down from the stirrup where my foot was caught. Luckily, the horse didn't run away while I was hanging there, and that is because I was, despite my falling over, acting very confident.

The most important thing to the horse is a confident rider. The moment you put someone on the back of a horse who is anxious, you have an anxious horse!

And why?

Very simple from the perspective of the horse: it is putting its life in your hands, if you are to be allowed to control it. If a horse is lead the wrong way, and falls and breaks a leg, that almost always leads to death. It's not like driving a car that doesn't care if it lives or dies, that horse wants to live! If a scared rider gets on its back, it will want to buck them off or ignore them and run away. It's trying to save itself from a chaotic rider that may end up killing it.

My advice:

Stop trying to ride the horse immediately, and get accustomed to it. Look it over, pat its back, rub its mane, rub the top of its nose if it trusts you enough, etc. Once you're no longer scared by it, it's the easiest and most natural thing in the world to ride it. But also try sitting on it without moving for a bit, again, focusing on the horse and nothing else. Learn the body language of the horse, when it is nervous or happy, etc. It isn't that difficult, horses make it pretty obvious when they like or don't like things.

Simply put:

If you are still scared of a horse, do not attempt to ride it. Get un-scared first, it knows you're scared unless you're really good at hiding your own body language, scent, tone of voice, etc.