The ideal warm-up will be perfectly executed to produce success in the ring – but horses aren’t machines. Ellie Hughes finds out how to cope when the warm-up throws you a curveball in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

As hard as we might try, not all warm-ups go to plan – and some go really wrong – even for the elites of our sport. Becky Moody and Jagerbomb were minutes away from dancing into the main arena at last year’s London International Horse Show when the big bay stepped one foot onto another and wrenched off a shoe.

“One of the founding principles of sport psychology is to control the controllables, and I’m not sure pulling off a shoe falls into that category,” says Becky, reflecting on the moments leading up to their grand prix test.

By the time the shoe had been nailed back on the pair barely had time to draw breath. But, cool as cucumbers, they went on to deliver a plus-75% score and take third place.

No matter how well-honed your warm-up routine, sometimes a crisis can unfold when you least expect it. From lost shoes and practice-fence tumbles to weather disruptions and tack malfunctions, there are myriad ways your last-minute preparations can go pear-shaped. How do top riders deal with these glitches? And how can you minimise the impact of a crisis on your own performance?

Becky was given the option to slot in at the end of the grand prix class, but decided against it.

“I didn’t think that would have suited Bomb either. I was happy with my decision even though our normal routine went out the window and I knew it wouldn’t be our best test,” she explains. “Usually, I get on 45 minutes beforehand and give him a couple of breaks. The last 15 minutes is important as he doesn’t naturally rev himself up ready to go into the arena – I have to do it for him – and we missed that window.”

Keeping a cool head when warm-ups go wrong

Having the mental strength to deal with glitches takes practice, which is why professional riders, who have years of experience to fall back on and are generally well-versed in sports psychology, can keep a clear head when circumstances conspire against them.

Hickstead Derby winner Trevor Breen recalls a particularly eventful warm-up while preparing for a five-star ranking class at Gijon, in Spain, several years ago.

“The horse I was riding completely misjudged a practice fence and we both ended up clean upside down,” he says. “We had to dust ourselves off and more or less go straight in and jump round a 1.55m track. Amazingly, we jumped clear. Situations like that are never ideal, but these things happen and you need to try to stay calm and not panic.

“If something goes wrong it’s always worth speaking to the steward to see if they will give you a little more time,” he says. “Most are very accommodating and will allow you to take a moment and jump a couple more fences if you need to. If things aren’t going to plan you need to stop, take a breath and work out what you need to do to be able to go into the ring in a confident place.”

Equestrian mindset and performance coach Janine Lamy explains that it is important to have a mechanism of recovery to get you back on track if necessary, and explains some of the tools and techniques that can help.

“The warm-up is the place where your mind can wander as there is so much else going on,” she says. “Horses tend to mirror our energy and nervous system, so it’s important to stay as grounded and present in the moment as you possibly can.

“Slowing your breathing and using grounding techniques, like feeling your hands or massaging your earlobe, can work well,” she continues. “Like anything, you need to have practised these to find out what works for you. The idea is that you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which tells your brain to communicate with your body so that you can respond to a situation, not react to it.”

If another rider falls off in the warm-up area, for example, and there’s a loose horse causing chaos, it is important to be able to redirect your focus back quickly onto you and your horse.

“The really good riders have tunnel vision,” continues Janine. “They have a blueprint of what they want to achieve and a process they need to go through to get themselves there.

“You need to ask yourself whether you can have a positive influence over a situation and if you can’t, then you need to let it go.”

International event rider Storm Straker was given little choice in the matter when she hit the deck over a practice fence moments before starting the cross-country at Ballindenisk CCI4*-L in 2024.

“I decided to string a line of fences together as my final prep, but my horse was distracted by something, left a leg and I went straight out the front door,”

she recalls. “We were both fine, but Fever Pitch galloped off back towards the stables, my air jacket had gone off and before I knew it, I was being marched off to see a doctor. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to start.”

Storm was eventually given the all-clear and ultimately went on to secure her first win at the level.

“In hindsight, it was probably a good thing I didn’t have too much time to think about the fall as it made me ride in the moment,” she says. “Once I was allowed back on board, I jumped the fence that I fell at, so that I could put that behind me, but then I just had to trust that Fever Pitch would do his job. We both knuckled down and went on to have a brilliant round. I would say the fall sharpened us up.”

The uncontrollables

The weather is something that is completely outside your control and yet may exert a considerable influence over your warm-up. Former World Class performance manager Yogi Breisner recalls day two of the eventing dressage at the London 2012 Olympics when a monsoon-like thunderstorm descended on Greenwich Park moments before British team member Tina Cook was due in the ring.

“There was no better person to have to deal with a difficult situation than Tina because she was so cool, calm and collected,” he recalls. The competition was held briefly to allow the worst of the storm to pass over, leaving those in the collecting ring completely drenched and with their carefully considered warm-up routines disrupted.

“We had prepared our horses the best we could for the challenge of a home Olympics – during team training we had even bussed in some local school children to wave banners and flags to try to recreate a bit of the atmosphere – but we couldn’t control the weather,” he continues.

Yogi explains that although it is crucial to have a warm-up plan, it is also important to be able to adapt it.

“It is always worth looking at the weather forecast because that might dictate how long you warm up for,” he says. “If it is very wet or very hot, you might not want to spend as much time on board before your test. If it’s very cold you will likely need an exercise blanket, so make sure you have someone on hand to help take it off.”

Taking care of the factors that are within your control will leave you more able to deal with other issues should they arise.

“Sometimes there is more than one warm-up area, so do a recce before you ride and make sure you know where you need to be at what time, and also where the steward is,” advises Yogi. “Both you and your groom should locate the farrier in advance and know where to find spare tack, so you’re not wasting more time than is necessary if the worst happens and you lose a shoe or have a tack malfunction.

“At a championship we make sure the only people in the warm-up are the ones who are part of a rider’s close team,” he adds. “This helps minimise the chance of outside distractions and helps riders focus on what’s most important.”

Ultimately, that means peaking in the ring itself. While the warm-up is designed to set you up for success, a bad dress rehearsal can still lead to a polished show.

Can warm-ups go too well?

Psychologically, having to deviate from the best laid plans just before a big moment can be unsettling. But what happens when plan A goes too well and you feel your horse has peaked too early? This was exactly the conundrum last year’s Burghley runner-up Austin O’Connor faced before his dressage test on Colorado Blue. Fifteen minutes before his test, Austin hopped off and rolled up his stirrups.

“I’d already worked ‘Salty’ in the morning and had gone up to the warm-up 25 minutes before my test,” recalls Austin. “After about 10 minutes he felt great and was exactly where I wanted him to be.

“It wasn’t the plan at all to get off, but at that moment I felt he was exactly at the point where I wanted in the ring. If I’d have stayed on board I would have been tempted to carry on working him, which could’ve led to him being over the top. I took a gamble and jumped off so we could both just take a breath.

“At this level, with an established horse like Salty, it’s all about fine lines and small margins. I knew I was taking a bit of a risk getting off and if it hadn’t worked out I’d have looked like a bit of an idiot, but fortunately for me it did and we went in and did a great test.”

The duo went on to record a personal best five-star dressage score of 27.8.

More examples of top warm-up recoveries

Champion unshipped at Dublin Horse Show

Germany’s former world eventing champion Sandra Auffarth, who is now a top-draw showjumper, was unshipped from Quirici H in the warm-up just before her first round in Nations Cup showjumping at Dublin Horse Show in August 2025. She was permitted to take a little extra time to recover, so jumped a couple of horses later than the original running order, and went on to record an impressive clear round, ultimately helping Germany to second place.

A snapped stirrup at Boekelo

New Zealand five-star eventer Amanda Pottinger suffered a snapped stirrup iron while warming up for cross-country at the final leg of the FEI eventing Nations Cup series at Boekelo on Good Timing.

“It’s part of the sport – there are pressured situations and things don’t always go to plan,” she said at the time. “You learn to adapt to get the job done.”

Testing the nerves before Blenheim Europeans gold

Moments before she was due to canter down the centre line at the 2025 European Eventing Championships, eventual individual gold medallist Laura Collett had to contend with her often comedic partner, London 52, trying to scupper her last-minute prep by grabbing the bit and trying to run off.

“He does test the nerves in that respect,” she said afterwards.

• Enjoyed reading this? For more expert training advice from top riders and coaches, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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They say growth begins at the edge of your comfort zone, but how can riders successfully move up the levels without overstretching themselves or their horses? Catherine Welton investigates in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

The psychology of moving up a level in equestrian sport might not be something you think about until you’re faced with the challenge. When amateur eventer Gemma Atkin returned to riding after an 18-year break, she found 60cm showjumping courses terrifying. But, over five seasons, she moved up the eventing levels and last year completed her first four-star.

“I was nervous at every level but crossing the finish line at Scone Palace, clear with only a handful of time-faults, was a moment I’ll never forget,” she says.

Her advice? “I believe in pushing slightly beyond your comfort zone but there is a balance to be had.”

Finding this balance is key to successfully moving up the levels, as Leonie Lightfoot, a sport psychologist for the British Equestrian World Class Programme, explains: “There needs to be a match of what you’re doing and the skill set required. It needs to be just challenging enough but not too far, because then you tip into the fear and anxiety zone.”

Leonie encourages riders to plan their progression based on facts rather than emotions.

“With our brain, there are two systems, one of which operates with feelings and emotions,” she says. “The problem with that is the emotional thinking system is not very reliable. Its job is to keep you safe, so it will never feel ready to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

“With dressage, there can be a reticence not to go until it’s perfect but you’d be potentially waiting forever. With eventing, if the rider starts thinking too much about the risk then the emotional system kicks in, which can be fear or excitement.”

So Leonie encourages riders to use the other thinking system, which is based on evidence and operates logically, rather than relying on emotions.

“To compete at that level, what are the facts?” she asks. “Which movements are you able to perform competently, or what heights are you comfortably jumping at home?”

Is there a right time to move up a level?

British Horse Society Fellow Danny Anholt has a few rules of thumb to help assess when the time is right to move up.

“Consistent plus-65% scores in pure dressage,” he says. “In jumping, you’re looking for consistent double clears at the current level – not rosettes, that’s determined by the opposition.

“It should also be consistent with your long-term planning. Slow, steady steps are needed to achieve both the technical skills and the confidence.”

The right partnership of horse and rider is fundamental and, as someone who coaches a lot of younger riders, Danny always advises gaining mileage on a horse that’s not only experienced but also happy being ridden by a less experienced rider.

“If the horse has been accustomed to clear signals and a confident approach, when he finds himself under the guidance of an inexperienced jockey, the pin can very quickly drop out,” he warns.

An amateur rider who has produced their own horse may fall into a slightly different trap.

“There’s a real danger of a ‘blind leading the blind’ scenario,” says Danny. “An objective view at this stage is essential. The best decisions are made through a collaboration between the rider, the coach and the horse himself.”

Leonie says this is another area where thinking logically is important.

“Riders will be emotionally attached to their horse, so it’s harder to look at the situation objectively,” she says. “Get someone you trust, with knowledge about what the horse needs to compete at that level, to give you honest feedback.”

When Alice Pullem thought she might have an unlikely grand prix dressage horse on her hands, she asked her trainer Eilidh Grant for a second opinion.

“Cheeky Wee Red is a barely-15hh former racehorse I bought as a project,” says Alice. “After a month I took her to her first competition at novice level and she scored 68%.”

As “Rosie” continued to progress in her dressage training, Alice continued to move her up the levels of the sport.

“We had a leg-yield so we went off and tried elementary. We mastered shoulder-in and half-pass so we tried medium. I asked Eilidh if she was up for the challenge of taking us to grand prix, and she took us seriously. In March 2023 we cantered down the centre line in our first one and scored just under 63%.”

Once the decision has been made to step up, Leonie explains how the right mindset can help the transition go smoothly.

“Look at the things you can control and identify the ‘key processes’, some of which will be the same, which is quite comforting,” she advises.

“For example, the fence might be higher but your jumping position is pretty much the same.”

She also says to be prepared for some discomfort.

“That’s just your body getting ready to meet a new challenge. It’s a positive thing, you’re going to jump those higher fences, let’s get some blood to the muscles – you’re not nervous, you’re ready.”

Preparing to move up a level

There’s a lot of practical preparation a rider can do too.

“With dressage, if you’ve learnt the new test, do an arena hire and if that goes well that’s the evidence that you can do it in a competition,” says Leonie.

Danny also advises considering the venue for your first outing at a new level.

“For eventers, we all know that there are stronger courses and softer courses; more or less technical; bigger atmosphere versus quieter events,” he says.

Doing some background research can really pay off.

“In showjumping, it’s worth finding out the methods and style of the particular course-builder, the size of the arena, the footing, the atmosphere,” he adds.

The same goes for dressage.

“Choose a familiar venue where you’ve competed happily at the lower levels, a welcoming atmosphere, a good-sized warm-up arena with good footing,” Danny suggests. “You can even seek out judges who have been favourable to you and your horse in the past.

“It’s also worth checking out whether it’s a venue frequented by professionals with strings of horses, as the less-experienced rider can find this quite intimidating at first,” he adds.

Event rider Rupert Hyde, 18, is currently competing at two-star and looking to move up to three-star this season. The first time he stepped up a level, choosing the right venue for him was part of his strategy.

“I had an Andalusian pony who was amazing at dressage and had been showjumping at 1m but she wasn’t so confident across country,” Rupert says. “So we did a lot of cross-country schooling with her, especially ditches, and then chose Mendip Plains for the first competition as it was a venue she knew well having trained there.”

It paid off, and although the pair were slightly down on the time, the ditches caused no issues.

Riders should be prepared for some steps up to feel more challenging than others, however.

“Going from BE100 to novice is a difficult one,” says Rupert. “The movements in the dressage become more complicated, the courses become more technical, plus the height. My mindset changed for novice; I was more focused and practised a huge amount.”

When things don’t go to plan

Of course, even the best-laid plans sometimes go awry. When this happens, Leonie returns to the idea of the two thinking systems.

“The emotional one is about expectation and how things should be,” she says. “Everyone’s version of that is seamless and easy, you start here and get better and better. Then the world doesn’t live up to that and you get unwanted and unhelpful emotions like frustration.”

Instead, Leonie says to work with reality: “Progression isn’t neat and linear. You might step up and think, ‘Oh, the evidence now is that it wasn’t the right time. I’ve got more information now, so I’ll go away and work harder.’

“Keep your perspective – just because you’ve not done it when you thought you would, doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen,” she continues. “You just need to think about what you’re going to work on before the next time you try.”

Gemma’s step up to intermediate coincided with three falls in the space of a couple of months.

“I questioned whether I was ready to be at that level at all,” she says. “I lost all confidence in my ability and very nearly gave up. But over the winter I watched hours and hours of video footage of top riders alongside my own competition footage, and realised the mistakes I had been making.

“I worked with my trainer to correct my rein length and made the decision to step back down to novice to practise the new technique and rebuild my confidence.”

For Gemma, these videos were the “evidence” she needed.

“Understanding why it had happened and how I could prevent it in future was key, and that’s why video analysis has become one of the most valuable tools I use. It’s done wonders for improving my technique and confidence.”

In fact, even if your first outing at a new level goes well, there can be an advantage to dropping back a level.

“I’ve always found that ‘toe-dipping’ is a wise strategy,” says Danny. “It’s worth going back to the previous level next time out to confirm confidence. We can’t always be sure how the horse is feeling and the first upgrade outing can be overwhelming mentally, even if the technical performance was satisfactory. One of my maxims is: ‘You can never make a horse too confident.’”

Finally, Leonie advises making sure to celebrate what you’ve achieved.

“The mind has this tendency to go, ‘When I reach this level, I’ll be happy,’ and then when you get there, instead of celebrating success, you think, ‘I need to be better,’” she says. “Build in time to reflect on how far you’ve come, and the hard work and effort that has gone into it.”

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Joe Stockdale talks about mental toughness and how he has developed his mindset in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Winning a six-bar or a puissance requires an ice-cool temperament. The pressure ramps up as the field whittles down to the final contenders for the prize. When British showjumper Joe Stockdale cleared 2.13m on Its Confidential (Rolo) at Spruce Meadows, he not only won, but set a new six-bar record (joint with Czech rider Vaclav Stanek).

But the mark of a great rider is how they respond to that pressure, and in Joe’s case it was very much “bring it on”. He had meant to jump only a couple of rounds, but as Its Confidential was jumping so well, he decided to go for the win.

“I got a bit excited, he kept jumping better and better, and I ended up going all the way,” says Joe. “I wasn’t going to pull out once it was a two-horse race.

“When I went in and showed Rolo the fence, that made me nervous. It doesn’t even look like a jump when it’s that big. But Rolo is so brave; he didn’t blink an eye.”

But Joe recognises that thriving under pressure is a symptom of being on form.

“That’s when you know you’re confident, because you’re not thinking of what could go wrong,” he says. “Pressure is a nice thing to be a part of. If you’re under pressure, it comes down to being the last person to jump and having to go clear. That’s what you dream of – and pulling it off.”

Joe explains that this kind of good pressure is a result of the hard work that’s delivered you to a winning position – and that readiness is something you can lean into.

“When you’re feeling under pressure, you have to think about the preparation, the work you’ve done to get to this point,” he says. “The horse is ready, you’re ready, you’ve ticked every box and you’re in the best position you can be in at the time. Obviously it’s a worry if you’re not well prepared, but if this is your big goal, you’ve trained to be ready for this moment and you try to do the best you can.”

Dealing with pressure when the results aren’t coming

But pressure can exert negative forces in showjumping. The pressure of the winning round might be a privilege, but there are other times when the burden of just keeping your head above water in a highly emotive sport can weigh heavily.

“Mentally the sport is very difficult, there are lots of ups and downs,” says Joe Stockdale. “Any sport is tough, but ours is particularly tough. We have massive highs and then have big troughs, lows when things aren’t working out.

“It’s very difficult to deal with. You feel under pressure, because you want to do well, and the people around you want you to do well and they’re part of that team.”

Joe’s tools for diffusing that pressure when the rosettes aren’t coming is to remember what motivates him in the first place.

“I just try to find what I enjoy about it,” he says. “I enjoy being with the horses, I enjoy working with them day to day trying to improve them, even if it’s a little a time. It’s taking it step by step, a day at a time, keep turning up and doing what you can. Hopefully, eventually you get the result you deserve but it might take time.

“I’m lucky to have a great team of people around, who’ve been with me a long time and we’re all working towards the same goal. They understand that if it’s not going well, I’m still trying my best and vice versa, they’re giving 100%. That’s all you can ask for and hopefully the results come.”

If he has a horse that loses confidence in a show environment, Joe immediately works to build back the trust.

“The best thing is to slow things down, drop down in height to take the pressure off yourself and the horse, and make it easier for everyone,” he says. “Then get them confident before you go up the levels again, not rushing to go to bigger shows. Take it in the horse’s time, so that only when they’re ready can you pull the trigger and move up.”

How Joe Stockdale developed his mindset

In terms of mindset, Joe Stockdale has various mentors that have shaped him into the rider he is today, but the main drive has been his work ethic.

“There’s not one piece of advice I’ve been given that’s made the difference but there are a lot of people in the sport and around me I look up to,” he says. “My dad [Tim Stockdale] was one: very hardworking, very determined, worked extremely hard to get to where he wanted to. That’s something I think about every day.

“When I’m struggling or finding it difficult he’d be giving me a rollicking, telling me to buck my ideas up and get stuck in and get on with it!”

William Funnell is another.

“William’s a mentor and a very good friend,” Joe says. “He’s got the biggest breeding operation in the UK, a massive set-up with so many things going on at once, and he’s run that and gone to the top of the sport. I look up to him and his work ethic at lot. These are the things that inspire me and keep me going every day.”

As for the little hacks that help him along the way? Don’t mention Lady Luck.

“I was always told you’re not allowed superstitions,” Joe says. “My dad always said that then you have an excuse when things go wrong. I once had a lucky set of cricket gloves I always used to bat in, and Dad told me it was nonsense, because one day I’d forget them and it wouldn’t go well and I’d say it wasn’t my fault because I didn’t have my lucky gloves.

“So I have no superstitions but I have my routine and I stick to that. I’ve got a system, and I try not to rely on luck, though I could do with a bit every now and then!”

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Equestrian sport has always prized grit and resilience. But more riders are realising mental health isn’t something you can leave at the stable door. The pressures of work, relationships, finances or top-level competition follow us into the saddle and flow straight into our horses.

“It’s a misconception that mental strength is about ignoring how you feel,” says equestrian psychology coach Charlie Unwin, who has worked with elite riders and now shares the tools used with them with grassroots equestrians, via Peak Rider’s bank of practical resources. “Real resilience is about awareness – knowing when your internal world is helping or hindering you, and having tools to shift it.”

Horses, he explains, are emotional barometers.

“They don’t listen to words – they read your body language, micro tensions, even your breathing. You might think you’re hiding stress, but the horse has already picked it up. They’re in effect living in your nervous system.”

He adds that this connection is measurable. Scientists can track how a horse’s heart rate variability mirrors the rider’s, revealing the state of both nervous systems.

“When we become dysregulated,” Charlie says, “the horse also becomes dysregulated. We breathe differently, we think differently, and we make more threat-oriented decisions – fixating on what the horse might shy at, instead of the task we’re trying to do.”

It’s a message echoed by Linnea Aarflot, who runs Mind.Body.Dressage and has spent more than two decades helping riders, from amateurs to Olympic hopefuls.

“We behave about 5% from our conscious mind and 95% from our subconscious,” she explains.

“If you’re carrying tension from work or old emotional wounds, your horse feels it, even if you’re smiling on the outside. They respond not to your intentions, but to your true internal state.”

And that, Charlie and Linnea agree, can change everything – not just for performance in the arena, but also for the wellbeing of our horses.

Mental health in riders: the constant struggle of life’s demands

Nicola Bell, a grand prix dressage rider, knows how personal turmoil can slip into the saddle.

“It was the year I turned 40 – my annus horribilis. Divorce, my parents’ ill health, and more,” she says.

“At the same time, I had an Oldenburg stallion I loved and thought he’d keep me going. But the relationship soured, which makes me so emotional because we’d had such a strong bond. I wish I’d sent him to someone else for a while.”

Nicola’s story is personal – but far from unique. Many riders find that everyday life quietly spills into their time with horses, sometimes with heartbreaking consequences.

Megan Lane, a doctoral candidate at Liverpool John Moores University, found nearly half the dual-career equestrians in her study were experiencing high levels of burnout, far above the 5-10% typical in other sports.

Riders described the constant struggle to balance the demands of work, family life, and caring for their horses, leaving them exhausted.

“Sometimes you just want to go home after work, but you can’t. And the enjoyment level goes out of it,” Megan adds.

Equestrian sport’s cultural mindset can also make riders hesitant to seek help.

“It’s ingrained from when you’re young that if you fall off, you get back on, even if you’re hurt,” Megan explains. “People feel they have to carry on no matter what.”

Yet the consequences can be serious, ranging from physical exhaustion to mental health struggles such as depression.

“I wish people weren’t scared to ask for help, because that’s when it can get a lot worse,” she says.

“I felt like I was living two lives”

If that paints a rather bleak picture of equestrian sport, Megan’s research also highlighted something many riders instinctively know: that horses can also offer protection against stress and provide an escape from life’s worries.

For five-star event rider Mollie Summerland – who won the CCI5*-L at Luhmühlen Horse Trials in 2021 at just 22 and has since spoken with remarkable openness about her mental health struggles – this has certainly been true.

“When everyone thought I’d come home from Luhmühlen celebrating, I was actually back in hospital,” Mollie shares. “No amount of good results took away the sadness. I felt like I was living two lives: pretending everything was fine at shows, while privately struggling.

“At one point, hospital admissions became routine. I’d be discharged, then soon be back at high-level competitions.”

Yet even in her darkest moments, Mollie’s horses kept her tethered to hope.

“My horses were my saviours during that time. Knowing I had them waiting for me at home, and big competitions drawing closer while I was in the hospital, gave me the strength and focus I needed to get better and go home to them. I felt I was letting them down if I went to a show lacking preparation.”

It’s a sentiment many riders echo: horses are both a lifeline and, sometimes, an additional source of pressure. Because while horses can soothe and heal, they also demand our very best – and that expectation can become overwhelming for some when life gets heavy.

Amateur rider Rhiannon Davies balances a corporate job with life alongside her seven-year-old Irish Draught, Harley, sharing their journey on social media and through her podcasts – The Equestrian Money Diaries and This Equestrian Life, which she co-hosts with horse trainer Miri Hackett.

“He’s the part of my day I look forward to the most,” Rhiannon says, “but that also means I attach an emotional element to riding.

“I want to show up well for him, which adds pressure. And horses are so intelligent, it makes total sense that they’d pick up on how we’re feeling and respond accordingly. It’s important we’re aware of that.

“I wish I’d reminded myself more that this is supposed to be fun, for both of us.”

Mollie’s story shows that even riders who keep performing at the highest level can carry a heavy emotional load behind the scenes. For others, like Rhiannon, the desire to “show up well” can sometimes turn a beloved hobby into an added source of pressure.

How to handle our mental health as riders

That’s where sports psychologists and mental health coaches step in, helping riders handle not just performance demands but the hidden emotional weight of caring for horses.

“If we know that horses’ heart rates can sync with their riders – and that a rider’s spikes with anxiety, even if nothing external is happening – it’s clear why learning to regulate your own state is one of the most powerful skills any rider can develop,” explains Charlie.

“We’re not trying to avoid stress, we’re trying to get better at handling it.”

The first step, both Charlie and Linnea agree, is self-awareness.

“Before you even approach your horse, check in with yourself,” Charlie says. “Ask: how am I feeling right now? Am I anxious, angry, or distracted? That’s not weakness – it’s crucial data.”

He gives a powerful analogy: “It’s like walking on the edge of a pavement. You can do it all day, one foot in front of the other, but if the pavement were three stories high, you’d walk completely differently. Yet people blame their walking. They go away and practise walking, but it’s not the walking that’s the issue. It’s how you manage your mental state in that situation.”

It’s a reminder that riding more or drilling technique won’t fix an out-of-balance mental state.

Linnea frames it this way: “If your nervous system is already close to its limit, adding the demands of riding can push you over into fight-or-flight. It’s then your subconscious takes over, and you lose the ability to problem-solve calmly.”

Signs that you’re nearing your limit might include:

• Feeling impatient or frustrated over small mistakes
• Fixating on things that could go wrong
• Shallow breathing
• Holding tension in your shoulders, jaw or hands

The good news, Charlie stresses, is that riders have tools to regain balance.

“Breathwork is your fastest route to shifting state,” he says. “It’s how we move from threat mode to connection mode.”

His go-to technique is the 4-7-8 breath: inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight.

“That lengthens the exhale, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system – your body’s calm-down system.”

Meanwhile, Linnea focuses on helping riders identify emotional patterns and train their nervous systems.

“The nervous system is like a muscle,” she explains. “You can train it to tolerate more pressure without tipping into stress. It’s not a quick fix, though – it’s like going to the gym or improving your diet. One day won’t change your life.”

Miri, Rhiannon’s podcast co-host and founder of Hackett Equine, a holistic, horse-first training centre, says: “A lot of the work I do is uncovering unconscious motivations and emotional patterns – and that can have a transformative effect on how we ride.”

“Being brave is stepping back”

But sometimes, the most powerful choice is simply to stay on the ground.

“There are times I decide that riding isn’t the right thing to do,” Miri adds.

She’s also been open about balancing mental health with life around horses.

“If I’m not feeling my best, I try to bring the pressure down and ask, ‘What can I do in this situation that will be a positive experience for both horse and rider?’

“Slowing down is one of the best ways we can regulate our nervous systems – rushing is so chronic, people don’t even notice how fast they’re going. It’s also important to remember that a horse’s behaviour is never personal – they’re just responding to what’s happening around them or within you.”

Nicola has learned a similar lesson. “These days, I’d step back instead of pushing through. The horse doesn’t need to go out and do 20-metre circles if I’m in bits inside.

“Being brave can mean stepping back. You’re not weak if you decide not to ride. You’re being intelligent. I’d tell any rider now: listen to your gut. It’s the best horseman you’ll ever meet.”

Mental health in riders: let’s talk!

Everyone we spoke to agreed: talking about mental health matters. Staying silent only makes struggles feel heavier, while opening up can be the first step toward real change for riders and their horses.

“I struggled with feeling a lot of shame for a long time – it felt taboo to me,” Mollie says. “But now I’m so passionate about normalising open conversations around mental health. I’ve come to a place where I feel no shame at all in being transparent if it can help others.”

She adds: “Everyone has things going on behind closed doors. Helping people feel they can speak openly – even to trainers – means we can support each other and factor that into how we work with our horses.”

Rhiannon’s advice for other amateurs juggling life and horses is simple but powerful: “Learn to recognise your emotions and limits, and figure out what helps in tough moments. Surround yourself with people who encourage you and call you out when you’re too hard on yourself or your horse.

“Reframing my ‘why’ has helped. I love competing, but enjoying my horse as a whole means not putting too much weight on riding alone.”

Miri also emphasises the value of speaking up: “Don’t be alone – because you aren’t. When we are feeling overwhelmed or struggling, reaching out to a friend and acknowledging that things are hard can be healing.”

For riders like Miri, Rhiannon, Mollie and Nicola, mental health has become part of good horsemanship itself.

As Rhiannon puts it: “There’s so much more to time with our horses than being in the saddle. Some days, a cuddle is enough – and your horse might thank you for it.”

Because in the end, our horses care not about our competitive record but rather how gently we show up for them each day. And perhaps that’s the truest definition of success.

• Enjoyed reading this? For more expert training advice from top riders and coaches, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Sports psychologist Inga Wolframm's book Perfect mind: Perfect ride tackles all aspects of getting in the right mindset for riding. Here she gives her expert advice for coping with competition day

You trained for it, looked forward to it, perhaps you’ve even dreaded it (at least deep down). Now it is finally here — competition day! And that can only mean one thing: it’s show time.

But let’s face, even though you enter a show out of your own free will, it can be something of a double-edged sword: the potential for lots of fun and utter humiliation combined in one neat package. At least that’s what that inner voice will keep telling you unless you teach it to do otherwise.

1. Learn to love it

A little flutter of nerves can be a very good thing. It makes you quicker in your reactions, helps you to focus on what matters most, prevents you from tiring easily and even makes you feel less pain. Rather than condemn it, welcome it. Appreciate that it’s the sign your body needs to pull out all the stops.

2. Remind yourself that you can do it

One of the conditions of being able to turn anxiety into a feeling that’s positive and helpful is to know you’ve got the relevant skills. How do you know? By having done it at home. And if you want to be absolutely sure you’ve got what it takes, make sure you train above the level you’re planning to compete at.

3. Don’t try and control the uncontrollable

Many people consider this the number one rule of mental skills training. All it means is that there is absolutely no point in worrying about the things that you can do nothing about on the day of the show. Focusing on elements outside of your control is wasted energy that you’d be better off spending on more important things, such as…

4. …controlling the controllables

It starts with seemingly mundane things such as having your times, your kit, the routine of how and when to tack up. Enough things can go wrong without your planning being one of them. So make sure you’ve got everything you need ready well before you leave. Also think of things that might go wrong when you get there, such as the zip of your boot breaking or the weather changing just as you get there. While you can’t plan for every eventuality, having a ‘just in case’ kit stored away in your car or lorry will give you additional peace of mind.

5. Set yourself goals

Remember, the best way to stay in control is to know exactly what it is that you want to achieve and how you are going to go about it. You want to ride a quiet test? Focus on keeping your joints (wrists, ankles, shoulders, etc.) supple and your muscles (upper arms, upper legs and so on) relaxed and ‘off’ the horse until you need to give an aid. You want to ride with more expression? Keep making sure your horse is ‘on’ the aids. Most importantly? Don’t just focus on these goals in your warm-up, but keep reminding yourself of what you want to do while in the ring too.

6. KISS – Keep it simple and specific

Try KISS – keep it simple and specific. Simplicity and specificity are key to knowing what you are supposed to be doing. So as you get on your horse, give yourself simple and specific instructions on how you intend to ride your test, the course, etc. You want your horse to be relaxed in the ring? Instruct yourself to loosen up through the shoulders and wrists. Your horse needs to move forward with more impulsion? Be adamant that your horse reacts to your leg the entire time while in the ring.

7. Distract yourself

Do you worry yourself silly about all the things that might go wrong in the ring? Can you picture everyone laughing their heads off at your poor performance? Are you convinced the judges hate your horse? Rest assured, these thoughts are normal – most riders experience them at one time or another. But they’re also unproductive and quite often end up undermining your performance. Rather than desperately trying not to think them though (which hardly ever works anyway), it’s best to simply try and accept that you do (something along the lines of ‘Hey, it’s part of who I am, but I’m not going to let it affect me.’) After that, move on and find something to do to take your mind off those negative thoughts. Playing a game on your smart phone, gossiping with a friend, and, while on board, focusing on what you are going to do and breathing correctly can work wonders.

8. Ignore others

I don’t mean all the time, of course. But while you’re tacking up, or already on your horse, you shouldn’t be watching or paying attention to anyone else, be that fellow competitors, judges, spectators. You can’t control them anyway – not what they’re doing or thinking, not what they’ll say to each other and not how they’ll score your test. Incidentally, it’s not always a good idea to watch other competitors beforehand either. If you only end up comparing yourself unfavourably, you should definitely leave it until after you’ve ridden.

9. Breathe!

Ever asked yourself how come you can ride for an hour at home without breaking into a sweat, but a few minutes in the ring leave you completely knackered? It’s because you forgot to breathe. Many riders will hold their breath for long periods in the ring, and, when they finally do take a breath, inhale into their chest cavity. The problem is, this type of – chest – breathing is very closely linked to the ‘fight or flight response’. Breaths are short, shallow and jerky. Muscles are tight, tense and ready to jump into action – not ideal when you’re doing a sport that, first and foremost, depends on fine motor control (i.e. small, very precise movements of your muscles). The answer? Remember to breathe into your belly, taking long, slow breaths.

10. Relax

Managed to control your breathing and need a bit more a challenge? All right, here goes. Work on relaxing your muscles on command. It’s important to first start practising at home, though. Work your way through all the major muscle groups in your body, one after the other. First, tense them as hard as you can, then simply let go – and feel the tension drain from your muscles. Combine with a trigger word, such as relax or chill. Eventually, your trigger and relaxation will become inseparable. Once you get to the show, repeat your trigger word as and when needed to remove any superfluous tension that might (will) distort communication with your horse.

11. Listen

The power of music — don’t underestimate it. The right tune can relax, stimulate, motivate, soothe, provide comfort or remind you of happy days. So why not come up with a competition play list? You’ll be able to magic yourself into the right state of mind at the mere touch of a button.

12. Focus

It’s one of the key elements to performance. Being able to focus. Attention, the right kind of focus, flow. When it happens, it’s magical. Creating it is merely a question of practice. Remember, focus is a bit like the beam of a torch, highlighting merely those elements important to your performance, but leaving everything else in the dark. Especially if you’re struggling to get into that focusing zone, you might want to make use of a trigger word or a pre-competition routine, which your body will automatically associate with the right kind of focus.

13. Use a routine

Using a series of pre-determined positive (!) behaviours, actions or thoughts that your body and mind have learned to associate with another set of actions, moods or behaviours, will always, without fail, provide you with a sense of security. Routines can involve anything from the type of music you listen to on your way to the show, the way you tack up your horse or the way you structure your warm-up. Just before you enter the ring, you might also want to run through a set behaviour, words or phrases, such as a short gesture meaningful only to you, a deep breath, a trigger word, a visualised scene, and, finally, the command for your horse to get going. As long as the routine is positive, helpful and enjoyable, you’re good to go.

14. Be nice to yourself

Riders are possibly the most critical group of people I’ve ever come across. And that’s a good thing too – when you’re sitting on top of an animal with a mind of its own, you can’t afford to be complacent. But if being critical about yourself is all you do at a show, you’re missing the point… Too many riders keep telling themselves that they are ‘rubbish’, that they ‘don’t belong’, that they ‘might as well go home’. This kind of behaviour serves absolutely no purpose other than undermining your confidence (which is the last thing you need!). So try and be nice to yourself by complimenting yourself. And if you cannot bring yourself to come up with a compliment, at least think of something constructive to say!

15. Visualise

You might have been doing it for years without realising that it’s one of the most effective mental skills around: imagery. The ability to see yourself ride in your mind’s eye. But now that you know it works, it might be time to make the most of it. Use it to improve on current levels of skill, by seeing yourself perform a tricky movement. Or motivate yourself by imagining yourself perform faultlessly at the top of your game. Or picture yourself calm and serene, in the right mental frame of mind. By visualising a desired outcome you’re giving your mind and muscles a kind of ‘blueprint’ for the real action later on.

16. Forgive yourself

So you’ve made a mistake. Big deal… Seriously, even though it might feel like it at that particular moment, getting it wrong isn’t the end of the world. If you’re half way through your ride, give yourself positive instructions on what to do next. Afterwards, remind yourself that this was just another competition (no matter how important it was), and that you’ll simply work on it over the next few weeks. If this doesn’t sound acceptable to you, check your assumptions. You might be trapped in a dysfunctional thought pattern. So rather than making unreasonable demands of yourself, try and learn from your mistakes. Lastly, think of the big picture. You’re there, because you want to be.

17. Accept it

There’ll always be days when things just refuse to come together. It’s not your fault. In fact, it’s nobody’s fault. In the words of Mary King: “Highs and lows are part of horse sports. Try and simply accept them.”

18. Enjoy it!

You’ve trained, you’ve prepared, you’ve spent lots of money and put in oodles of time. Most importantly though, at the heart of it all, it’s about you and your horse.

• To stay up to date with all the breaking news throughout major shows such as London International and more, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

You may also be interested in:

‘Remember you’re dealing with an unpredictable animal’ — how top riders cope when things go wrong

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

If you find your nerves are preventing you from enjoying your time in the saddle, know you are not alone – the good news is that rider confidence coach Sue Gould-Wright has some useful tips that can help nervous horse riders.

While in some cases riders’ nerves can be traced back to a bad experience, such as a fall, sometimes a loss of confidence can appear for no obvious reason, which can be particularly frustrating. This is a situation that Sue has plenty of experience with, and she believes it’s important for a nervous horse riders to understand the role different parts of their brain plays.

Sue explains: “There is probably a part of you who is trying to tell yourself that there is no need to be concerned, you KNOW that you are capable and can cope with whatever happens. So what on earth is going on? Well, I can tell you that your rational brain is being hijacked by Amy and a Reptile!

“We evolved from reptiles and our brain stem is a throw-back to that evolutionary process, which is why it is referred to as the reptilian brain. This part of our brain is instinctive and doesn’t have the capability to think about things rationally; its response is just what you see in reptiles today — flight, fight or freeze.

“So who the heck is Amy and how does she fit in? Amy is a part of your mammalian brain, again a throwback to our evolution but from a later stage in the process, from mammals this time. Amy is an abbreviation I concocted to refer to a part of the mammalian brain called the amygdala.

“This more evolved part of your brain does have some degree of rational thought, but the content of the amygdala may have you believing otherwise… Amy holds all those fearful, painful memories, a bit like an old haunted house rattling with ghosts of the past.”

So, if these parts of our brain are working against nervous horse riders, how can the rational brain help?

“The rational, useful, thinking part of the brain is the voice (being drowned out by Amy’s incessant chattering) telling you that you KNOW you can deal with anything that your horse offers you — your neocortex. Your neocortex has the ability to rationally evaluate situations and take the appropriate action(s). However what can happen is Amy can become too reactive; you develop what is known as a ‘hot amygdala’.

“Amy’s response also triggers the area of your brain responsible for releasing hormones such as adrenaline; so often the physical symptoms of fear due to hormone release (increased heart rate, shaky legs, shallow breathing) can make us less able to think rationally… and so the downward spiral of fear and anxiety continues.”

So now you know about “Amy” and “the Reptile”, you can understand that you aren’t going mad – it’s simply that there are things working away in your head, which are trying to protect you, but in reality they are interfering with your ability to enjoy your riding. So now you understand that, you can start to take control again.

Tips for nervous horse riders from Sue Gould-Wright

1. WHOA! As soon as you hear those niggling voices of doom, shout “whoa!”, “No!”, “Amy!” or whatever works for you; you have a split second to take control and stop the release of those jelly-leg hormones (you can shout out loud or in your head — either works!)

2. Breathe: take a big breath in and sigh as you breathe out. Do this a couple of times, then take normal size breaths in, but continue to sigh as you breathe out. If you’re with your horse, they may also respond to the outward sigh as a signal that all is calm, panic over.

3. Count your breath: breathe in one, out two, in three, out four, etc. until you reach 10 and then you start over again at one. This focuses your attention elsewhere and helps you to control your breathing rate; the slower your breathing, the more your heart rate will lower.

4. Do a top-to-toe scan of your body to check for physical tension:

• Face and jaw are relaxed
• Shoulders away from ears
• Ribcage relaxed, not lifted and tense
• Elbows heavy and hands soft
• Backside isn’t clenching
• Thighs heavy and lengthened downwards
• Lower leg relaxed

5. Focus your gaze on the area between your horse’s ears, not a ferocious stare but a soft, almost out-of-focus, supportive gaze so he knows you are just paying attention to him and not the scary thing. You can do this out of the saddle too by finding a part of him to focus on rather than looking around you, which will unsettle you both.

6. Count your hip swings; as the horse walks he will move your pelvis side to side, the more relaxed you are the easier it is for him to do so. Count to 10 and then start again. You can then use this hip swing to slow his gait too, slow your swing — he slows too. If you are on foot, just count your strides instead.

7. Start small: if you are feeling anxious about riding, try breaking it down into small, achievable steps:

• Tack up, get on and get off again
• Tack up, lead your horse on foot for a short distance in hand
• Tack up, get on, walk a short distance with someone you trust on foot beside you, then finish
• Each time, increase the distance/period you ride while having someone to trust on hand
• Once you’re confidence increases, repeat the steps without your trusted friend with you

8. Continue with these small steps, remembering that it needs to be at YOUR pace, nobody else’s — it has to feel right for you. So long as you are making progress it does not matter what anyone else thinks or says.

Like this? You might also enjoy reading these:

Transform rider nerves into positive energy with Charlie Unwin’s expert tips

‘He was going berserk’: how to overcome a traumatic accident

7 ways top riders deal with nerves

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Rider nerves are the bane of many competitors’ show days. A competition we’ve been training for and looking forward to for weeks can suddenly become a thing of dread. We can’t eat, we need the loo, we bite our nails and we snap at our faithful friends and family. We know how much we love our sport, but those of us who suffer from nerves often ask ourselves why we’re doing it.

Of course, nerves bring benefits, too. Do you notice how top riders often say that a healthy dose of nerves raises the adrenaline and helps them perform at their best? That’s the mindset those riders crippled by competition anxiety need to adopt. Happily, it is possible to change the way you deal with nerves and reframe them in a much more positive light.

Performance psychologist Charlie Unwin works across sport, business and the military and helps riders to optimise their performance from the inside out in training and competition. His clients won four gold medals in Tokyo last summer, as well as three silvers and one bronze. Here, he tackles the two challenges for riders suffering from nerves: mind and body.

Rider nerves: the physiological challenge

First of all, Charlie dismisses the term “nerves”, which has such negative connotations, explaining that it’s “just energy, neither good nor bad”.

“The physiological and emotional component of our experience of nerves is the core of our performance on the horse,” he explains. “Without understanding what’s going on in our body, we cannot understand the psychological side. The symptoms of nerves may be familiar: high heart-rate and tension in the muscles.”

Charlie emphasises the positives that emanate from this energy.

“Without nerves we wouldn’t have the peak energy we need to perform at our best. That energy allows us to heighten our performance, to respond more quickly. This has an obvious value in cross-country riding, but also in the dressage arena where things are calmer, nerves can give us commitment and sharpen our focus – if we learn how to channel that energy properly.”

The good news is there are physical actions we can take.

“There are two major keys to channel nerves into something positive: breathing and active relaxation. The instruction, ‘don’t forget to breathe’ should be taken as seriously as any other technical advice. Holding our breath is a classic physiological response to anticipation, meaning we don’t get enough oxygen and our heart beats chaotically, sending signals to the brain that we’re in danger. The blood rushes to the emotional centres of the brain, bypassing the thinking centres, so we are not able to focus. Yet breathing is one thing we can control. Breathe rhythmically and deeply, and you will affect your whole nervous system.

“Active relaxation is not about putting your feet up! Tension creeps in when we are unaware in the hours, days and even weeks leading up to a competition. It means our brain cannot control our muscles effectively and our timing goes awry, so our horse behaves differently. You need to learn self-awareness and notice the tension. Go through your body systematically, starting with your forehead, eyes, jaw, neck and shoulders and assess how the muscles free. Breathe out through your nose to release tension and soften the muscles.”

Feeling calmer? Body sorted, next up is dealing with the mind.

The mental challenge

Once the physiological process is under control through breathing and relaxation, step three is about “positive focus”.

“This is how to direct our attention so that nerves help rather than hinder our performance,” Charlie says. “Some riders lean into a challenge in a positive way with a clear plan. Sometimes it feels like there is little we can control, but the best athletes are able to tune into that very little and to focus on that. They focus on positive action rather than suppressing the nerves.”

Charlie outlines two methodologies:

• The bubble
  “Imagine you have a bubble in front of you and this is your performance,” he says. “If I put pressure on it with nothing inside, it will pop. Inside the bubble you put everything you can control – your plan, your warm-up routine, rhythm, accuracy and so on. Outside the bubble are all the things you cannot control – the weather, the judge, the ground, the warm-up arena size. Focus on what is inside the bubble, control the controllables – but without ignoring what’s outside the bubble, just accept it or it will play on your mind.”
• Visualisation
  “Work through whatever you will be doing as if you were physically there on the horse, with the same timing, rhythm, and preciseness,” Charlie suggests. “This has a profound effect on priming the brain and creating familiarity with the environment. You are leaning in to the competition environment, embracing it. Allow the heart-rate to go up, allow the excitement to pump through the veins and muscles, while breathing and relaxing. Act out your clear and positive plan.”

For more tips and details on psychology and coaching courses, visit centre10.com

Charlie’s book, Inside Out: Train your Mind and your Nerve like a Champion, is available on Amazon.

You may also enjoy reading…

10 tips to banish competition riding nerves

Do you suffer from competition riding nerves? Find out how to take control and use nerves to improve your performance

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Sport psychologist Inga Wolframm explains why riders get competition butterflies — and how you can use them to your advantage

Steph Croxford: ‘I get so nervous I feel sick and wonder why I’m doing it’

So you think you’re alone in getting nervous about competing? Think again. Even Steph Croxford battles nerves, and she’s seen

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We can all get carried away, and we can all veer off the path to success so sometimes it is useful to think about what the ‘other guys’ are doing, you know, the ones who seem to be hitting their target. While it can be difficult to replicate what our idols DO, here is a list of things that successful riders DON’T do – sometimes these can be easier to implement…

1. They don’t worry about things they cannot control

Whether it is other competitors, judges or the weather, successful riders know they can only control their own performance and they don’t waste valuable energy worrying about things they can’t control. If you have ever been in the warm-up arena thinking: “that horse is so much bigger and shinier than mine, she is such a better rider, they are totally going to win” you have just wasted half a circle or more when you could have been helping your horse to do his job.

To be successful, you shouldn’t know if someone was riding around on a unicorn, for that is the bubble of focus you should have.

2.They don’t hire a trainer purely to stroke their ego

We all have an ego, and for most of us it is like a small furry animal that likes to be stroked. That’s all well and good, but there is a time and a place for such things, and that time and place is not while you are riding your horse.

Being told things are good when they are not is like cheating at exams. The pleasure is short-lived, the after taste is bitter and no true gains have been made. Successful riders are on a quest for knowledge. They constantly want to learn and the only way to learn is to be told when things are not correct. Successful riders know that there is no value or credit to be taken from paying for praise that is undeserved.

3. They don’t expect immediate results

Good things take time. Horses take longer. Successful riders accept this.

4. They don’t make excuses

Full stop.

5. They don’t have a different coach each week/month

Successful riders know that to get to their goal there has to be a system. There are many paths that lead to Rome, but you actually have to stay on one to get there.

A good tip is if you are unsure of what you should be doing in the arena on your own, there’s a strong chance you don’t have a system yet. It is time to start your journey. Take note of the riders that you like to watch and find out who they train with. You might (and probably will) have a couple of non-starters on your way to finding the Holy Grail, but one thing you can be certain of is you will never find it if you keep receiving a different map, and that is what happens if you hop from one trainer to another. The thing to remember is the riders you see as successful have been through the trial and error process, you have to go through that too and it can be a bit bumpy. Each path will teach you something; even if you find out how you don’t want to train. Keep your eyes open and be honest to yourself with what suits you.

6. They don’t expect their horse to be a better athlete than them

Your horse has to carry you, that’s a given. But what he doesn’t have to carry is a sack of potatoes. Successful riders work hard so that they are an asset to their horse, helping them to perform what is asked in the best, safest way possible.

7. They don’t think they can be successful all by themselves

If “no man is an island” and it “takes a whole community to raise a child”, I think we can safely say that successful riders know it takes a specialised and dedicated tight knit group of over achievers to include, but not limited to; workaholic scientists, engineers, nutritionists, medics, counsellors (rider), non-ego stroking coaches and counsellors (marriage) to raise a successful horse and rider. Find these people and look after them. Don’t go it alone.

8. They don’t succumb to “competition desperados”

A looming competition can do strange things to horse riders. Two days out from a competition and all of a sudden you get a rush of blood to the head and decide the saddle needs adjusting or you need a new bridle to bling your way up the centre line. Maybe you are looking forward to finally getting a chance to wear your new leather boots that you have saved for competition but have actually never worn in.

Riders who reach their goals have systems, gear and management practice that they trust and believe in, which eliminates the feelings of “competition desperados” (it is an actual thing, I am quite certain).

Moral: If it is working, don’t change it. If it is not working, should you be competing?

9. They don’t listen to everybody

Not everything you hear, or are told, or you read online (except for this, obviously) is of value to you. Consult the people in your tribe (see point number seven) and listen to them. You are more than welcome to listen to people you admire, who may not be in your tribe, too. However, if someone is doing a lousy job and gives you their (not so positive) opinion about what you are doing, chances are it’s not going to make you feel great and it certainly isn’t adding value to your life. Listen, appreciate the feedback and get the hell out of there.

10. They don’t beat themselves up for past mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes. And when horses are involved, everyone makes LOTS of mistakes. It is perfectly normal to berate yourself at the time, but that is where the self-pity wallowing needs to end.

Why? Because dwelling on past mistakes can manifest like this:

“Yes but in 1952 I turned the wrong way in that dressage test; I just know I am going to do it again” (performance sabotaging)

Or this:

“No I don’t go eventing anymore. Ten years ago I forgot where I was going on the cross-country, missed out a fence and got eliminated. I was in the lead until then! I can’t face that disappointment again” (no performance at all)

True, it’s a bitter pill to swallow but if you want to have any chance of reaching your own dreams, you need to put your mistake in a box, learn from it, then move on.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits. 

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Don’t you wish you could reproduce your best performance in training in the ring? But for so many riders, competitions do not bring out the best in us. We grapple with competition nerves, we doubt ourselves, we don’t really know what we’re aiming for –and the movements that felt so soft and easy back home feel alien and awkward under pressure.

Performance coach Charlie Unwin works across sport, business, and the military to help riders optimise their performance from the inside out in training and competition. The proof is in the pudding – his clients won four gold medals in Tokyo last summer, as well as three silvers and one bronze.

Here, he outlines three principles to help riders cope with pressure and bring out their best when it matters.

Manage your inner game

Charlie works with riders on the concept of reproducing their peak performance, and calls it “managing your inner game”.

“Take your best-ever performance and think about it hard – you know you can ride that well because you’ve done it before,” he says. “But what if you could repeat it every single time?

“Managing our ‘inner game’ is about consistently recreating our internal conditions to make our external performance the best it can be. The inner game can be a curious concept to equestrians because, in this sport, the animal forms the focal point and that can draw attention away from what is going on in our heads. However, the horse largely performs as a function of how you perform and what goes on inside our heads affects our outside performance.”

Charlie breaks this down into two aspects: thinking and feeling.

“‘Thinking’ involves training ourselves to focus on the simple things that count – like rhythm, straightness, accuracy,” he says. “It sounds easy, but in the high stakes of competition, there are distractions that pull our attention away from what we focus on in training.

“‘Feeling’ is both the emotional and physiological side – managing both so we can perform at our best. Nerves are a factor, but also how our body responds to stressful thoughts, in the form of tension in the muscles, which means suddenly our body doesn’t respond in the way it normally does. We are stiff or robotic, and the horse responds differently.”

If you’re riding at grassroots, perhaps aiming for your riding club team debut and think this all sounds a bit high-brow, it applies to you, too! Most of us who have ever competed know the feeling of tension and nerves.

“This is as important for someone competing in their first event as at the Olympics,” Charlie confirms. “The way you think and feel affects how you perform on your horse.”

Set effective goals

Charlie calls goal-setting one of the “most profound tools in sports psychology”.

“Athletes who are able to set real effective goals are able to manage their attention and direct their efforts towards what they want to achieve,” he explains. “Most of us don’t think about our goals that much. We have an idea in the back of our heads, but we don’t spend time working out what it will take to get us there and what it will feel like along the way.

Charlie says goals should be “specific, measurable and achievable”.

“No single goal will solve our problems,” he says. “For example, say we want to compete at Badminton or get our jockeys’ licence – a heck of a lot has to happen for us to get there, so it doesn’t play a role in our day-to-day behaviours.

“Conversely, if we set tiny little goals, we need to know they are moving us towards a bigger goal, which will motivate us. So goal-setting is a dynamic process; a blueprint that gives us a focus every day and all our actions should be connected to the process that gets results.

“I’d urge you to put pen to paper, breaking down your goals into as small chunks as you can. For instance, say your goal is to go clear at a particular level – certain components will always be true, like maintaining a rhythm, accuracy, using the corners and sitting up after the fence. Use these smaller goals in training as well as competition.”

Charlie cautions that the brain cannot focus on multiple thing at once.

“When you make goals for competitions, set really deliberate, controllable goals about one or two things on which you will be able to maintain your attention from beginning to end.”

Develop a winning mindset

All competitors know they need a winning mindset, but how do you develop and shape this? Charlie calls this an “inside-out” mindset – enabling riders to focus on the things that they can control and achieve their big goals.

“My starting point is to get riders thinking back to when you were a beginner,” he suggests. “The first time you rode, your only concern was to stay on and just doing that was a success. As you learnt about balance and started getting a tune out of the horse, you started jumping and before long you’re competing. At the first competition, you’re excited to be there, a bit nervous but you have nothing to lose and you end up doing well. It’s called beginners’ luck, but actually beginners have a very powerful mindset because they are focused wholeheartedly on the things that count, the things they can control, with no expectation of the outcome.”

Conversely, an outside-in mindset focuses on the outcome – clear rounds, results – and when it doesn’t go to plan, there’s nowhere to go, because the mind has not been trained to focus on the ingredients of the performance.

“Inside-out focuses on the inner game and allows the outcome to take care of itself,” Charlie explains. “It becomes more challenging the better the results, because your brain connects the reward system (dopamine) with the outcome, and you become vague about the process.”

Charlie urges riders to write down the little things that make a difference – whether that’s from lessons or any positive experiences.

“Before long you will have a ‘good news bible’ full of golden nuggets to fill you with confidence and remind you of the little things that enable you to get results,” he says.

So, take it step by step, work from the inside out, and get ready to bring you best into the ring – every time.

• For more tips and details on psychology and coaching courses, visit centre10.com

Charlie’s book, Inside Out: Train your Mind and your Nerve like a Champion, is available on Amazon.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

It can be hard to pull yourself back in line after a string of what might be described as ‘bad luck’ — when not one thing goes wrong, but a number of things follow in fairly quick succession. Sometimes these ‘things’ are caused by the first incident, sometimes they aren’t. Here, we catch up with four successful riders who have had strings of bad luck due to various reasons, find out how they came through this, and the tips that helped them.

Harriet Morris-Baumber won team bronze at the 2009 CIC2* (now CCI3*S) Europeans and had a string of three really good event horses. And then all three retired from competing at that level, and her novice/intermediate horse sustained an injury too, so she was left with no horses to ride, no additional funds to buy horses, and no owners at that level.

“I just filled the yard with anything I could,” explains Harriet. “It was only when I saw a friend who was doing the same but in racing that the situation hit home. I was riding anything, but when I saw what she was doing it gave me the impetus to send the horses back home, refresh and revaluate. I only rode at two events in a two-year period.”

After a high profile car accident, event rider Aaron Millar’s life changed forever. Not only was Aaron left with serious injuries that led him to spend two-and-a-half months in hospital, he also had to process the accident that saw two of his friends also sustain life-changing injuries and, sadly, the death of a friend that was also travelling in the car at the same time. If this wasn’t bad enough, horses were leaving the yard as he was still in hospital, and some left before he’d even come around following the accident.

“It was awful,” says Aaron. “The accident was horrific on every level, and then having horses that I’d worked on since they were four-years-old leaving was so hard. I’d just moved to a new yard with better facilities, I had a string of great horses… and two weeks later it was gone. I understand why the owners moved their horses, but it was an incredibly hard thing to deal with for me.”

Showjumper Holly Smith also lost owners after picking up an injury. She sustained a bad break that completely shattered her ankle after falling off and landing on her feet. “It was so hard to deal with at the time,” she said.

Franky Reid- Warrilow had a run of bad results, then her top horse sustained an injury. This followed breaking her hip and collarbone over the course of a few years.

“Together it sounds awful, but I accepted that the issues I was facing were very much part of the sport,” says Franky. “You get bad results sometimes, horses get injured, and riders break bones… and seeing it for what it was was really important for me.

“The broken bones were the easiest to deal with. The horse injury was much worse as there’s so much emotion connected to a horse injuring itself.”

In all, Aaron didn’t compete for a year. During this time a syndicate that had been set up fell through via email — there was a large financial impact as the business still had overheads and so much more too.

“I decided that I needed to make sure that this couldn’t happen again and needed to rebuild with a structure, so now I have a half share in most of the competition horses here,” explains Aaron. “Financially, it’s hard work, but it’s worth it.

“I also had the extra issue that, because of the accident and how high profile it was, people had concerns about my fitness, and I get that, but it made me incredibly determined.”

Harriet used the time after she sent horses home to concentrate on teaching, look at what other professionals were doing, and researching syndicates and how they worked.

“I knew syndicates worked really well in racing so I spent a lot of time looking at the reasons people pay to be a part of them and it was mostly down to the experience,” says Harriet. “It wasn’t always about winning, and I knew that I could provide owners with the most amazing experience and that mum and dad would be able to help with that too — it’s worked so, so well.”

Although Holly lost some of her competition horses following her accident, the issue also led her to find a new owner and the horse that took her to the 2018 World Equestrian Games (WEG).

“I had known Gordon (Hall) for a while, but when I came out of hospital he came on board as an owner and we bought a horse that took me to WEG. Without the accident I wouldn’t have done that.”

As for tips, staying positive was a big thing for Harriet and, in fact, this positivity helped her to attract owners to her syndicate, which allowed her to invest in the horsepower she needed.

“I realised that making the most of what I had and seeing it as a real positive, as well as using this positivity when I spoke to people was really important. So rather than telling people my worries and woes, I focused on the positives of what I was working on and shared those. Studying the marketing and social media side of the business helped me a lot too.”

Self-belief can play a huge part in navigating hard times, as Holly well knows.

“For me, just keeping going is what changed things around. I had to look after myself and kept focused on what had worked well for me before the accident, although it wasn’t always easy.”

“I was given a really good piece of advice by a sports psychologist that helped my mindset — and that’s not to look sideways,” said Franky. “When you start comparing yourself to others, it can make your situation seem a lot worse. Being realistic with where my horses are in terms of being competitive has helped me too. But now, instead of comparing myself to other people, I focus on my personal bests as that’s something I can influence.”

Aaron suggests that finding that support network is really important.

“Make sure the people around you want the best for you — that’s been such a huge help for me. Seeking professional help too, in the form of fitness as well as for the PTSD I suffered has been key.

“The thing is, truly horrific things can happen, they can change your life in an instant, and it can be incredibly hard to process, but it does get easier. My perspective on life has changed and I have a lot of qualities I didn’t have before, and that has helped me with other aspects of my life. But for me, one piece of advice that changed things has to be that I needed to be the one to make the change, get up, and keep going.”

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Today is World Mental Health Day (10 October) and Andrea Oakes finds out why riders can be particularly susceptible to problems — and how to combat the problem...

1. Winning is rare

According to sport psychologist Michael Caulfield, a former PJA chief executive and a director of Sporting Edge, winning is rare in any equestrian discipline. Ros Canter has triumphed at Badminton, but how often does an eventer take a top title? Even AP McCoy’s record 4,000-plus racing winners came from four or five times as many starts.

“It’s a losing sport,” explains Michael. “You get beaten a lot and you start to question everything: ‘Am I doing it right?’, ‘Am I good enough?’

2. A demanding lifestyle

“The lifestyle is incredibly demanding,” Michael adds. “In other walks of life, you have a pattern, a forecast, but, with horses, it can all so easily go wrong. So much is out of your control — you can put three years into preparing for one day and then on the morning the horse treads on a stone. It’s exhaustingly draining.”

3. You can be relying on luck

Tina Cook, whose international career spanned three decades, knows only too well the dramatic highs and lows of eventing.

“The longer you do it, the more you realise that you need a bit of luck for things to go your way,” she says. “It’s difficult to get to the top and stay there. There are a multitude of things you can get depressed about, such as your riding ability, the quality of your horses, financial support — these things could really get you down. Then there’s the element of your own bravery and what people expect of you. I’m sure many eventers have had frustrating, dark days and asked themselves: ‘Will I ever succeed, or make a living?’

“I’ve been lucky, as I’ve fathomed out a system that works for me,” adds Tina. “There are people out there who will help and there’s a supportive environment at the top. People shouldn’t suffer in silence.”

4. A feeling of isolation

Feelings of isolation are common, according to performance psychologist 
Charlie Unwin.

“We are phenomenally social animals, 
yet equestrianism is the only sport where people don’t congregate in performance centres to learn, talk and support one another,” he says, adding that sense of progress can soon become distorted with too long working at home alone. “I always encourage top riders to spend a couple of weeks a year in someone else’s yard, even if they stick to their own routine. Just being with other people stimulates release of the hormone oxytocin 
and positivity in the brain.”

5. Social media

Another key area that can contribute to negative mood is confusion about our identity — often brought about by the apparently perfect lives of fellow competitors.

“We’ve always known that social comparison is a factor in increased anxiety,” says Charlie. “The difference now is that social media provides a distorted view of others’ achievements and can create a twisted perception of their realities. There’s a normality to what these people experience that is not depicted on Facebook and Twitter.”

6. Financial pressure

“Many dressage riders don’t own their horses, so there’s always the possibility of losing them,” says dressage rider Emile Faurie. “Then there’s the sheer financial pressure. I’ve seen people sell their house to buy a horse, only to lose everything when the horse goes lame.”

When the bad days outnumber the good, where can you turn for help? Here’s how to take action:

Notice the change

“Depression is not a fleeting feeling — you will typically experience a sustained change in emotions or behaviour,” says Dr Philip Hopley of Cognacity, a team of psychiatrists and psychologists offering expertise in high-pressure organisations and sporting environments. “Feeling sad, low, demotivated or anxious for at least two weeks could indicate a problem.”

Share the problem

Try to find a good listening ear such as a trainer, colleague, friend or relative with whom you can discuss your feelings and worries.

Seek professional help

If sessions with a sport psychologist fail to help, you may be suffering from something more than a performance-related issue. Approach your GP, or access professional services if you have private health insurance.

Phone a helpline

It may be easier to speak to an expert in confidence. The new Riders Minds hotline is available, as is the BGA’s Grooms Minds and EEA’s Employers Minds. Racing Welfare also offers an extensive range of services for those seeking help and advice. PJA members can call the Cognacity helpline (www.thepja.co.uk). Other riders can access resources and a confidential helpline at mind.org.uk or samaritans.org.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Finding a horse riding coach that suits both horse and rider can be key to securing success, no matter your chosen discipline, or even if you don’t compete.

There are several factors that should be taken into account when choosing a coach. Performance psychologist and mental coach Charlie Unwin reveals some key pointers he believes are crucial to finding a horse riding coach that is best-suited to you and your horse.

So what makes a good horse riding coach?

Charlie starts off by asking: “What is it that coaches do (or don’t do) that get the best out of their riders, especially in a sport where it’s so easy to be focused on the horse?”

He points out that the sport isn’t only about the horse.

“I think good coaches work just as much with the rider as with the horse, and by that I mean they understand the rider, they understand what’s going on inside with the rider’s thoughts, their feelings, insecurities and focus,” explains Charlie. “In doing so, I think good coaches are able to build a high degree of consistency with their riders to help them perform under pressure.”

Charlie says successful horse riding coaches use a considerable amount of psychology, and this psychology can be broken down into three areas.

“The first one for a coach is being able to focus on themself as an individual. What is it about them? Their experience and their knowledge? Yes, but also their personality, their preferences, their body language, their emotional intelligence and their ability to ask questions, which impacts the rider,” he explains.

“The second part is focusing on the rider. What is it about the rider that might influence the consistency of their performance? For example, their mindsets? How can coaches better get underneath the surface of their riders to understand why they did something brilliantly one day, and then when they tried to do the same thing the next day they really struggled. So being able to focus on the rider as a human is an important component of the psychology of a coach.”

Charlie says that the final part is focused on performance.

“It is being able to understand performance as a function of goals, as a function of feedback, of focus, and with all the tools that go with it.”

When it comes to coaches involved in horse sport, Charlie believes that they all have their own personal “brand”.

“Coaches are as individual as the riders. They will have their own identity, they have their own preferences. Coaches need to understand their own personalities and preferences, and understand what is it about their past that’s led them to those personalities and preferences. Coaches should be aware of how their own preferences and identity affect that of the rider.”

Charlie explains that traditionally, coaches get paid by the hour, but that whole hour shouldn’t necessarily be spent with the rider in the saddle. But perhaps not all riders want to pay a coach if they are not riding their horse for the whole session – this is a challenge some coaches face.

“There is no doubt that I think coaches have to be able to work with the rider out of the saddle as well as in the saddle,” says Charlie. “They’ve got to be able to talk about goals. They’ve got to be able to spend time reflecting on what happens – what progress they’re making, how do they accelerate that progress? What have they got to work on? I think a lot of coaches feel like they’re only able to add value when those riders are in the saddle. There are challenges like this, which I think we always have to be able to address.”

A question of belief

Charlie says that research has shown the importance of a coach having self-belief and how a lack of self-belief can impact the performance of those working under that coach’s guidance.

“The impact was first discovered in rats, where some students were given a set of lab rats which they had to train how to successfully negotiate a maze as quickly as possible,” explains Charlie. “One set of students were told that they had the clever rats who were ‘maze bright’, and the other set of students were told that they had the unintelligent rats who were ‘maze dumb’.

“Funnily enough, the students with the clever rats were able to teach them to get through the maze significantly quicker than the students with the maze dumb rats. Of course, what they were told at the end of this experiment was that in fact, there was no intellectual difference between the rats whatsoever – they were all equally as intelligent.”

Based on this experiment, Charlie says that the only differing factor that could have influenced the performance of the rats were the attitudes and beliefs of the experimenters.

“This is profoundly important when it comes to coaching because we’re working with people, not rats and if the affect is still present with rats, which, let’s face it, we can’t verbalise with rats, it just goes to show you that there’s still something that the rats are picking up on,” says Charlie. “Maybe the amount of commitment, the amount of patience, or the amount of time the students spent, that is stopping the rats from fulfilling their potential.”

Charlie explains that humans are far more complex in that they have language, greater communication and relationships, so the effects can be hugely amplified in humans compared to rats. There is obviously also a horse involved too, who is likely to be being influenced by the same factors.

“One of the essential elements in working with coaches is being able to understand the beliefs they have about their riders,” says Charlie.

Know your own mind

Charlie says that riders and coaches should be able to have better conversations out of the saddle.

“Being able to accelerate someone’s progress relies on a coach being able to help them draw the right connections in their own minds,” he explains. “I believe one of the most important roles of a coach is to help a rider know their own minds, because once you’ve got them technically doing the right thing, it’s then about them being able to get to that point by themselves.”

By this, Charlie means that when a rider is in a start box, entering an arena or going into a showjumping arena, they have no one other than themselves to rely on.

“If a rider doesn’t have the security or confidence to know not just what they’ve got to do in that moment, but also why they’re doing it, then they’re never going to perform to the same level,” Charlie states.

“That is much more than just about working with people in the saddle – that is about being able to sit down with them and help them to build confidence in their own mind, asking questions, being curious, helping them make connections for themselves based on their experience, and that is an activity that has huge value to riders.”

Charlie says that this isn’t the sum total of what makes a good coach.

“There are loads of other factors such as being able to tap into the motivation of a rider, being able to help them deal with success and failure, and work with the rider’s wider team, such as their parents and farriers.”

Who is Charlie Unwin?

Performance psychologist and mental coach Charlie Unwin works across sport business and the military and helps riders to optimise that performance from the inside out in training and in competition. He’s passionate about working with the equestrians because the horse’s performance is an extension of the rider’s. His clients won four gold medals at the Olympics in Tokyo, as well as three silvers and one bronze.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Performance psychologist and mental coach Charlie Unwin tells riders how boost their performance by building an identity, and learning how to deal with both success and failure

Winning rosettes – or just doing the best you can do – is not simply about you and your horse being physically talented enough to do a good job. Rider psychology plays a massive part in how you perform under pressure in the ring.

Performance coach Charlie Unwin works across sport, business, and the military to help riders optimise their performance from the inside out in training and competition. The proof is in the pudding – his clients won four gold medals in Tokyo last summer, as well as three silvers and one bronze.

Here, he explains two ways he helps riders improve their performance by working on their mindset.

Rider psychology: build your identity

Charlie explains that “identity is the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves”.

“We are not always conscious of it, so we have to work on this story, this inner voice that guides us and helps us to perform at our best,” he says. “We need to be the best version of ourselves, within our own personality. You cannot try to be someone you are not. It’s no use pretending to be Charlotte Dujardin or Michael Jung as you will only be a lesser version of someone else. Of course, take bits of inspiration from these riders, but Michael has spent his life working on his own story and strategy, his system, with his resources. A strong identity is formed by developing our own system to work with our own personality.”

Whereas, for example, a pair of skis or a tennis racket is an inanimate object, our living, breathing partner brings several different elements to the game.

“In equestrian sport more than any other, we bring our own personality and circumstances to our goals,” he says. “We don’t all have the same horse, the same amount of money, and we have different goals and aspirations. We cannot translate from other people’s journeys but must be comfortable with our own and the progress we are making. Yet we still compare ourselves to others and other horses, rather than finding our own inner voice.

“Identity is linked to drive and motivation, which comes from a place where we love what we do. Research shows that when we are intrinsically motivated, doing something for the love of it rather than what other people (owners, the team) expect of us, we are at our most profoundly powerful, resilient and persistent.”

Deal with success and failure

For any sportsman, winning and losing is part of the deal. Each situation can be a learning experience.

Charlie quotes Aldous Huxley, who said, “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.”

“We don’t get better just from spending time in the saddle, but how we make sense of that time,” he says. “Every experience and how we deal with our emotions can make us better. How we process a good or bad experience will affect how we go into it next time. After every performance, we need to analyse it simply. Did I do what I set out to do? Often any goals will have been masked by the feeling of the result, so remember what you originally committed to doing. Sometimes, we need to let the emotions – guilt, frustration, anger – subside over 24 hours before trying to reflect.

“A great tactic is to have a performance journal for training and competition. On the left-hand side, write down what you want to achieve – your ‘feed-forward’. Be really specific and simple, like ‘an accurate test with sharp transitions’, or ‘keep breathing from start to end’. The right-hand side links up to the left with accurate analysis on what you said you’d do (feedback). It joins the dots and gives you something to work on positively, to take responsibility for what you did.

“Dealing with success is also challenging, as you need to recognise what you’ve done well to be able to repeat it and become consistently progressive. You should have five things you’ve done well for every two things you didn’t, to build up a bank of things you’re good at. Reflect on them and relive them, so you can recreate the goodness in those things.”

• For more tips and details on psychology and coaching courses, visit centre10.com

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Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

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Many equestrians use the start of a new year as a time to set new horse riding goals, so we’ve ask the experts how to set realistic goals — and what steps to take to increase the likelihood of seeing them through to a successful conclusion.

1. Set horse riding goals that challenge you

Goals should sit in the happy medium of pushing you out of your comfort zone enough to improve, but not so much that you lose confidence or struggle to succeed. Dressage rider Nic Turner says: “When it comes to moving up a level I base my decision on two aspects: the scores at our current level, and the confidence of the work at home. I moved one of my horses fairly quickly up to inter 1 from prix st george purely because the layout of the test suited him much better.”

2. Define your horse riding goals in detail

Equine sports psychologist, Charlie Unwin says: “It takes a lot to achieve an aspirational horse riding goal, so you should break it down into outcome goals, performance goals and process goals.”

• Outcome goals: the big aspirations you have for you and your horse.
• Performance goals: the standard you need to be at to achieve your outcome goal, and how you measure your progress.
• Process goals: the way you’ll achieve your goals, with how to improve and areas/exercises to work on while riding.

Five-star eventer Kate Honey adds: “With the younger horses, I have long and short-term goals. Often all the five and six-year-olds have the same long-term goal, but how they achieve that will vary.”

3. Work towards your goals every day

It’s vital that you have your horse riding goals in mind when you work with your horse each day. Take Charlie’s outcome-performance-process structure. If your performance goal is to score higher in dressage, then a process goal might be improving straightness. These process goals give you something tangible to work on every time you ride.

“I’m a firm believer in training a level or two above that you compete at,” says Nic. “The work inside the boards should feel comfortable and, dare I say it, easy.”

4. Write your plan down

Don’t rely on keeping your entire plan in your head, as there’s often too much to remember. Charlie suggests creating a mind-map, putting your outcome goal in the middle. Moving out from that is your performance goals, which in turn link to clusters of process goals. A mind-map turns your goal into a plan, and gives you everything from a calendar of competitions to training exercises.

5. Set milestones to measure your performance

Everyone faces setbacks on their road to success, but a plan makes it easier to stay on track, as you can measure your progress and make amendments if necessary. “I make individual plans at the beginning of the year for all the horses, but these are fluid and always changing,” says Kate. “I normally stick to my plan with the older horses, with two or three big competitions and prep events in between.”

6. Take a step back and re-evaluate

Nic emphasises that taking a step back can improve your work: “Things don’t always go to plan and it’s important we react in the right way. If the training seems overwhelming, step back and take a breather. I jump in my spare time and have fun doing that. Quite often the work we were finding hard seems remarkably easy after a week or so off!”

7. Learn to be resilient

“When you’ve done your homework, you become resilient to set-backs,” Charlie says. “With your mind-map, if something goes wrong, it’s typically in one isolated area of the map – rather than your entire plan. Often, all riders need to do is change the time-frame or certain elements of their plan.”

Top tips to help achieve your 2023 horse riding goals

• “Sticking to goals boils down to organisation, determination and motivation. Ride in all weather, and get up early or go to bed late. Have a routine and plan your time” — Nic Turner
• “My top tip would be always set realistic but challenging goals for yourself” — Kate Honey
• “Write everything down! Then you can see how your aspirational goals fit into your everyday riding sessions” — Charlie Unwin

Find out more about Charlie Unwin at performancelegacy.com/equestrian

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Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits. 

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Winning Habits: How Elite Equestrians Master the Mental Game

Author: Annette Paterakis

Published: 2022

Available as Kindle edition, hard cover or paperback

View now at amazon.co.uk

About Winning Habits: How Elite Equestrians Master the Mental Game

Equestrian mental coach and author Annette Paterakis’s book blends theory of sports psychology with tales of her own experiences in the competition arena, interviews with top showjumpers and practical exercises for improving performance in horse sport.

Chapter by chapter, the book tackles topics such as mindset, deliberate training, focus, flow, confidence, motivation and success. Annette introduces each topic and the theory behind it with back up from experts in the field, then uses quotes from the riders to illustrate how they interpret this or use it to their advantage, and then runs through with some exercises which the reader can try, before finishing each chapter with a summary.

Review

I liked the idea of this book and the way it is structured is essentially easy to understand and logical. There is also no doubting the credentials of the riders Annette interviewed, with names such as Laura Kraut, Daniel Deusser, McLain Ward, Cian O’Connor and Jeroen Dubbeldam in the line-up.

On the downside, I didn’t always find the prose the easiest or most compelling to read. I also felt that in places the book was repetitive and some judicious editing, particularly of the quotes from the riders, could have been beneficial and allowed the points to be delivered in a more honed, streamlined way.

The penultimate chapter is called “Learn from the Best” and consists solely of quotes from the riders, answering the question: “What kind of advice would you give young riders to improve themselves and their mental game?” These quotes are grouped into themes that relate to the book’s chapters and messages. I found this chapter one of the most enjoyable and interesting, but I wasn’t sure why it was the penultimate chapter rather than the final one, as the last chapter (“Success”) reverts to the structure used in all the previous ones.

I read the book straight through in the order it is presented, without trying any of the exercises, but I would definitely consider returning to it in the future, picking out particular chapters that I felt could help me as a rider and giving the exercises a go.

Verdict

In places, Winning Habits can feel unnecessarily repetitive and tighter editing could have honed the final product. But this is an interesting book, which many will enjoy reading, both as a manual for improvement and out of general curiosity about how top riders perform at their best.

View now at amazon.co.uk

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Anna Ross on why riders must learn to survive failure in order to succeed

WINTER is a time for education as well as celebration. Webinars have become commonplace throughout this season, providing thought-provoking entertainment on cold evenings. Many are devoted to sports psychology and are both helpful and relatable.

There is plenty of angst on social media as people are encouraged to share their feelings more than they used to be. Thankfully, there are excellent resources to go to, such as the Riders Minds charity, which offers a 24-hour telephone helpline to those suffering over and above the normal stress of a competitive lifestyle.

It’s no wonder really that dressage riders experience challenges with mindset – straight 10s resulting in 100% have been awarded in gymnastics, but never yet in dressage.

Bearing that in mind, it’s ironic that the fear of failure appears to hold far more riders back than their desire to win.

The trick is to make peace with the fact that if you are lucky enough to have a long career, you could strive all your life and never feel “good enough”, and that would be a shame because there are much cheaper ways to make yourself miserable than competing in dressage.

On reflection, I’ve never met anyone over the age of 25 who thinks they are “good enough”, including Olympic gold medallists. Generally, the more bluster and bravado, the more rubbish people are talking.

Conversely, there is nothing more boring than driving back from a show with someone who has gone into an emotional decline based on their horse riding results. Let’s face it, if firefighters and paediatricians fail at work then it’s a problem. Dressage riders can get over it by having a drink and moaning to their friends.

But how do we achieve the zen-like attitude required to come out of the other side of this sport with a balanced mind? As a fully signed up gold member of The Real World, I have a passionate hatred for the cheesy inspirational quotes that pop up on social media.

If a smarty pants sport psychologist tried to “bring me inspiration” on a show day they’d probably end up wearing my coffee. If I wasn’t already motivated, it’s unlikely I’d have bothered taking five years to train my horse to grand prix and driven it bleary-eyed to a competition that is probably five hours away (I live in Devon).

I propose a “Fabulous Failing” winter workshop series. Perhaps it could be sponsored by a gin company? Subject matters could include:

• Dancing when everyone is watching
• Surviving sub-60 scores
• What to write when you rode like a wet weekend: a social media guide
• Draw reins are not the answer: practical advice for controlling children under seven while attending a dressage show
• Handling helpful hints (or how not to punch your parents)
• Describe your ride in emojis (for when you are crying too much to talk on the phone)
• Avoiding being authentic: how not to kick off before you’ve reached the truck and shut the door

Risk-taking is a part of the sport. Riders feeling mentally robust enough to ride for high points brings excitement to the competition. If the result is a foregone conclusion, it becomes dull, however spectacular the winner.

So, this winter my advice is to “go for it” a little more than you dare. If you fail, spring will still come, the world will keep turning and

you might just surprise yourself.

If you know you can survive your ride going wrong, you’ll have a lot more fun trying to make it go right.

● How do you maintain a positive mindset while competing? Tell us at hhletters@futurenet.com

• This exclusive column is also available to read in Horse & Hound magazine, on sale Thursday 25 November

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

With the return of affiliated competition on the horizon, riders are tuning back into their competitive instincts. Madeleine Silver asks the experts how to crank up motivation and prepare for post-pandemic success

Ask dressage Olympian Laura Tomlinson what show she’s dreaming about when this is all over and she’ll tell you in a nanosecond: Olympia.

“For me, normality would be an arena full of a packed crowd, a freestyle, that hustle and bustle,” says the mother of three, who admits that her horses were something of a sanctuary from the “the chaos in the house” during this lockdown.

After a year of turmoil and pent-up ambition, competitive instincts might be fiercer than ever, but preparing to perform on any stage after such a hiatus is a daunting prospect.

“You definitely get ring rusty,” admits Laura. “A lot of our European competitors have had some decent shows recently which we haven’t. We have to come out firing, and that’s a lot to ask for the horses who haven’t been in the ring. You can’t really substitute the practice of being in the ring a lot, but it is a good thing to be aware of and we have to just do the best to mitigate that.”

As Surrey-based chartered sport psychologist Jo Davies says, now is a time to focus on what we can control as the rocky roadmap out of the pandemic unfolds.

“I think one of the challenges has been the uncertainty of not knowing exactly when competitions will restart and having no clear date to work towards,” says Jo. “Autonomy or a feeling that you’re the one driving your journey is a key factor that makes up motivation, and I suppose that’s something that is damaged by lockdown because we don’t have a choice when competitions restart. So, then it’s about taking back control of what you can and optimising the time that you do have.”

It’s an ethos that eventing world champion Ros Canter adheres to.

“I try to stay as laid back as I can about [the changing eventing calendar] because it’s something that’s out of my control. What will be will be, and we have to make the best out of the situation that occurs, rather than wishing that Badminton is going to miraculously appear again. There’s always initial disappointment when things don’t happen how you want but I’m very much trying to refocus and keep preparing my horses the best I can. When the calendar emerges in a clear way, we’ll make a plan and go full steam ahead,” she says.

Setting yourself goals – whether it’s around a horse’s way of going or your own posture – and then mapping your progress, is a way to regain a sense of autonomy, says Jo.

For Ros that has meant focusing on her own strength and conditioning (boosting not only her performance but confidence, too), alongside appreciating the extra time she’s had to spend with her young daughter Ziggy.

And at Laura’s Gloucestershire base, a recent home show for those with horses on the yard gave a sense of focus and a reason to prepare a test, with Laura’s coach Carl Cuypers judging in his car and competitors plaiting up and wearing competition kit.

“I think people have just been creative in how they’ve switched up getting feedback and that accountability,” says Jo, who sent videos of herself riding tests to her coach during the first lockdown, followed up by a phone call to debrief.

The unexpected silver linings of the lockdowns have provided another valuable boost to motivation.

“It’s not been easy, but I’ve personally had more time to do serious stuff with the young horses, so it’s been double-edged,” says grand prix dressage rider Louise Bell. “And I’ve been brave enough to say to my owners that I want the horses from scratch because I have time to do it, which has been great.

“I think this last lockdown has made me a little bit more practical, too – don’t get your hopes up, don’t get carried away. I’m quietly optimistic [about what’s going to happen] but I’m aware that everything might go Pete Tong, especially with EHV-1,” adds Louise, who’s craving the camaraderie of competing.

“I’m fortunate enough that I’ve been around, I’ve had the ups and downs and I’ve hit rock bottom, I’ve had it all. When I compare this to my real hard times, this isn’t one. And I’m feeling hungrier than ever [for success] because I’m getting older and I’m running out of time; I’m not 22 any more.”

When eventer Caroline Clarke aims for Badminton in 2022, it will be fourth time lucky. On her first attempt the 26-year-old had to withdraw Touch Too Much due to lameness, and for the last two attempts Covid has scuppered her plans. But she’s equally upbeat.

“We keep getting struck down, but it’s just made me even more determined that we will get there,” she says. “And I’ve been trying to focus on the positives that can come out of it. It means you’re not rushing to get anything done, so you’re giving all your time to building up the strength and conditioning that you need.

“We’ve gone right back to basics with Touch Too Much, because we’ve had the time. So, we’ve done lots of polework and suppling, working from the basics up which means that his advanced movements are becoming much better.

“The other massive advantage for me of the lockdown has been that I’ve poured so much time into my babies,” she says. “So, I have the best-schooled five-year-olds I’ve had for ages. I’m probably even more excited to get them out than I am about Touch Too Much!”

An injection of retail therapy has also helped. “I’ve bought myself lots of gadgets, a new saddle, and built some new jumps, which is really motivational because you have to get out and try them,” she says. Plus, there’s been a healthy dose of perspective.

As a dentist Caroline has been on the frontline of healthcare, donning PPE and dealing with the lingering worry of bringing the virus back to her family.

“It’s been a bit stressful on both accounts [with work and the horses], but it’s been fantastic to have one balancing the other out,” she says.

It’s this perspective that Jo says we can all cling onto as we head back to the competition arena.

“One of the things I really like to get riders to think about is: ‘Why am I competing in the first place?’,” she says. “Most people will say it’s about passion for the sport or the partnership with their horse, and even if it’s about winning there’s normally something behind the winning; it’s because they want to have seen themselves progress and they want to optimise the opportunities they have.

“Sometimes we get on that treadmill in competition season, going to show after show, and perhaps this has helped us to appreciate competitions more and to think about what we’ve really missed about them.”

5 ways to tune into your competitive mindset

1. Bridge the gap between training and competition

“Think about what you can bring from a competition environment into your schooling at home, so that it can become an extension of your training arena,” says chartered sport psychologist Jo Davies. “Can I have my trainer score a test for me? Or can I challenge myself to pick one fence to warm up over and then jump a course at the height I want to compete at, rather than build up to it gradually?”

2. Be organised

“Ask yourself what you can plan in terms of feeling ready. Do I know my timings? Do I know how I’m going to warm up? Do I know what I’d like my helpers to do? Am I clear about my kit and where it all is? Do I need to write a checklist?”

3. Stay in the moment

“Sometimes we can big-up a competition too much and put all this pressure on our shoulders. A really nice tip for keeping yourself in the moment is breathing. If you can take a few deep breaths before you go into your dressage test or down to the cross-country start box, you bring yourself mindfully back to what you’re doing in that moment, rather than worrying about the crowds or the trakehner at fence 10.”

4. Have a mental rehearsal

“The way I would encourage riders to use visualisation is not just for remembering a course or test, but to focus on your ingredients for success. So, if you want to ride your showjumping course with a quality canter, really using your space and getting your lines, imagine riding like that. We can often become outcome-focused at a competition, and although ambition is a positive thing, we don’t completely control the winning for obvious reasons; we’re working with an equine partner and it depends on the other competitors. So, you have to ground yourself in what you can control.”

5. Be realistic

“We have to recognise that we’re coming out of a lockdown and our resources are going to vary depending on what facilities we have at home and what kind of horse we’re riding. So, if you’re riding a young horse you’re probably not going to go out and compete the first weekend competitions restart, however if you have a horse that knows its job inside out then you’re much better resourced to go to an affiliated event.”

This feature was first pubilished in Horse & Hound magazine, on sale Thursday 25 March

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With horses taking priority, time off is often seen as a luxury, not a necessity, for most professional riders. Ellie Hughes chats to those who do make time for themselves and their family, and finds out how they do it...

IF there is one thing Jonelle Price savours as much as whizzing round a five-star, it is rustling up a Sunday roast. A sit-down lunch with husband Tim and their young children Otis and Abel is a weekend ritual the 2018 Badminton champion particularly looks forward to – especially during the off-season – having spent most of the year living out of a horsebox.

“We would normally go to New Zealand in the winter to catch up with family, but with the pandemic that wasn’t possible,” she says. “But we are still very strict about having family time. We only ride Monday to Friday and spend the weekends doing things together with the children.”

Work-life balance is a subject to which Jonelle has given much consideration.

“I like to think we have got it about right,” she says. “It’s something that has always been important to Tim and me, but now that we have two young children we’re adamant about it.”

In some ways the Prices are in the minority, though. Performance psychologist Charlie Unwin, who provides mental coaching for riders through his programme Centre 10, says riders are notoriously bad at taking time off.

“Riders are very good at coming up with excuses,” he says. “Too many horses to ride, too much admin to catch up on… And there is this outdated, bullish notion that the more hours you spend in the saddle the more likely you are to succeed.

“Swimming was in a very bad place for the same reason about 10 years ago when the emphasis was on train, train, train, and there was a lot of burnout. We [psychologists] are spending more and more time helping athletes find a balance that enables them to perform at their best while living their lives.”

It is easy to sit back and talk about the importance of downtime, but when there is another (equine) athlete in the equation, whose needs have to come first, the reality is that a day off is often low down on riders’ lists.

Put short breaks in your diary

THE past 12 months have forced us all to attend fewer competitions and training events due to the pandemic. But as shows start to open up again, the calendar is relentless and might be even more so as riders try to play catch-up. With so many opportunities to compete year round, riders need to make a deliberate decision to take time off. The pandemic grounding us was an enforced break and therefore “doesn’t count”.

“You are on this conveyor belt of shows with no obvious end point,” says William Whitaker, who can spend weeks on the road at a time and relies on FaceTime to catch up with his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children. “When you do get a quiet week at home with no competitions but 20 horses in the stables, you really want to crack on with them because before you know it you’re off again.”

William has learned to diarise short breaks.

“If it’s not in the diary then it won’t happen,” he says. “I find just being at home and spending quality time with the kids is enough to recharge my batteries. I go back to work all the better for it – mentally I’m sharper and that’s really important in our game.”

Belgian international showjumper Olivier Philippaerts agrees.

He says: “If you have a little break in between shows you can recharge yourself mentally and physically for the next competition, but sometimes competitions follow each other so quickly you do not really get a chance for this.”

Dressage is similarly an all-year-round discipline, although dressage riders usually spend more time training at home and have fewer long-distance trips to factor in – but this does not necessarily translate to a quieter life, as Alice Oppenheimer attests to.

“I am very lucky to have my own family-owned yard and lovely home-bred horses to ride, but this does bring with it a certain amount of pressure to keep everything going all the time,” she says. “I can’t suddenly decide I want to swan off for the day as that wouldn’t be fair.”

Alice does try to take one day off a week.

“It’s not always possible, though, when you’ve been away at a show for a few days as the next lot of horses are waiting at home to be worked,” she says. “If I do have a day off I usually spend it asleep on the sofa or binge-watching a series on Netflix.”

Recharging your batteries

EVENTING is the only discipline to have an obvious off-season, yet the practice of turning horses away for a few months in October is now the exception rather than the norm.

Mary King still keeps to the same routine that has served her well throughout her career, and gives her horses a complete break in the field until Christmas.

“I appreciate that not everyone can do it, but I find that when I bring the horses back into work again I feel refreshed, excited and ready for the season,” she says.

Recharging the batteries need not necessarily be about taking an extended holiday, as Charlie points out.

“Factoring in quiet days and breaks during the day are equally important,” he says. “Taking a few minutes between each horse to regroup and reset before moving on to the next will improve focus and performance.”

Different riders will find rest and relaxation in different activities.

“Travelling to a show might be an ideal rest opportunity for one person, but for the next it can be mentally tiring as they will spend the whole journey worrying about the last competition and stressing about what is ahead,” Charlie adds.

Modern sport also brings modern pressures, and the non-riding side of running a business is draining both on time and energy.

“Managing social media, for example, has become a really big part of the sport,” Mary notes. “I look after mine myself, but I don’t do a lot compared to the younger generation. My daughter Emily has somebody who manages that side of things for her, which I know is a big help as it can be all-consuming.”

Alice agrees: “Gone are the days when sponsors will pick a rider solely on results. Now you have to be as hot on social media as you are in the saddle – and that is all extra workload.”

The importance of rest and sleep

IN elite sport, being tired can be more than merely an inconvenience.

“Rest and sleep are really important parts of an athlete’s life and research shows that a lack of either can have a big impact on mental focus and reaction time,” says Charlie. “Statistically, you are more likely to have a road accident when you’re tired, so there are safety considerations to think about.”

Former British dressage national champion Lara Butler, who has a one-year-old son, Jack, says she noticed how a lack of sleep, especially in the early days, affected her concentration.

“I definitely felt the difference,” she says. “It’s hard when you’ve had a bad night and still need to come out the next day and ride with 100% concentration.”

Being habitually tired is something new mothers and riders have in common. When the two busy roles collide it makes being able to perform at your best doubly tough.

Most women athletes agree that there is never an ideal time to press pause for a baby break, but a lot of riders have found the positives can outweigh the negatives.

Two years ago, New Zealand eventer Lucy Jackson made the difficult decision to sell one of the most talented horses she had ever had in her yard, Superstition. Her decision was partly influenced by having a young daughter, Evie, to consider, although she also admitted that becoming a mother changed her work-life balance for the better.

“I used to base my self-worth on a ribbon, which is quite tenuous; I feel now that there’s better balance,” she said at the time. “After a moderate day at a show, you go home and do something good as a mummy… I cope better because there are other things I can do well.”

Lara adds: “Being a rider and a mother is tough physically and mentally. Young children don’t like it when you only have half your mind on the job, but being able to switch your focus and priorities depending on the situation is a really good skill to learn.”

For riders who spend weeks and months on the road, being apart from the family for long periods is one of the hardest parts of the job.

“When you’re not home for weeks at a time you can miss key moments in your children’s lives without realising,” says William Whitaker.

Jonelle acknowledges that sharing a lifestyle with Tim is a huge bonus when it comes to balancing work and home.

“It’s easier when you’re both doing the same thing as you travel around together – it’s not like I’m leaving a husband at home for weeks on end,” she says.

“At the end of last season we were away in France for Le Lion and Pau. We took the whole family plus the nanny and basically moved out there. I realise it won’t be as easy when the kids are school age, but for now it’s an exciting thing to do. We are very lucky to lead the life we do – and we need to remember that.”

.

This exclusive feature is also available to read in H&H magazine, Thursday 18 March 2021 issue

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A competition debrief helps a rider assimilate their experience, and provides valuable team information. Ellie Hughes talks tactics with riders and coaches...

PICTURE the scene: a top rider has just left the arena after a high-pressure test or round that has been crucial for Britain’s fortunes at a major championship. Emotions are running high and the atmosphere in the collecting ring is electric. The rider’s first port of call – sometimes even before dismounting – is a quick debrief with the team manager or trainer.

There is a pat on the back and heads are nodding, but what exactly are they talking about? Are they reliving the ride down the final treble, discussing what might have caused the missed tempi change, or is it a more general overview? Is a post-performance debrief something we can all benefit from and, if so, who should we enlist to help?

According to British eventing team coach Chris Bartle, what is said in the immediate aftermath depends entirely on the situation.

“Often it’s a time for me to listen, not speak,” he says. “It’s a case of accepting what has happened and letting the rider talk if they want to. Some riders clam up and want to be left alone, while others are keen to talk through their test or round straight away.”

International dressage rider and coach Adam Kemp saves the technicalities for a lot later.

“Whatever you say to someone who has just come out of the arena will go in one ear and straight out the other,” he quips. “Top riders generally know their mistakes and what they’ve done or not done. If they’ve had a good ride I’ll probably just give them a wink. If they’ve had a bad ride I might use body language – a gesture that says these things happen, that kind of thing…”

Britain’s junior, young rider and children-on-horses coach Corinne Bracken agrees that knowing a rider’s personality makes her job a lot easier.

“I have a rider I help in Hong Kong [Corinne is also showjumping performance manager for the Hong Kong Jockey Club] and we have an agreement whereby I won’t say a word to her for 10 minutes after her round because she wants that time to reflect on her own, so we exchange a smile and that’s it until later,” she says. “I have other riders who start talking to me before they’ve even left the arena. It is the skill of the coach to know the character of the person they are helping.”

For riders who are keen to discuss their rounds immediately, Corinne makes sure she is ready to listen – “too many coaches want to do all the talking”.

“Often people just want reassurance. For example I might get asked whether the rail that fell was because they were too deep or too far off. The level of detail I go into depends on the rider’s experience. An experienced rider will already know the answer but will want confirmation, whereas with a less experienced rider I will highlight the good bits and suggest we discuss the rail later. Chances are they will be going back in the same arena again so I try and leave the negatives aside and steer them to the positives.”

Eventer turned showjumper Emily Llewellyn works closely with her fiancé, fellow showjumper Max Routledge. They try to watch each other’s rounds whenever they can.

“It’s important to remember that whatever has happened, you have tried your hardest, so immediately after a round is not the time to be critical, it’s the time to stay positive,” she says.

Keeping the positives at the forefront of post-performance discussion is something that all experienced coaches agree on, not least because a competition is never won or lost at the first hurdle.

“There are plenty of times in eventing that teams and individuals have gone on to win medals having been midway down the leaderboard after the dressage,” points out Team GBR eventing performance manager Dickie Waygood. “And in our sport there is a safety element to consider, too. You can’t set out on the cross-country in a negative mindset, so whatever has happened before has to be put to one side.”

Psychologically, when things go awry early on – whether it’s a tricky ride in the dressage phase of an event or a bad round on the first horse of the day when you have two or three more to ride – having the right people saying the right things at the right time is crucial.

When reigning world champion Ros Canter suffered a horse fall with the first of her three four-star rides at Burgham last year she still had two more to steer round the cross-country, including her gold medal-winning partner, Allstar B.

“I was in the lead with ‘Albie’, so the pressure was on for me,” she explains. “After my fall, Chris Bartle and Caroline Moore both said to me, ‘Stick to the system, Ros’. They didn’t go into any more detail because they knew I didn’t need to be dwelling on what had just happened. It was important for me to get straight back into a positive mindset and those few words helped me do that.”

The pair went on to win the class.

A helpful observer need not be an expert

So what are the options for those of us without the benefit of elite coaching or a trainer at hand? Dickie points out that not all useful feedback has to come from an expert.

“You don’t need to be an All Black to recognise a forward pass,” he says, meaning that it is still possible to be a helpful observer, even if you do not have in-depth knowledge of the subject. “As a rider, one of the most useful things you can hear is what your performance looked like – not what you could have done better – and it doesn’t take an expert to do that.”

Corinne cautions against having parents play too close a part in the immediate debrief.

“People often say things they don’t really mean in the heat of the moment, so it’s better to have someone more removed on a personal level to give riders that initial feedback.”

International dressage rider and coach Maria Eilberg, who works alongside her father, Ferdi, and brother, Michael, acknowledges that their closeness has not always made the job easy.

“When I was a young rider starting out my father used to get very emotional after my tests, especially when things didn’t go to plan, and often he’d just walk off,” she laughs. “A lot of riders wouldn’t have minded, but I was always keen to talk things through, especially if I’d had a rough ride.”

Nowadays, the Eilberg team is a well-oiled machine (see below) and Maria uses her experience to debrief the riders she coaches.

“Often a test can look different to how it feels, so it’s really helpful to have someone on the ground to give you that initial feedback,” she says. “Obviously you can’t have a trainer or knowledgeable person on hand all the time, so I encourage people to have their tests videoed so we can analyse them together afterwards. It’s something I do with my own horses, especially if I am at a show on my own.”

It is important to remember that the collecting ring at a major competition or championship is a very public place, with spectators (in non-Covid times, at least), the media and sometimes even live television crews focusing on what is going on immediately before and after riders ride in and out of the arena.

“As coaches and riders we have to consider the impact we have on other people,” Dickie cautions.

Adam adds: “Public perception and horse welfare has to come first. The exit is not the place to be discussing what went wrong. If something’s not gone to plan I’ll likely give the horse a pat and tell the rider we’ll sit down and talk through it later.”

Family values

Having a family member or partner competing and training alongside you can be extremely advantageous when it comes to the debrief.

Dressage siblings Maria and Michael Eilberg make a point of watching each other’s tests whenever possible.

“We have become very good at sharing tips,” says Maria. “It can be hard to keep emotion out the equation, but over the years we’ve found a way to make it work and we tell each other what the test looks like from the ground rather than focusing on the technicalities.”

Showjumpers Emily Llewellyn and Max Routledge tailor their feedback for one another according to the situation and horse they are riding.

“If I’m on a young horse Max might tell me how he thought the horse jumped and help me decide the next steps. If I’m on a more established horse and we’ve gone well in the first round we will discuss a plan for the jump-off and he’ll give me some tips.”

In addition, Emily tries to have every round she rides videoed.

“We will always sit down in the evening after a show and go through each round in much finer detail,” she says.

Also published in H&H magazine, on sale Thursday 25 February

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Charlie Unwin, a top performance psychologist, has worked with many professional event riders. Here are some key pointers from him based around the title; ‘The mind limits the body’…

1. How can you be you at your best every time in competition and how can you be better next time?

2. You shouldn’t define good performance as a lack of bad performance. It doesn’t make sense — you wouldn’t say you are happy because nothing sad has happened for example

3. What stops you from achieving your potential? The power and importance of belief is paramount — without belief, talent means nothing

4. Top athlete Roger Bannister, who was the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, said: “Your thoughts have a way of sinking to your feet” — this is true with riding as negative thoughts can affect your leg and seat for example

5. Identity is important — you’ll learn a lot about the human condition watching a warm-up arena. Some people become shells of themselves when warming up in the presence of top riders

6. Sit down and work out who you want to be on your horse to get a grip of your identity

7. If you tell yourself you’re not a dressage rider, dressage will become about coping and you will perform moderately. Think about what you could do in the dressage arena that would make you a world-class dressage rider — this will help translate into how you look and in turn perform

8. As you move up the levels, who you are, your ‘brand’ and who you represent shouldn’t change. For example, just because you might now be competing at a higher level, it doesn’t mean you should feel like you don’t belong there

9. Are you an athlete? Do you undermine yourself? Are you eating like an athlete for example?

10. The thing that makes failure damaging for us isn’t failure itself but the repetition of the thoughts afterwards

11. Managing expectations prior to performance helps forge the way of thinking after the performance — if you go into the showjumping arena for example and have already decided your objectives for that round are to maintain a good canter and ride good turns, you will be better set to analyse your performance afterwards if you have managed to achieve those two things, even if you have had a couple of poles down

Continued below…

6 ways positive psychology can make you a better rider

Professor Tony Ghaye discusses the ways in which positive psychology can impact riders and improve their standard of performance

3 ways to help you achieve peak performance

Zoe Taylor and Camilla Henderson, who are both sport and performance psychology consultants, shed light on how we as riders

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

12. The way we provide ourselves with feedback after a performance is important — positive and negative feedback can make a big difference. Specific positive feedback can have a good impact on performance

13. There’s a fine line between fear and excitement — the difference between the two is control

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Positive psychology is a revolutionary new form of psychology which looks at the science of positive emotions. This new frontier for human performance centres around understanding how emotions affect thinking and actions and was one of the topics featured at a The Pony Club Coaching Conference. There, Professor Tony Ghaye (together with Marie Ryan) discussed the ways in which positive psychology can impact riders and improve their standard of performance.

1. First do it, then do it right, then do it better

“One of the best ways to get better at something is to have the emotional courage to have a go and then reflect on what you did, learn from this and put this learning to good future use. This is often known as experiential learning,” explains Professor Ghaye, who works with riders and coaches in all equestrian disciplines who are seeking to improve what they do. “The art of reflection on action is a key component in helping you to improve.”

Professor Ghaye warns that there is no value in reflecting only on your mistakes and failures, stressing that you should also reflect on what went well, why and how you can keep doing well.

2. Letting things go

Professor Ghaye emphasised that you shouldn’t be fixated on fixing weaknesses, or on things that are going less well. Often you need to let things go, or to unlearn something, particularly if it’s something negative, so you can create space in your head to learn something new.

“Holding on to negative feelings and thoughts don’t serve you well. If you always think about what went wrong, like the kind of fence you always knock down, then this problem only grows bigger in your mind,” explains Professor Ghaye. “Solve the problems you face or leave the problem alone. Don’t live with the problem.”

He also stresses that we should focus on desires not disappointments. We should focus on what we want more of (enjoyment, success) and not less of (stress, frustration). If we don’t do this, we run the risk of not enjoying our riding.

3. Being in control

“When riding, when do you feel your best and do your best?” asked Professor Ghaye as he introduced delegates to the power of positive emotions and the need to build emotional muscle if you are to ride well.

“The emotional part of your brain governs everything — it affects how you feel which influences what you think, which in turn affects what you do,” he continues. “At times your emotions can be so strong that they cloud your judgement so learning to manage the feelings part of your brain will have a huge impact on your riding performance.”

Professor Ghaye made the point that although most people don’t know what’s possible for themselves, what they do know is that understanding how we feel is a key driver in riding successfully.

4. Use your strengths

Do you know what your strengths are? Become familiar with your performance strengths (what you can do) and character strengths (the kind of person you are) and use them as often as you can.

For example, if you are great at attention to detail (performance strength) and you also self-regulate well (you’re a disciplined person), then make sure you use these strengths when preparing to ride and when competing.

5. It’s good to talk

If you’re always worrying about what people think of you, how well you’re riding in competition and if you’re making enough progress then this will impair your ability to ride to your potential. Bottling up your feelings is unhealthy. Talk to people about how you are feeling and what you are thinking. Make sure you look after your mental health and develop a positive sense of personal well-being.

“To ride well and to flourish in the sport depends on you paying attention to how you feel not just what you can do,” says Professor Ghaye.

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6. Believe in yourself

Everyone has self-doubt at times but if you know yourself and know what works for you this can be easier to combat. Professor Ghaye explained that positive psychology directs us towards changing our bad habits into good habits for the purpose of riding well and optimal personal well-being.

“Building your self-belief is a fundamental part of a positive approach to improving your riding,” he explains. “Identify your positive side, do not surround yourself with negative people, seek feedback on your riding, embrace praise and keep things in perspective. We all get down from time to time, and we get a little broken but last time I checked even broken crayons can still colour!”

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Whether you’re a professional rider or a weekend hacker, confidence issues can affect us all. H&H speaks to a therapist and one rider who has successfully regained her nerve

Whether you’re a professional rider or a weekend hacker, confidence issues affect us all. Maybe you get butterflies the first time you canter after a fall, or you need a few extra lessons with an instructor to build yourself up again. But what happens when the ‘get up and get on with it’ attitude doesn’t work? Or if losing your confidence forces you to stop riding and give up horses altogether?

Therapist Diane Danzebrink has seen it all before.

“When I know there’s a way to deal with confidence loss, the saddest thing is hearing of riders who have given up — given up something that gave them deep, deep joy — because they’ve had an accident and not been able to get over it,” she says.

We meet experienced horsewoman Nina Quinn (pictured, below) and find out how Diane helped her after a traumatic accident.

The accident: ‘the next thing I knew, he was going berserk’

When Nina turned up at the yard to see her warmblood performing acrobatics in his stable, she made the wise decision not to ride. Instead, her yard owner offered her one of his safe, sane youngsters.

“I got on and the next thing I knew, he was going berserk — rearing, bucking and bronking,” says Nina.

“People were shouting to get off, so I jumped. As I did, he spun around and kicked me directly in the knee.” Nina ended up with a broken lower leg and a knee shattered into pieces.

Before the accident, Nina was competing at BE90 and BE100 level eventing, with years of experience backing and riding young horses.

“I was always the one to get on tricky horses, and I had always been confident. I rode my older horse after my accident and felt absolutely fine.

“But when I went to get on my other horse, I realised something was wrong. I was very aware that I was getting on him. I couldn’t stop thinking that he was going to do something and that it would come out of nowhere — like it did with the horse in my accident.”

Nina’s anxiety escalated, and soon she could only ride when her friend and yard owner, Alison, were on hand to help her.

“Before, if a horse ever spooked or misbehaved, I would simply carry on. But after my accident, it was always at the back of my mind — what if he spooked? What if he did something naughty? I couldn’t relax.”

Understanding our memories

Diane explains that many people think this loss of confidence is untreatable, or that it has to be done over years of therapy. But experts know that if work is done in the right way, people can regain their confidence incredibly quickly.

“In everyday life, our memories are filed away in a ‘cabinet’ in our brain. If we want to recall them, we can,” explains Diane.

“If asked, you can dig into that cabinet and bring back information. But any traumatic memory that comes back to you automatically, without you recalling it, for over 30 days is classified as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). That memory never goes back into the cabinet. The brain has decided there’s danger attached to it, so keeps it current.

“For Nina, the danger was attached to getting on a horse. Every time she got on, that memory came back to her — even though she wasn’t recalling it.”

The rewind technique

Nina went to Diane for three sessions, where Diane used the rewind technique on her. This would help Nina file the memory away properly, ensuring she could recall it when wanted, without the risk of it coming back spontaneously.

The rewind technique is a safe, effective way to help someone overcome a traumatic event. While in a state of deep relaxation, you take a traumatic memory and store it as an ordinary one. Doing this stops the memory from coming back as distressing, unwanted flashbacks. Instead, you can recall it when you want, leaving it as an unpleasant, yet non-threatening memory.

“The great thing about the rewind technique is that you don’t have to get all the details about someone’s trauma. If someone has to constantly tell and re-tell everything that happened, there’s a risk of re-traumatising them, as they’re having to repeatedly relive it,” explains Diane.

“The work we do is called guided visualisation. I started by relaxing Nina using breathing techniques. In her imagination, I asked her to run the film of what happened on that day. Then, I told her to rewind that film very fast, back to a really positive memory she has of riding.”

Diane was getting Nina to trick her brain into filing the traumatic memory away.

“If you imagine there’s a part of the brain that acts like passport control (the amygdala), normal memories are swiped through. But when a traumatic memory comes to passport control, it’s stopped and has to go back. What I’m helping people do is process the memory as it should have been, to get it through passport control and filed into the cabinet (the neocortex).”

“I came out after the first session and thought there was no point to it,” says Nina. “I felt no different.” But after the second session, Nina had a breakthrough. In her mind, she had mounted a quiet horse and then out of the blue, it had gone berserk. “All of a sudden it became clear why the accident happened. It didn’t come out of nowhere. When my friend did the girth up, she caught him and he reacted.”

Returning to normality

The next big step came when Nina mounted her horse without assistance — and without realising.

“I was talking to a friend before mounting, and the next thing I knew, I was on my horse.”

Usually Nina had to make sure there was nothing around that could spook him. But this time, she’d not given it any thought.

From that day on, Nina’s confidence continued to soar — and it only took three sessions. When Diane works with horse riders, she has two clinical sessions and a third session on horseback. Now, Nina is back out competing at an affiliated level, with her confidence levels fully restored.

“The great thing was hearing from Nina a few weeks later. She’d gone out competing for the first time in ages and was placed second,” says Diane.

Don’t suffer in silence

Both Diane and Nina stress the importance of getting help. Despite all the work being done to raise awareness of mental health issues, Diane believes there’s still stigma and fear around asking for help.

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Diane explains: “People I treat say they’ve got a block and they can’t get past it: they don’t know what’s happening to them. But if I can explain what’s going on in their brain, then people understand the mechanics and can start to recover. They see that their memory got stuck, that they need to move it, and then they can ride again.”

“It’s a horrible feeling to be on edge all the time. I wish more people would do something about their nerves and seek professional help,” says Nina, though she admits it’s not easy. “I did feel shame admitting that my confidence had gone, but admitting it must be the first step. The sessions with Di were invaluable; they were the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m now finally enjoying my horse again.”

For more information on using the rewind technique to regain your confidence, you can speak to Diane on dianedanzebrink@gmail.com or 07711142241.

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Confidence is a state of mind which can have a considerable impact on your success rate and performance during training sessions or in competition. Have you ever considered the importance of confidence, what happens when your confidence is high or low and what affects your confidence levels?

“Confidence is key for any rider, without it we struggle to be resilient in times of hardship and when faced with challenges our negative self talk can turn into self doubt,” explains sport and performance consultant Camilla Henderson. “As a consequence this directly impacts performance negatively and we start to lose the ability to do the simple things well.”

Here Camilla Henderson and performance psychologist Zoe Taylor reveal eight ways in which you can build and improve your confidence.

1. Use self talk

Simply changing your language from ‘I’m not up to this’ or ‘I shouldn’t be here’ to ‘I can do it’ can have a profound effect on your confidence levels. Have confidence in your processes and self-compassion within what you are doing as confidence starts with self belief not self doubt.

2. Take your opportunities

For example when you are in the start box about to go cross-country or when you are riding to the start of a race, take that time to set your mind and be positive.

3. Identify what the biggest positive influence on your confidence is

It’s an individual response and there is no right or wrong answer but if you determine that something like ‘winning’ is your biggest positive influence consider what that means.

“Winning is an unstable source of confidence as it’s out of your control,” continues Camilla. “Being too outcome or ego focused can be detrimental long term so try to be more process focused. Say ‘I’m going to get this score in the dressage’ as it is a more stable place to draw confidence from.”

4. Try mindfulness

Mindfulness can be incredibly beneficial in competition if used correctly to maintain arousal or when things go wrong and you need to re-set.

Think about your processes and what you need to do at that moment in time. Having mentally rehearsed situations ahead of time can make the situation easier to deal with. When you are training or at home think through how you would react if, for example, you fell off, had a bad jump or got your striding wrong. Then, if it occurs you can be mindful, take the challenge in the moment, accept it and go with it.

“You can only ride what you have at that moment,” says performance psychologist Zoe Taylor from Taylored Mindset. “It doesn’t matter what happened in the warm up, last week or what will happen next week, it’s critical to be mindful, stay in the moment and deal with it.”

5. Implement behavioural triggers

Another common method to help you refocus and re-engage is to use behavioural triggers. Camilla has a mental process that she likes to follow at the start of a race and if she feels herself deviating from that she smacks her thigh to refocus. Using a behavioural trigger for optimal mindset is something that needs practising and won’t work overnight.

6. Experiment with different methods

While self talk can work for some people and behavioural triggers work for others, there are several other methods (listed below) to help you combat the challenges and unpredictable scenarios which competition day can throw up and it’s personal preference as to which works best for you.

• Mental imagery/visualisation
• Self talk skills
• Relaxation skills
• Breathing skills
• Goal setting programmes
• Centering skills (behavioural triggers)

If you want to implement relaxation or breathing skills into your pre-competition routine then start to practise them at home. Applying key mental skills to your training environment will benefit you on competition day.

7. Consider positives as well as negatives

Once the competition is over, reflect on what you have done well before looking at the negatives. Take something positive from the event or session even if you have had the day from hell.

8. Know your super strengths

Speak to your parents or trainers and ask them what you did well. Get their opinion on what you can work on. Also consider what you are good at and make these your ‘super strengths.’

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Writing your key super strengths on the back of your hand on competition day can serve as useful reminders and confidence boosters. Don’t forget to spend time working on your super strengths as it’s important to practise your strengths just as much as your weaknesses.

“Working from a strengths-based focus rather than the typical constraints-based approach is a key part of positive psychology which can enhance multiple characteristics and behaviours such as confidence and belief which can lead to a more consistent and optimal performance, as well as facilitating intrinsic motivation,” says Zoe, who also designs and implements the academy psychology programme at Harlequins Rugby.

“We can also gain confidence through aspiring to the characteristics and behaviours of someone that inspires you. Watch their videos. Ask them questions. Learn from them and consistently keep growing.”

For more information visit tayloredmindset.co.uk or camillahenderson.co.uk.

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I have just received some online hate. I am really fortunate in that this doesn’t happen often, but I really do feel the need to write about it now.

This particular comment made fun of my relationship with a horse I used to ride for her owner (I’m not going to name the horse, or the owner for privacy reasons.).

I am devastated.

The thing about the horse in question, is that I had her during the hardest time in my life. This was also the hardest time in the horse’s life. I had just had major reconstructive ankle surgery, my brother had recently died, I had recently come out of hospital for severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I was wheelchair bound and it was not known how much use I would be able to get out of my ankle, so in the worst case scenario, my riding career could have been completely over.

The horse had been through an equally rough time. She had been at a not so nice yard where she had been kept in draw reins while ridden and while stabled at times, had her legs rapped while jumping, and generally not at all treated with kindness (her owner did not know this until she moved her away.). The horse came to me with extreme bone bruising, very sore teeth, sore hocks, bruises everywhere, and she was PETRIFIED.

I sat with this horse for hours in her stable, I gently groomed her for hours (although only certain areas, as she was so sore), I spent the weeks that she needed off due to her injuries building her trust in people again. Once she was less sore I started to be able to walk again around this same time. We did hours of in-hand classical dressage to build up muscle from the ground, and to get my ankle stronger. She was so gentle with me now after those weeks of just gaining her trust.

I would set up poles for her to walk over to imitate a water treadmill and build up her strength. She was too scared to walk over the poles, so our hand walking included a few poles from then on, and lots of treats, until she would walk over a long set of walk poles with no problems.

We literally healed together, mentally and physically. She is now out in the world doing amazingly showjumping. I may not have had competition success with her (I am not a showjumper, and she is), but the biggest success of my career thus far, was rehabbing her to the point where she can be happy and trusting again. Yes, it isn’t with me. My ankle got in the way of riding her.

The reason I am writing this is because this person took it upon themselves to bring me down, for no reason, other than maybe they find it entertaining? Maybe they thought I would just scoff at their comment, forgetting about it. I can’t psychologically do that. Someone saying a mean thing to me circles around my head for weeks, and that is no exaggeration. I will overthink everything they could have possibly meant. I have very low self-esteem, so this hit hard. This comment suggested that I couldn’t get the best out of her because she is now doing so well out competing. Our relationship wasn’t about competing, in fact we barely competed, it was all about rehab. My job was to fix an ‘unfixable’ horse, and I think we did a pretty good job. I couldn’t be more proud that she is now so successful. The hours and hours that I put in on the ground and riding the basics with her, retraining her were immeasurably worth it. I am so proud to have been an important part of her journey.

What this horse and I achieved isn’t measurable by a first place rosette. We fixed each other’s broken hearts.

But because this person, who I have never talked to/met before, thought they would bring me down (just because they could? For sport?), I feel worthless, useless, and it makes me wonder why I bother at all. Maybe I didn’t fix this horse, maybe I am a bad rider, maybe my piece in this horse’s journey was totally insignificant, maybe it didn’t mean anything. My head will continue to ruminate about what this person may have meant for days, weeks..

One mean comment, has given my mental health a serious knock.

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If I had been having a ‘bad mental health day’ it could have been really serious and I may well have ended up in the hospital, or off work for weeks. You never know what people have gone through. You never know what people are going through. You don’t know me — why break me?

So please, to everyone reading this, if you feel like writing a mean comment, ask yourself the following questions:

Is it NECESSARY?

Is it TRUE?

Is it KIND?

Claire

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday.

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The subject I am going to write about today is something that everyone will have experienced; if you haven’t — you’re lying: how to deal with things when they’re not going so well, specifically at a competition.

I don’t hold all the secrets to dealing with emotions well, far from it really, BUT I do know that feelings must be felt. The reason FEELING your emotions is so important is because if you don’t allow yourself to feel them, they will fester, and present themselves in other ways; no matter how far down you try to bury them within yourself.

There are lots of different ways that you may let your negative feelings out without realising. My most common way is to ‘snap’ at people. For me, this is something that I have to really actively try not to do, to the point where my routine after a phase out eventing is taking myself into the lorry (by myself) for just five minutes, or longer if I need it. I realise that this sounds like I am a spoilt little rich kid stropping off to her lorry, but that’s not the case!

The reason I do this is so I have a ‘safe space’ to feel anything I need to, and to rationalise the phase I have just done. This doesn’t necessarily have to be all bad. It’s great to do this when you have had a positive ride too. In my case, I find it necessary to do this alone, so I feel like I can feel without judgement (not that any of my team would be judgey, but it is hard to tell someone how you are feeling if you don’t even know yourself, so it may come out wrong.).

I am a serial over-thinker. I like to ruminate. A LOT. So for me it is extremely important to take myself off to my safe space, and just have a think. Have a think about how I am feeling, what I am disappointed with, and what I am pleased with. For every negative I take away from whatever I have just done, I make myself think of a positive. Say I had a nightmare of a dressage test, I will sit down, cry if I need to.

NOTE: Some of you reading this may think I am being overdramatic by saying I may cry after dressage tests or a bad round. It is SUCH a journey to battle your way to a competition, so much preparation goes into those four minutes in the white boards. My whole life leads up to competitions as I am a professional rider. You pin so many hopes and dreams onto these days that when it all comes crumbling down, it is painful. It is so emotionally draining when it goes right, let alone when it goes wrong!

Anyway continuing on…

I will take a few deep breaths, and remind myself that those four minutes are now in the past, we can’t change them. Next, I will begin to rationalise. By this, I mean I will think ‘ok, my mediums were terrible. Why?’ I’ll watch the video of the test, and see that maybe he wasn’t reactive enough to my leg. So now I can plan to improve this for next time, by spending more time on this in the warm-up before the test, and practising this at home. I think of the bad bits, one by one, and calmly rationalise WHY each one happened.

NB: THIS MUST BE IN A PRODUCTIVE WAY — I cannot stress this enough. If you’re not sure why things went wrong, do not listen to your self-doubt and just assume it is because you are a bad rider. Ask your trainer. Do not jump to conclusions.

This gives you control over these negative moments. You now have a plan for the future to improve what happened in the past. You can do something about these mistakes, and that takes the power away from them, and over to you. You must always remember that yes, everything going perfectly and you winning would be amazing; but that every bad day, every bad ride, is a lesson, and a stepping stone towards that win. If everything went perfectly all the time, you would learn absolutely nothing. Rationalising the bad bits also takes the emotion away from them, and makes you think of them in a calm, more physical way.

Now that I have let myself be upset, or angry, and then rationalised (and made sense of the feelings), I then try my best to let the feelings go. This is so important! If I do not let these feelings go, I will continue the day full of self-doubt, and ride badly as a result. I will stay frustrated and react more strongly to the horse if they are naughty, and ride badly as a result. I will feel anxious that I will make more mistakes, and ride badly as a result. I will snap at those trying to help me because I am frustrated with myself.

You have to accept that the ‘blips’ happened in the moment, and that that moment is gone.

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Something that helps me also when a phase — again, let’s say the dressage — went badly, I think of the ‘event’ as a dressage competition, a showjumping competition, and a hunter trial, rather than the whole thing as one. This really helps me to ‘put a lid on’ the bad phase, and move onto the next without thinking of how the previous phase may affect my overall score etc. If you think like that, you may as well give up as soon as it goes a bit downhill. If you have a defeatist attitude, the rest of the day won’t go as well as you can make it go.

Let yourself feel, rationalise, and let it go.

Claire

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

How do you achieve peak performance? Whether you’re a top-level athlete or a happy hacker, having the right mindset while in the saddle is crucial, not only to ensure your horse or pony is going in the way you would like, but also for your own enjoyment and happiness.

At a recent talk surrounding the topic of ‘peak performance’, Zoe Taylor and Camilla Henderson, who are both sport and performance psychology consultants, shed light on how we as riders can achieve our optimal competition mindset, how to apply key mental skills to our performance and how to thrive under pressure.

Here are three topics covered by Zoe and Camilla during their talk, which could help improve your performance:

1. How to achieve the optimal mindset

First of all you need to stop and understand what your optimal looks like — what was your best day in the saddle?

– Can you visualize your peak?

– Have you ever had a taste for your peak?

– What were the processes you carried out on the day you performed at your peak level?

– What were your thought processes and behaviours that day?

Before we set the behaviour change to help realise a greater frequency of peak performance, we need to understand the process behind it, which we call C.B.T.

C.B.T is made up of three parts, which all affect each other:

Thought — what we think affects how we act and feel

Behaviour — what we do affects how we think and feel

Emotion — what we feel affects what we think and do

We often change our behaviours in a competition environment For example, the warm-up is a nasty environment — we have to be more gritty here than in the actual competition sometimes as we can be fearful and threat focused. We might become frantic and less patient on the horse, for example. To help work through this, think about the emotion you want and therefore the thought and behaviour that is required to achieve that. You must employ the tactics of thoughts first, then emotion in order for this to work.

2. The ABCs of evaluating thoughts

The ABCs model is how we evaluate our thoughts.

A — activating event — this is your immediate interpretation of an event and it is the reason behind why we do things and often, the cause of when things go wrong.

B — beliefs — this is your evaluation of the activating event and it will be either rational or irrational — we are looking to make this always rational.

C — consequences —this consists of emotions, behaviours, other thoughts and your actions taken after A. As well as B, this is also how we evaluate our thoughts

There is a final part to this model too, which id ‘D’ for disputing. This is an alternative belief that would lead to healthier consequences.

ABC in action

A — “I’ve just demolished a warm-up showjumping fence five minutes before I’m due in”

B — irrational — “I’m useless at this — I’m dreading it now, I can’t do this”

C — heart rate increases, franticness, panic mode, not doing simple things well, chaos, over-riding, in front of the movement

Go through it

A — what just happened?

B — can we make this rational? — I’ve done it 100 times before — so draw on past competence and ideally get over it and try again

C — what is the consequence now? You will start to do simple things well again

D — Dispute the belief — alternate the belief that would lead to a more ideal consequence — take a step back before stepping back in.

In the warm-up if something bad happens, go back to the things you do well before going back to the things you are less good at, to help you get through what you are trying to achieve.

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3. Utilising self-talk skills to optimise our performance mindset

Now we take a look at how you apply positive processes in response to dealing with stressful events. This is where we need an appreciation of self-talk. To do this we need to:

– Work out how we can reframe our thoughts

– Know what we optimally look like

– Visualise it

– Restructure the irrational thought/negative statement

You can use self-talk at any stage of training or competition and really is as simple as finding a phrase that works for you when you say it over to yourself. Some examples are:

“Commit to me”

“Breathe”

“We can do this”

“Let it go”

But make sure that whatever you’re saying to yourself has the right effect in that it makes you ride in a positive and sensible way.

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Nerves — we all feel them. But what if they’re making competition days a stress and taking away from the fun of it all? There is a wealth of tips on how to combat competition nerves online, but do they work for everyone? Rachel Fraser spoke to real riders who reviewed what works, and what doesn’t, for them.

Leading performance psychologist Charlie Unwin knows a thing or two about nerves. He explained that often riders fail to prepare for the reality of a competition, noting that competing is more of a mental challenge than a physical one and that it’s important to re-create a high-pressure environment when practising at home.

Charlie also recommended working on your mindset when it comes to successes and failures, noting that elite riders tend to visualise their successes, which nurtures their confidence and the importance of setting achievable goals. His last tip was to remember to breathe – one which I’m sure many of us can relate to!

But do the same techniques work for everyone? I spoke to real riders to find out…

Sarah Shepheard, of Totally Amateur Eventing, said: “There’s something about shows that really gets the butterflies in my stomach flapping, so these tips are ideal for me. I completely agree with Charlie’s point about practising. If I feel prepared, having put the hours in training before a competition, I always feel more relaxed on the day. I like to feel prepared mentally as well — so knowing my dressage test inside out, or trying to walk the showjumping or cross-country course the day before where possible.

“Personally, I haven’t found visualisation to be helpful, but I know it really works for some people. I’m quite competitive by nature, so visualising everything going well just makes me more competitive, fuelling my nerves rather than calming them.

“The tip about setting small, realistic goals works better for me, rather than visualising our performance going amazingly and winning all my classes — which is about as likely as finding Valegro in my stable tomorrow!

“I also use a brain training technique where I substitute the word ‘nervous’ for ‘excited’. It sounds silly, but I’ve found that just by saying I’m excited about the competition, it totally changes my mindset and I actually feel more optimistic and less worried — try it.

“I’m also definitely one for writing things down. My blog has helped with that, as I can go back and look at how far we’ve come and remind myself that actually, we’re doing ok.”

Carly Warren, a seasoned Trec competitor, agrees that preparation is key to feeling calm on competition day: “When you compete in Trec, venues can be off the beaten track and finding some can be difficult. I recommend buying an Ordnance Survey map of the area you are heading to, so you can find the venue before you leave home, as some are off narrow country roads. The prospect of stunning orienteering in the countryside on your horse, and a full weekend away with Trec friends, means that long and occasionally stressful journeys are soon forgotten.”

For some riders, the fear of show-day builds up in advance. Sophie Hawkesford, who rides at The Dressage Secret Training Centre & Riding School, explained: “I don’t have a horse of my own, but I’m lucky enough to ride an ex-one-star eventer, Nico, at my riding school.

“My nerves build up way before the competition. Even if I’m just riding at a clinic, held at the riding school, I can feel my riding go to pot. Having an instructor constructively critique my weak points challenges my capabilities and helps me get out of my comfort zone so I can ride Nico to his full potential.”

Continued below…

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Preparation remained a key piece of advice from our riders, with Nic from Diamonds In The Rough Dressage (pictured top) saying: “Prepare as much as possible. I allow an extra half an hour ‘messing around time’ so I can stay focussed on preening and polishing rather than worrying about traffic and a shorter warm-up.

“Learning your test so it becomes second nature means you can really ride in the ring, rather than just playing pilot. I tend to stay off social media for the day too — it’s great for many things but can wind me up so I close my eyes and ears to it.”

Still looking for the tip that works for you? Read more expert advice on how to conquer competition nerves on Horse & Hound.

For all the latest equestrian news and reports, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Adrienne Sternlicht, who was a member of the US showjumping team which won gold at the World Equestrian Games (WEG) last week, talked about the mental struggles she has gone through to compete at the top level.

“For me, it’s been a battle to overcome my own mind,” said the 25-year-old championship debutante, who works with sports psychologist Peter Crone and is trained by her team-mate McLain Ward.

Adrienne’s strongest day was the second round of the team competition, on Thursday, when she finished with just one time-fault.

“I think I was crying after the round,” she said. “McLain always makes fun of me for how much I cry, but I said yesterday I was rubbing off on him. He teared up when I went into the ring.”

The rider explained she had to set an average performance in the speed leg on Wednesday behind her.

“I woke up this morning and had some sort of epiphany that I needed to relax, so that was exciting and I think that translated into my ride,” she said.

“It’s surreal riding here and I’ve had the whole array of emotions. Today I definitely knew that what I did yesterday —the intensity I was trying to channel, gritting my teeth when I went into the ring — wasn’t productive for me, so I took a new approach and tried to relax and trust my horse and the love we have for each other.

“Yesterday I was so exhausted when I got home — mentally preparing myself to jump, jumping and then being disappointed in myself — so I went to be bed at 9pm, slept, woke up refreshed and thought, ‘How can I handle this better today?’

“Cristalline picks up on my energy so much, we’re so close. My sports psychologist [Peter Crone] is here and he met her yesterday and he said he’s never seen two beings that love each other so much, so I just tried to think about that today — how grateful I am to have her and to be here riding in front of this crowd.”

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Adrienne also talked about her relationship with her team-mates Laura Kraut — who has also trained her in the past — and McLain Ward, her current mentor.

“Laura is a perfect example of a Nations Cup rider — she has so much grit in that capacity so I look up to her. She really seems to fight when it matters most and so I try to take that from her,” she said.

“McLain and I are really close so that means that at times it’s quite tense between us. He knows when to support me, when I need that love and also when I need to be yelled at honestly.”

Pick up this week’s magazine (dated 27 September) for H&H’s full report on the showjumping from WEG, including exclusive opinion from British team member William Funnell and Rio Olympic champion Nick Skelton.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

We all know riding is inherently challenging. Trying to get both human and horse, with their independent brains, to work together can be incredibly difficult and the variables affecting that partnership and performance is vast.

While we can control how much money and time we spend on fitness, training and equipment, what do you do as a rider when your mindset starts to fail you and negative thinking sets in?

“Quite often it can be a particular negative experience that triggers these debilitating thoughts — having a fall, experiencing a bad jump, getting the striding wrong or incurring injury,” says sport and performance consultant Camilla Henderson.

“However big or small, riders can overcome these challenges through the use of core mental skills and strategies, helping them to use effective coping strategies in order to achieve their optimal performance at home or in competition.”

Camilla Henderson and Zoe Taylor, performance psychologist at Taylored Mindset, give their advice on how to stop negative thinking impacting your performance:

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Seeking psychological help doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you, it’s a method which helps you conquer your fears and allows you to be the best you can be.

“Essentially sport psychology is about retraining your brain to think differently,” says Zoe. “It need not be a route to take when we have become unstuck, it can also be used proactively to overcome challenges or fears before you get to that point.”

2. Identify your fears/challenges/struggles

It’s important to know and understand yourself and be aware of your strengths and weaknesses.

Ask yourself the following questions: what are your challenges? Why and when did this become a challenge? How do these challenges affect your performance?

Some common struggles and challenges are:

• Fear of injury
• Worry over others’ judgements and opinions
• Self pressure
• Negative thinking
• Fear of letting significant others down
• Pressure to succeed when riding ‘good’ horses
• Pressure to perform well to be able to show people on social media

3. Find ways to combat your fears/challenges/struggles

Once you have identified the areas which you are finding difficult then you can strategically look at how you overcome them.

Practice makes perfect but it is hard to replicate the competition environment at home. However, look for ways in which you can add pressure to your training environment.

“For example in a training session you can set yourself mini targets such as ‘at 5pm I am going into the arena and I’m going to ride the test regardless of what happens,’” says Camilla, who as well as specialising in equestrian psychology is also Swindon Town Football Club’s sports psychologist.

“Asking someone to video the test and promising to upload it to your Facebook page afterwards is a way of applying a bit more pressure to the situation.”

4. Control the controllables

Focus on what you can control, not what you can’t. Don’t waste time worrying about variables like the weather or whether you are going to get your striding right at a particular fence, put all your energy into the processes that are in your control.

“Have a good structure in place on competition day,” says Camilla. “Put together a routine that works for you and use it. It will take time to harness but keep working at it so you know you have everything covered and have confidence in your own processes, we call this ‘power in the process’.”

5. Learn to minimise worries and prepare how you manage them

If you worry about letting your mum/partner/trainer down then have a conversation with them about it.

Often the pressure or fear hasn’t come from them at all but from what you perceive them to want. A conversation can alleviate much of that worry.

“It is critical for us to understand the power of perception. It is how we perceive and interact with our environment that effects how we respond physiologically, which ultimately affects our behaviour,” says Zoe, who also designs and implements the academy psychology programme at Harlequins Rugby.

“By taking ownership and gaining clarity of our processes, we can start to build confidence in the process, which means that we can control our perceptions and ultimately control our physiological response to a potential stressor, such as “that trakehner” or “that tricky dressage movement” or simply “opening gates on hacks”.

6. Set a variety of goals

Ahead of each competition establish your dream goals, realistic goals and goals that you are content with so you can manage expectations.

7. Evaluate and reflect

After each competition ask yourself what you have learnt, remembering to list positives as well as negatives. Don’t always focus on what went wrong, ensure you spend time thinking about what worked well, however minor it is. Keep a reflective diary to help build a picture of your thoughts and behaviours which over time can enable you to identify patterns. Finally, it’s important to remind yourself of your motivation for competing. It should be for authentic reasons such as you are passionate about it and enjoy it, not for unauthentic or egotistical reasons like you are trying to please your parents or trainer. So go out, enjoy yourself and have fun!

Find out more

Camilla Henderson and Zoe Taylor hosted ‘Developing Your Peak Performance,’ the first in a series of sports psychology workshops aimed at individuals from all equestrian disciplines at Oaksey House in Lambourn earlier this month. Part two will be hosted in May, details to follow on their Facebook/Twitter pages. For more information visit tayloredmindset.co.uk or camillahenderson.co.uk.

For all the latest equestrian news and reports, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

The well-being of our equine athletes might be our number one 
priority, but the power of a rider’s sleep for 
boosting performance in the saddle should not be underestimated. Here’s how to get some more time in the land of nod...

Early mornings and late nights — riders’ busy lives leave little time for sleep. But could more time in the land of nod give you the edge in the saddle?

Other top athletes take sleep seriously. Roger Federer is said to have around 11 to 12 hours a night, while Usain Bolt and Maria Sharapova both clock around 10.

Dr Amy Bender, of the Centre For Sleep in Calgary, specialises in working with elite athletes.

“Sleep is a basic need — we all have to sleep or we die,” she says. “Every cell in our body is affected when you don’t sleep as you should, as is every biological process.”

With elite equestrian sport becoming ever more competitive, the margins between winning and losing are increasingly close. Dr Bender worked with members of Canada’s Winter Olympic squad in the run-up to PyeongChang 2018.

“With sufficient sleep you make better decisions, you are in a better mood, you are able to train harder and you are just better recovered in general,” she explains. “Getting a medal could be the difference of 0.001 second and so those athletes are looking for any advantage that they can get.”

12 ways to get the best sleep you can

1. Naps can help, even at the competition: keep them short (15 to 90 minutes), and mid-afternoon is best.

2. Be organised: clean kit before putting it back on the lorry, have a plan for the week ahead, go to bed earlier if you have early starts.

3. Routine is key: try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.

4. Good cardiovascular fitness can help with sleep and recovery.

5. Alcohol is a sedative and harms sleep quality; it also hinders recovery.

6. Stop drinking any caffeine 
around lunchtime.

7. Off-load your racing mind by writing down what went well, what you want to work on and your plan of action with your horse after a show.

8. Have a clear sense of why you are getting up in the morning: for example, fitting in a swim before riding, or practising your dressage test before work.

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9. Be mindful that smartphones and technology can prevent sleep.

10. Relax by doing a simple hobby, reading or taking a warm bath.

Read the full feature about the impact of sleep on riders in this week’s issue of Horse & Hound magazine (22 March 2018)

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is something that most people have heard about — but perhaps not in the equestrian industry. While incidents and accidents are far from uncommon, we tend to hear more about physical issues in contrast to the mental distress harrowing accidents can have on people.

You might think that PTSD is something reserved for those who have been in battle, but it’s a lot more common in equestrian sport than you might think.

“PTSD is something that can affect anyone who has experienced a trauma of any kind, whether being involved in an accident, witnessing something distressing or as a result of a loss,” says counsellor Emily Fieldhouse.

“If someone is experiencing symptoms or severe mood changes which are affecting their life following a traumatic event, it is important to seek advice from their GP or a qualified Counsellor.

Fear and anxiety

Common feelings associated with PTSD include anger at what has happened, guilt, isolation, a lack of confidence, fear and anxiety as well as being unable to relate to others or connect with them emotionally.

However, immediate help should be sought if a person is experiencing suicidal thoughts or thoughts of self- harm following a traumatic event.

“It is natural for many of us to feel as though we should be able to overcome how we feel and too often, I will work with clients who have struggled with PTSD for longer than necessary as they were worried about seeking help,” says Emily.

Sarah Skillin was competing at BE90 with her horse Theo when she had an accident that left her unable to jump and almost stopped her riding completely.

“I had a nasty fall eventing,” she says. “We came through the water without enough power and had issues jumping out over a solid jetty; I hit the ground head first. I had post concussion syndrome and couldn’t ride properly for six weeks. Six weeks later, I tried to go cross country schooling and couldn’t get Theo anywhere near a fence. I couldn’t even jump a 1ft cross pole.

“I had flashbacks — when I was having an issue riding, I would the imagine the fall in my head. I went away training at a friend’s and fell off three times in one lesson. I tried to jump on another horse and couldn’t put my foot in the stirrup. It was at that point I just let go and just cried and cried. It was awful.”

Sarah still struggles going back to the venue but says that good friends, refocusing her efforts on dressage and also having group sessions with performance psychologist Charlie Unwin have helped.

“I am planning to do some British Showjumping with Theo this season, which is something I wouldn’t have thought possible after the accident.”

‘Worst case scenarios’

Kelly McCarthy-Maine had PTSD, brought on by the issues she experienced during recovery from an accident.

“My hospital experience, multiple surgeries, the pain, intolerance to pain meds and a lot more meant I started shaking and became hysterical when I went for follow ups,” says Kelly.

“The riding side was complicated too. I wanted to ride, but I’d suddenly gained this vivid imagination that would run through all the worst case scenarios. The big feature was that the horse would fall on me and I’d end up re-breaking my wrist.”

Kelly’s injury occurred following an accident cross country schooling a young horse. This resulted in a complicated injury to her wrist that required multiple reconstructive surgeries and doctors warning that she only had six months to regain full movement.

“It took a long time to get over it — bizarrely the biggest milestone was actually falling off again and not hurting myself.”

Kelly didn’t work with a counsellor or psychologist but says she believes it would have helped her recovery. “The source of the problem was the pain — it tried to convince me I was scared. I had a great support network though, and I’m forever grateful to them all for putting forward equally convincing arguments that I could do it!”

Accidents don’t always occur when competing or in the ‘higher risk’ end of our high risk sport. Daisy Smith went for a hack and ended up in an air ambulance.

“I was just going for a walk around the block and the horse spun around and bolted,” says Daisy. “My foot became caught in the stirrup and I was dragged until I hit a barbed wire fence.”

This left Daisy with two dislocated collarbones, a fractured shoulder blade and a badly cut face due to the barbed wire. Mentally, it left Daisy with anxiety and suffering from panic attacks. It still impacts on her confidence now, some six years after the initial incident.

“I had to learn the triggers in order to manage the situation,” says Daisy. “I found that my breathing was a key part in the process of the panic attacks. I also sought help from a psychologist about six months later. I found this professional support really helped to make sense of what has happened and manage the situation.”

Continued below…

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Richie Moore runs Horses In Mind and is an equestrian mind coach. He gives five tips for people who think they might have PTSD:

1. Learn about PTSD. Identify how you feel and how it’s affecting you.

2. Don’t re-traumatise yourself. Trying to get back on too soon can worsen the issue.

3. Allow your feeling but don’t let yourself get stuck in the negative. These emotions can grow if given too much attention.

4. Talk about it, you may find support in a friend or another rider who’s had a similar experience.

5. Seek professional help. You’ll be surprised at how many effective techniques are out there.

For all the latest equestrian news and reports, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

As social media has continued to grow in popularity, so have keyboard warriors. And they ‘attack’ people at all levels. Whether you’re a happy hacker or a four-star event rider, you may encounter these individuals. So what can you do about them? Here are some helpful tips...

What are keyboard warriors?

They’re people that will comment on a picture, post or news story — any online content — with a cutting remark. They tend to have a point to make and an opinion, and will happily air it without any regard for how it’s being seen or taken, and often without full knowledge of a situation.

From there it can escalate quite quickly and become fairly unpleasant, with the individual casting aspersions on various aspects of the horse and rider, such as their attitude, care of horse, animal welfare, authenticity, etc.

Keyboard warriors lurk in all sports. And often an image, taken at a split second, can cause keyboard warriors to surface. A horse that is overbent for a stride and photographed can lead to a debate about hyperflexion, for example.

However, a posted picture isn’t the only trigger. Victoria Brant, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Eventer, has built a community in excess of 20k on Facebook, and has done this through telling her story.

“When your main intention is to help others and you get defamatory comments about the welfare of your horse and your terrible and ‘cruel’ riding technique, it makes you terribly upset,” she says.

“I still think about my hands moving and the comments that were written about them now and that was a comment posted four months ago!”

How do you deal with keyboard warriors?

Many social media platforms have functions that allow posts to be reported and, if posts take a threatening nature (such as the threat to kill or cause damage) then they should be reported to the police. However, the comments might not warrant this kind of action. “I often deal with it badly,” admits Victoria. “I go into myself, feel worried posting anything and consider giving it all up.

“Everyone always tells you to rise above it, but it’s personal, you shouldn’t have to. I just close the shutters on it and think of the things I’m lucky to have, the supportive friends and family that know the real me and love me for being that person.”

‘Rising above it’ can be easier said than done, but entering into an all-too-public slanging match isn’t the appropriate course of action either. Moving a conversation to private messaging can be a good move. Remember to keep calm and don’t lose your cool. Maintain a professional, collected front at all times — even if inside you’re not dealing with it all that well. Of course, you always have the block and delete function too, which can be useful.

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Jane Pike is an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) coach and practitioner, a certified mental skills coach and the creator of confidentrider.online. “One of the biggest life lessons I have learned is this; it is not up to other people to believe in your dreams. That’s your job. You don’t need their validation, or their permission to go ahead,” she says.

“Only you are the custodian of what it is that you want for your life, how you want to behave and what you want to achieve or do. Don’t waste your time wondering or thinking about what other people think of you because it really is none of your business.

“And you know something else? It’s completely out of your control,” Jane says. “It’s impossible to get everyone to like you or approve of you, and why would you want to? Everyone sees the world through their own filter as a result of all of their past experiences, actions and environments, and accepting that is the key to liberation.

“Instead of worrying about the negativity of others, or on those who ‘don’t like you’, instead focus on being the best person and rider you can be.

“Use any incoming negativity as a reminder of your values and aspirations, and respond (or simply don’t respond!) in a way that makes you proud. Respond in a way that if you were to be captured on CCTV, you would think, ‘yeah, I really nailed that. Go me.’ In a way that if it went viral on the internet, you’d be kind of chuffed. Let people like you not because of who are trying to be, but because of who you genuinely are.

“And if they don’t, well… Forget them. It’s not your job to make everyone like you. It’s your job to live out your life and dreams with soul and purpose. And it’s their job to do the same with their lives,” she adds.

There’s a line between expressing an opinion, and bullying by being a ‘keyboard warrior’. As a general rule, if you wouldn’t say it to a person’s face, you shouldn’t really type it.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Current world number two showjumper Mclain Ward shares the struggles he has faced caused by the pressure of his sport — and how he has learnt to cope with it over the years

“I have struggled with the pressure of big championships a lot over the years,” reveals American showjumper Mclain Ward, when we catch up at Tryon International Equestrian Centre in North Carolina, the venue for next year’s World Equestrian Games.

“Early on in my career I definitely blew a few World Cup finals for example. But the year before the 2008 Beijing Olympics I tried to take stock of it (Mclain was part of the gold medal-winning team in Hong Kong aboard Sapphire).

“I’d actually had a terrible Florida circuit, I was very distracted, I needed to change and I needed to address it. And I started working with a very good sports psychologist and it changed my career significantly,” says the 42-year-old.

“It’s not easy for me. I want to be successful so badly and I have quite an intense personality so I have to keep that in check and keep everything flowing the right way. I’m proud that I’ve mastered it more than I did before, but it’s a work in progress. I love it when people say ‘I’ve got it’. No, you don’t ‘have it’. You just have it better today than you did yesterday.

“But that’s just my challenge in the sport, and I share that very openly with people because I think people do struggle with it and they have this view that it doesn’t affect athletes who are successful at the highest level, but it does, they just learn how to handle it,” he says.

Continued below…

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How sports psychology helped an eventer overcome her rotational fall demons

Performance and sport psychologist Camilla Henderson explains how

Tunnel vision

“Having a child gives it some perspective, but I still am who I am. It makes the recovery after a difficult moment easier and in your more clear moments you realise your priorities. But in the heat of battle, on the field of play, I see it with very tunnel vision and that’s something I have to address.

“When I go home at night and I’ve had four faults, and I go and see my daughter in her bed, I take a breath and think ‘life goes on tomorrow’.

“But in that moment you have to learn a set of skills if it’s something you struggle with. And there are some riders who are very blasé about it while others I know really have to work at it.

“There are people that can help you with it. I’ve worked with [sports psychologist] Bob Rotella, and it’s been career changing. And in being career changing, it’s life changing — because we don’t clock out at 5pm, it comes home with us.

“It’s a wonderful, wonderful privilege being able to make a living out of doing a sport, but that doesn’t mean to say it’s a simple existence — it’s not all roses,” he says.

For all the latest equestrian news and reports, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Performance and sport psychologist Camilla Henderson explains how she helped three-star eventer Harriet Dickin get back on track following a rotational fall

The client

Harriet Dickin has been riding her whole life, starting with Pony Club and working her way up through the eventing ranks. She decided to go full time with her eventing after her A levels.

One of her biggest accomplishments so far has been completing Blenheim CCI3* in 2016. She is based in Great Alne in Warwickshire, where her father trains National Hunt horses.

Currently she has six horses all at different levels, from four-year-olds up to three-star level horses, some of which are ex-racehorses that she has retrained herself.

The problem

Harriet got in contact at the beginning of the year after she saw my sport psychology consultancy advert on Facebook.

We met up and discussed the challenges she was facing since a rotational fall a couple of months earlier. She had a few weeks on the sidelines after breaking her foot in that fall, then immediately carried on riding her horses.

“I just dealt with it by telling myself to toughen up and get on with it, as clearly there was no other option,” says Harriet. “I suppose you just go into autopilot and continue, with not much time to think.”

Harriet was dealing with an influx of negative and emotive thoughts and flashbacks from the fall. As a consequence these thoughts started to become detrimental to her warm-up routine, particularly in the cross-country phase.

“I started to think quite drastically, questioning whether this was for me or not,” she says. “I knew then that it was decision time and I needed to do something about it — I knew then that it was a good idea to talk with a sport psychologist about it.”

Tackling the issue

A powerful and useful starting point is always to discuss the riders’ objectives, ask what they want from sessions and what they want to achieve.

We put together a very basic structured goal-setting programme, encouraging Harriet to be autonomous, getting her to discuss the exact process, performance and outcome goals and getting her to map out her own journey.

My role is to provide direction, support and teach my clients the tools (mental skills and strategies) they can use along that path.

The outcome goal was to get Harriet back to riding her best consistently and confidently; enjoying competing again most importantly. In sessions we discussed the processes of her best performances, what she does well, her positive thought processes and what it looks and feels like.

We worked on focusing on her ideal mindset, and regularly tapped into this through the use of core mental skills, such as visualisation, imagery and self-talk which she could use in training and competition environments.

“I think these sessions made me realise that being nervous was normal, which was helpful!” says Harriet.

“I understood that I just needed to be more aware of my response to these immediate feelings, to learn to be more accepting, instead of having that panic response like I was.

“Just by discussing these thoughts and learning what was triggering them really helped. Simple tasks like writing down all the processes of an ideal mindset on a sheet of paper and simplifying everything gave me confidence.”

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The future

“I know I get nervous at competitions, but I’ve learnt to accept this — it is natural, I just deal with it straight away,” Harriet says. “I no longer take it home after an event like I used to, because I know how to manage it. I’m really happy with how my performances have gone this season since I’ve had these sessions.

“I hope by discussing my experiences and what I’ve done to tackle them can help others who may experience similar situations, especially after falls and/or suffering injury.”

Harriet’s pre-competition somatic anxiety levels (physical responses) and cognitive state anxiety (anxious thoughts) have significantly decreased since the beginning of the season.

Harriet is looking forward to competing back at Blenheim next month with her horse Dargle Looks (pictured above) and hope to step up to four-star level next season.

For more information visit camillahenderson.co.uk

Don’t miss all the latest equestrian news and reports in Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

After years of fearlessly riding other people's 'project' horses, Victoria Brant was finally in a position to buy her own horse. But after opting for a four-year-old warmblood, she quickly realised she had made a mistake...

Growing up in rural Lincolnshire and riding anything I could get my grubby, child-size mitts on, I soon developed a taste for bringing on ‘lost causes’. You know the types that no one wants to ride? Those were my ‘projects’. Fearlessly, I collected a decent amount of rides and competed at a respectable level before turning 23 and being in a position to buy my own horse for the first time.

The combination of coming from a non-horsey family and a mountain of student debt, meant that I didn’t have enough disposable income to purchase a ‘safe’ option — no big deal, I though! This is where my steep learning curve really began.

So I took myself off on a two-hour trip to purchase a four-year-old, Polish warmblood.

Alarm bell 1 – Unpredictable occurrences/fate?

Buying a young well bred horse with a very brief description and taking a trailer on the first trip seemed very exciting at the time. Four hours later, reality hit. The big grey lump that waddled onto the trailer soon decided he wanted to be anywhere but and flipped upside down. Parked up on the side of a cleared motorway with a set of bolt cutters wasn’t how I had predicted this day going.

Alarm bell 2 — The ‘long haul’ realisation

Home and dry, all my money and time was spent on rehabilitation and getting some sort of trust established. With the woods and trees all merged into one, I couldn’t distance myself enough to overcome the problems we were facing. All the riding I had done for other people had not prepared me for ownership when you can’t turn your back and walk away.

Alarm Bell 3 — Doubting yourself

I began doubting whether I had the capabilities to help him develop and progress. Doubting yourself when working with horses, especially young horses that need defined instruction, is only ever going to end in confusion, which will result in a less than idea outcome.

Alarm Bell 4 — ‘Ding – Dong’… Confusion

Rearing was his way of telling me he was confused. I was in WAY too deep now and every inch of confidence was draining from my trembling body. Eight months passed, I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing any more and I sought the help of professionals.

Alarm Bell 5 — Outside influencers

The imaginary pressure from people around me wasn’t helping and I felt required to take him cross-country schooling to prove I still had ‘it’. The biggest bell of all — the pressure of external influencers; you do stupid things to prove you’re not a giant sack of rotting fruit. No surprises, we parted company. Shattered, beaten and terrified — I waved the white flag.

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Alarm Bell 6 — Wishing you had a hairy, half dead horse to love

So I advertised and sold my ‘too much’ horse. It was a quick process and ohhh… the relief. Six years on, I have gathered up the remaining shreds of my dignity, borrowed some hypothetical balls and re-built myself with a more sensible option.

Alarm Bell 7 — Sweating palms? Racing heart? Making excuses not to ride?

If I have learnt one thing from this experience, it’s that perseverance isn’t always the right path to tread — know when enough is enough, you’ll be thankful in the end. And be honest with yourself about what type of horse would suit the time and expertise you have to invest in order to avoid living through the heartache that I have.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Wondering how to make the most of those long, dark evenings before the clocks go forward? Give your CV a boost with an equestrian course that fits around your day job, says Hanna Lindon

January might be the month of rain, darkness and endless seas of mud, but it’s also the perfect time to turn over a new leaf and get planning for the year ahead. Whether you fancy working your way through the British Horse Society (BHS) Stages or brushing up on your equine first aid, we’ve rounded up some of the best evening, weekend and distance learning courses to fit around your day job.

1. Rider Strength and Conditioning

PB Equestrian, Cheltenham

What is it? A programme of exercise and stretching that aims to improve riding performance by addressing issues such as back pain, muscle discomfort and weakness. Participants are given one-to-one or pairs coaching at a gym in Cheltenham and assigned a personalised programme that they can follow at home.

Who can take it? “This course is suitable for all levels of rider, but is best for those who are motivated to improve their strength, posture and performance,” says course leader Phoebe Bolton (pictured, above).

Time commitment: an initial one-and-a-half hour assessment session followed by four one-hour sessions run over eight weeks.

Cost: £249

Contact: Phoebe Bolton; 07912 629350; www.pb-equestrian.co.uk

2. BHS Stages 1-3

Askham Bryan College, York

What is it? The BHS Stages are among the most recognised qualifications in the equestrian industry, and a good first step for anybody looking to forge a career with horses. Askham Bryan College is an exam centre for the BHS Stages One to Three, and pupils can train right up to BHSAI (Assistant Instructor) level. Each stage involves a six-week evening course covering the syllabus for the relevant exam.

Who can take it? Anybody who can walk and trot without stirrups and has basic practical equestrian skills can embark on the Stage One course.

Time commitment: Monday evenings 6pm to 9pm for six weeks to complete each stage.

Cost: £300 Stage One; £300 Stage Two; £350 Stage Three, plus exam entry fees.

Contact: helen.coxall@askham-bryan.ac.uk; www.askham-bryan.ac.uk

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3. Equine First Aid

Writtle College, Chelmsford

What is it? Keen to know how to recognise signs of ill health or treat minor injuries? Writtle College’s basic equine first aid course is a short, practical workshop that covers subjects such as common ailments, prevention of disease, bandaging, dealing with cuts and wounds, and assessing your horse’s temperature, pulse and respiration.

Who can take it? The course is aimed at first-time horse owners and anybody else who is interested in the workings of equine physiology. If you’re an experienced horse owner then you might find the syllabus too basic.

Time commitment: one evening course of three hours. The next course will be held on Monday, 25 January, from 6pm to 9pm.

Cost: £52

Contact: Sue German; 01245 421782; writtle.ac.uk

4. Equine Massage

The College of Animal Physiotherapy (TCAP), Aylesbury

What is it? The course covers theoretical modules — including the skeletal, muscular and cardiovascular systems — as well as practical workshops. Successful students are granted membership of the International Association of Animal Therapists, a group of therapists who work under veterinary referral in the animal massage section.

Who can take it? Candidates need to be 18 or over and able to demonstrate a commitment to the equine industry with at least three years of relevant experience.

Time commitment: four weekends (one per month) consisting of six training days and a final exam — plus a large amount of pre-course work.

Cost: £1,500

Contact: admin@tcap.co.uk; www.tcap.co.uk

5. Competition Psychology Certificate

Equine Distance Learning

What is it? Aimed at competitive riders, this distance learning course covers a number of topics including how psychology can help you to succeed, how our minds work, improving performance and the power of your imagination.

Who can take it? Anybody who competes horses, from amateurs up to successful professionals.

Time commitment: the course is generally completed within six months via distance learning but can take between two months and a year depending on your approach.

Cost: £105

Contact: Sarah Finikin; 01256 855320; www.equinedistancelearning.com

6. Equine Science Foundation Degree

Moreton Morrell College, distance learning

What is it? A degree programme run over four years and aimed at students who want to study at higher education level, but who are unable to attend college full time. Modules include equine nutrition, physiology, health and disease, industrial perspectives and applied equine management.

Who can take it? “Typically, applicants will possess 180 UCAS points,” says Rhiannon Powell at Moreton Morrell College. “We also welcome applications from mature students over the age of 21, who may not have any formal qualifications, but are able to demonstrate relevant industry experience.”

Time commitment: four years of flexible distance learning.

Cost: £3,355 per annum (pro rata).

Contact: the Distance Learning team; 01926 318359; www.warwickshire.ac.uk

7. Equipilates rider and teacher training

Equipilates, UK-wide

What is it? Pilates classes adapted specifically for horse riders, with the option to continue your training and become a qualified Equipilates teacher.

Who can take it? The rider training classes are available to anyone, with six-week group

courses aimed at beginners. The teacher training courses are organised into three streams: one for health and fitness professionals with riding experience, one for equestrian professionals and a complete education programme for those looking for a career change.

Time commitment: rider training evening classes are one-hour long, while teacher training varies in time commitment from between four and six full days of face-to-face learning, plus case studies to complete at home.

Cost: from £40 per person for a five-week rider training course. Teacher training costs between £895 and £2,750.

Contact: find an Equipilates teacher at www.equipilates.com

8. Diploma Level 1 in Horse Care

Summerhouse Equestrian, Gloucester

What is it? This City & Guilds qualification is targeted mainly at enthusiastic beginners or riding school pupils, and covers the very basics of horse care.

Who can take it? Complete beginners or once-a-week riders who want to gain experience in handling horses, or those preparing for the BHS Stage One exam. No previous experience is necessary.

Time commitment: three five-week courses of 10 hours each, plus additional practice time.

Cost: £100 per course, plus £50 registration.

Contact: 01452 720288; www.summerhouseec.co.uk

H&H, 14 Jan 2016

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Horse & Hound spoke to sports psychologist Dr Inga Wolframm to discover the science behind the mental state riders can often find themselves in following a fall.

Inga gave us six crucial facts that all riders should bear in mind.

1. Falls can affect all riders

“Riding a horse is a bit like driving a car. We hope we are competent enough to avoid crashing, but it isn’t a certainty.”

2. Returning to the saddle

“I would recommend that a rider returns to the saddle as soon as physically possible. The moment a rider hides away from the problem, it will start to grow ‘eyes’ and ‘legs’and the return is likely to become a great deal harder.”

3. Can you remember?

“An anxious person who can’t remember their fall might imagine details of the accident instead. This can be detrimental, with the rider creating scenarios worse than the fall actually was.

“Equally a rational person who is psychologically capable of putting the accident behind them may not necessarily be able to work on the cause of the fall in the hope of preventing the situation from re-occurring.”

4. A lack of confidence

“Confidence is the belief that you have the skills to deal with a certain situation. A lack of confidence boils down to fear and anxiety, where in horse sport a rider may develop a fear of encountering serious physical harm. A lack of belief shatters confidence and once this happens, you will start to do things differently. This means that riders end up in a downward spiral in their performance and their psychological state of mind.

“For example, giving half-hearted aids to your horse to encourage him to go forwards. Horses rely on positive and negative re-enforcement and as soon as a rider starts second-guessing themselves, the reaction to a situation becomes slower. This means that riders end up in a downward spiral in their performance and thus their psychological state of mind.”

5. Recognising fight or flight

“Also known as the fight or flight response, the alarm stage in response to stress sends our brain an emergency signal in a dangerous situation — or in the case of a rider, a fall, refusal or any situation where things aren’t going to plan. This response mobilises us and prepares us to react.

“At this stage riders’ muscles tense, inhibiting fine motor control, which is essential for good riding, and this reaction undermines the riders’ normal capability. This results in your horse not understanding what you are asking them to do so things start to go wrong. A vicious circle begins and belief in your capability to ride or deal with the situation begins to crumble.

“Research has shown that generally men cope better than women in the alarm stage. Women are harder on themselves and they suffer more from cognitive anxiety.”

6. Seek help

“Admitting you are afraid is not ‘the done thing’ because we boss around a half-tonne horse and we know horses can sense fear. Knowing we shouldn’t be scared can exacerbate the issue — we become stressed because we shouldn’t be feeling this emotion. But more people now seek help. Psychology is now integrated into schemes like the Lottery-funded World Class programmes, making it more readily available to athletes and sports psychologists are now also commonly used by riders of all abilities.”

Read the full article on how riders do or don’t bounce back from falls psychologically in this week’s Horse & Hound magazine (28 May 2015)

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Focusing on your riding alone is unlikely to cut it in today’s tough competition world. Horse & Hound meets sports performance coach Danielle Olding to find out how taking a different approach to your riding can give you the edge.

Here she looks at the three most common problems she sees in riders — and how to tackle them

1. Lack of self-awareness

“A number of riders who have no obvious issues may believe they are already riding to the best of their ability and thus fail to be consistent under pressure. This could also be an issue with riders who do have specific problems, but lack the awareness of ‘how’ they create these in their heads.

“If you are not aware of the mental processes that occur you won’t be able to replicate the effective ones to maximum effect, or manage and re-route the ineffective ones.”

Danielle’s advice: “Take the time to notice what is going on in your head at the point in time that you notice you are riding well or badly. Make sure you do this at lower level competitions or at home rather than leaving it to a major championship. Recall what was going on in your head the moment before you noticed yourself riding well or badly. Try to notice particular triggers, patterns or trends in your thought processes that are leading to your behaviour.”

2. Lack of brain training

“Riders often devote hours to improving their horse’s way of going or their own technical ‘on-horse’ skills, but fail to devote any time to training their brain to generate the kind of responses that they take for granted will happen under pressure.

“Some riders think that riding well from a physical or technical viewpoint is enough and that the rest will follow. Sadly, that is rarely the case. If a rider doesn’t take the time to train their brain regularly, it doesn’t know what to generate when under pressure.”

Danielle’s advice: “Decide what physical and emotional reactions you would like your brain to generate for you under pressure — and rehearse these responses in a typical context until your brain creates a blueprint for them.”

3. Lack of review

“Many riders don’t think to stop and review whether their mental preparation and management strategies are still working as effectively as they used to. They will often continue to operate out of habit, rather than tailoring their thoughts and behaviours to a particular point in time.

“Habit is a ‘one-size-fits-all T-shirt’ — it does an ok job, but rarely gets the very best out of all situations.”

Danielle’s advice: “Be conscious of what you are doing and why you are doing it — and what subconscious messages you are giving yourself. Consider the impact your mood and behaviour is having on the horse and others around you and take time to review what went well or less well in terms of your mental thought processes and emotional states — not just the technical bits.”

Find out more about what Danielle does at www.fromtheneckup.co.uk

Read the full article about taking a 360 degree look at yourself as a rider in this week’s issue of Horse & Hound magazine (27 November 2014)

Do you struggle with competition nerves?

10 tips to banish competition riding nerves

Do you suffer from competition riding nerves? Find out how to take control and use nerves to improve your performance

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A short documentary on the use of sports psychology in dressage has been produced, which could help competition riders.

A project, titled “Going for Gold” has been put together by the British Psychological Society to tie in with this summer’s Games.

The project aims to the show the public the role of psychology in sport, and the fact that sport psychology is a scientific discipline.

One of the centre-pieces of this project is a 10-minute video which gives an insight into sport psychology in dressage.

Dr Elizabeth Pummell, senior lecturer in sport and exercise psychology at Kingston University is involved in the project which “uses mindfulness theories to allow the rider to perform at a higher level during competitions”.

She said: “The video provides an insight into the type of work a sport psychologist does in equestrian sport. With mental toughness so evident at the Olympics and Paralympics, many people are keen to find out more about it and how it can help them to improve.”

For more information visit www.bps.org.uk/videos/sports-psychology-equestrian-dressage

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Riders who compete regularly are being sought by researchers at Kingston University, who are studying the role of sports psychology in their performance.

Volunteers are asked to complete an online 15min questionnaire. They may then opt into a follow-up interview phase.

To take part, you must compete at least bi-monthly on the same horse, in dressage, showjumping or eventing, and be over 16.

MSc student Jo Davies, who is carrying out the study with sports psychologist Dr Elizabeth Pummell told H&H: “This research aims to provide resources for sports psychologists that will help them to support riders more effectively.”

To take part, go to: www.equestriansurvey.wordpress.com.

This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (5 July 2012)

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Read more about rider psychology

Life is dangerous – you could be hit by the proverbial bus – but riders choose to risk theirs flying across a field on the back of a horse, eventing, team chasing or on the hunting field.

Why on earth? What motivates riders, even those who have experienced serious injuries or witnessed fatalities, to keep going? And what can the risk-averse learn from their rationale?

Sports psychologist Charlie Unwin, who has worked with riders from novice to Olympic level, including Sharon Hunt, explains: “Riding across country, endorphins and adrenalin produce an exhilarating high.

Your heart speeds up and breathing quickens as you approach a peak of excitement, after which comes a feeling of intense relaxation – normally experienced galloping through the finish.”

It is this that keeps many riders “addicted” to the sport.

“It’s your body’s own reward system for achieving something difficult and you want to repeat it,” adds Charlie.

“When under perceived stress, your body releases adrenalin, a hormone that pumps you up,” says sports coach Danielle Olding.

“Your heart rate will increase and more oxygen will be sent to your heart and lungs. It’s designed to heighten your senses.”

Sports psychologist Charlie Unwin adds: “The difference between someone who is scared and someone who is excited is how they interpret the same physical responses, such as raised heart rate and trembling.”

Danielle says something as simple as controlling your language and replacing the word “nervous” with “excited” can make the brain draw upon positive images.

“If you don’t say the word, you can convince your brain you’re not feeling it,” she says.

To read the full feature on adrenalin junkies see the current issue of H&H (5 January 2012)

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Q: I saw that Mary King’s daughter Emily has used a self-hypnosis technique called the Lightning Process. Can you tell me more about it?

MKC, Essex

The Lightning Process is a training programme derived from osteopathy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, self-hypnosis and life coaching.

It teaches individuals how to influence key body systems such as the immunological, neurological and musculoskeletal systems and teaches the brain and body to work positively together.

It has been successfully used to help people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome ME, like Emily King, and also to beat negative behaviours such as self-doubt and phobias.

The programme’s developer, Phil Parker, has identified common findings in ME cases that involve specific thought patterns; many former ME sufferers have subsequently been able to affect their body’s physiological responses and also change their thought patterns using the process, he says.

Mary King, who worked with Devon-based advanced Lightning Process practitioner, Jan Oakley, said: “Although I am usually very sceptical about alternative therapies, I was attracted to the Lightning Process by the high-profile names whose families have benefited from it, such as Austin Healey and Esther Rantzen.

“The results are extraordinary – seeing is believing,” she said. “Emily is back to normal after being very poorly for four months — and I am pleased to say she is now back in the saddle, having previously had no energy at all.”

Some Lightning Process practitioners specialise in helping people overcome competitive fears, and lost confidence; hence the process can also be used to develop riding confidence.

Information

Tel: 020 8895 4007 www.lightningprocess.com

This article was first published in Horse & Hound (28 January, ’10)

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