Once you’ve been rattled, it’s hard to calm down and refocus on why you’re there, sometimes in both the short-term (the day of the show) and the long-term (showing in general).

What Is Causing Your Horse Show Anxiety?

Most horse-show fear falls into two categories: fear of getting hurt and fear of making a fool of yourself. While one may strike you as easier to deal with than the other, fear in any form can be crippling.

No matter where your fear stems from, there are multiple ways you can head off anxiety overload. Preparation is key, both mentally and physically. Here are some ways to be as prepared as possible next time you have an off-farm adventure.

Physical Preparation

1. Create checklists. While you need not carry around a physical sheet of paper (having it on your phone is fine), knowing exactly what you need before the show and confirming that it’s in your trailer can ease a lot of showing anxiety.

Keeping everything in its designated place in the trailer ensures you know exactly what’s missing at a glance. Other things to keep on hand for last-minute questions and clarification include rulebooks, dressage tests, patterns, and courses.

2. Schedule like you’re leaving on vacation. Preparing for vacation can be time-consuming, but the result is always worth it. Plan your show day like you plan a trip, working backward from your ride time. Knowing when you need to be in the ring will allow you to plan when to groom, tack up, get dressed, get on and warm up.

Physically writing it all down lets you have a focused plan and quiets the mental chatter and doubt, according to Jessica Bollinger, a licensed clinical social worker who assists athletes from a variety of disciplines. Consider posting your schedule on your stall so it’s easily accessible. Rushing creates stress and is something you want to avoid.

3. Fuel up on quality foods. While nerves can make eating anything iffy, it’s crucial that you take in enough calories to prep for a long show day. Eat a healthy breakfast and pack nutritious snacks. Avoid sugar, which may give you a brief uptick in energy, but will leave you crashing later. Also ensure you’re hydrated.

“Water gives you a clear mind and focus,” says Bollinger.

4. Practice tapping. Take your dominant hand and tap side-to-side at your sternum with your middle finger and thumb for a few minutes at a time, says Bollinger. This rhythmic pressure on specific acupressure points on the body have been shown to lessen anxiety and reduce stress. This can be done before you get on or while you’re astride—any time you feel your anxiety ramping up.

5. Activate your vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is part of your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls your heart rate, digestion and immune system. Taking a long, deep breath and a long exhale when your heart begins to race activates this nerve and helps slow your heart and respiratory rates.

“Whenever a thought enters [your mind] that triggers your anxiety, take that long, deep breath,” Bollinger says. It will help to calm and relax you.

6. Hang loose. Unfortunately, anxiety causes you to tense your entire body, making it a rigid form that your horse must work against. According to Bollinger, your horse feels everything you feel. Tension can cause you to raise your shoulders, lock your arms and clamp down on your horse’s sides, none of which helps you relax.

One of the easiest ways to loosen up is to let your jaw flop—literally. It may feel strange at first, but you can’t clench your jaw if your teeth aren’t together, so breathe through your mouth and let your chin wag!

Mental Preparation

7. Find your focus. This can tough to do, especially when our brains tend to go into overdrive during a show. It’s important to focus on what you can control; don’t worry about the weather or what you think your horse will spook at or anything else that’s out of your hands.

If you can’t let go of a particular thought (“Is he going to spook at that tent at the end of the ring?”), create a plan to get your horse’s attention back and redirect his energy. Bollinger suggests using positive thoughts and positive visualization (“Inside leg!”).

8. Break it down into bite-sized goals. Though we all want to walk into the show ring and own our course, pattern or class, sometimes you need tangible things to do to feel a sense of accomplishment. But just something might be small doesn’t mean it won’t add up to big results in the end.

Sitting tall, not looking for your lead or riding deep in your corners are all important keys to allowing you to (one day) go in and nail every jump or movement.

9. Visualize. Ride your pattern or course by closing your eyes and taking long, deep breaths, says Bollinger. Add in tapping while you visualize for an added effect.

Though many people visualize watching themselves ride from the sidelines, use the perspective from the back of your horse like you’re actually riding your course or test.

10. Be grateful and positive. Don’t forget how lucky you are to get to show! You get to be outside with your four-legged best friend, surrounded by people you enjoy.

To help remain focused on these things, Bollinger suggests gratitude and positive manifestation journaling. Think about and write down the answers to these prompts either the night before or the morning of the show: “What I am grateful for? How will the day culminate in a positive way?”

Extra Tips for Calming Horse Show Anxiety

11. Be present. This one is tricky, as it’s easy to think ahead (When will we get home?) or behind you and obsess over what went wrong. To remind yourself to stay in the present, focus on something very specific, like rubbing your horse’s ears and feeling how soft his coat is or listening to your horse’s footfalls beneath you.

12. Take some quiet time. It’s OK to take some time for yourself, even if your cheering squad is there to celebrate your time in the ring. A few moments to gather your thoughts, run over your pattern, and pat your horse will help you give it your best shot.

13. Give yourself an escape. This doesn’t mean you don’t try; it means you give yourself an out if things start to go sideways and you can’t correct your course.

This means thinking, “If after 20 minutes of warmup he’s still spooking at everything, I’ll scratch,” instead of, “He’s going to be bad, I know it. I’m not even going to get on.” Once you give yourself permission to leave, you won’t feel as trapped.

This article about how to calm your horse show anxiety and nerves appeared in the June 2023 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Calm Your Horse Show Anxiety appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Why is the mental state of the human so important to a sport commonly calculated as 80 percent horse? Because just as horses feel fear, tension, and anxiety, so too do they feel a confident rider with clear intent. Being present and calm, staying with your breath, and having a positive attitude about your objectives gives your horse an advantage.

Regardless of which horse sport you compete in, winning is the preferred goal. But it is typically nowhere in my own preparatory thoughts. In fact, the less I think about results, the better I can play. If result-oriented expectations do arise pre-competition, I enjoy the good ones, let the not-so-good ones slip away, and trust that when I begin playing, all expectations will disappear.

The line of questioning that most inspired me was something called the four resonance questions, developed by the sports psychologist Doug Newburg:

1. “What feelings do you seek to experience in your sport?”

2. “What prepares you to experience these feelings?”

3. “What prevents these feelings from occurring?”

4. “How can you get these feelings back when they are lost?”

Sorting through my answers to these questions, I was eventually able to articulate my “dream” in my sport. Although I wrote the following passage when I was 10 goals and 39 years old, most of it still holds true for me today:

The fall season has come and gone—some good, some bad. The other day I found a quote in a book—Close Range by Annie Proulx—which I had underlined years ago. It inspired me. Here is what it said about the “rough, bruising life” of a young rodeo rider: “…when he got on there was the dark lightning in his gut, a feeling of blazing real existence.”

This rings true for me. The dream for my polo is that feeling of blazing real existence. It makes me feel alive. One way that it blazes is that my senses are wide open when playing, totally perceptive, and acutely sensitive. Maybe it’s adrenaline, maybe it’s the sense of challenge about using my skills toward a contest. Perhaps it’s my “love-hate” relationship toward competitive situations—“Who is better?” Whatever, why-ever, I know that my gut blazes and I get that feeling of aliveness.

My dream is to find this feeling of intensity and sensory connection when I am playing my game. I can even learn to appreciate it (enjoy it?) while it’s there, and not only after the event. I reach this state through giving it my all; through thinking good thoughts, which enhance my confidence and ability to play well. Perhaps the stars just lined up correctly? This is the challenge: getting myself to this state of being. And it is another state of being—one of total awareness. I’m acting by “letting go” and letting my body lead. I’m not looking much at other players (teammates, opponents) or umpires. I’m trusting the strength of my horses; they feel a part of me. I may have a short outburst at an ump or opponent, but my anger quickly dissolves because there is no time. I have the next play to execute or prepare for. I am in it. My mind is comfortably locked on my objectives. These are simple and clear.

I am human and unnecessary thoughts do arise, even during best-best performances: “Geez, I’m playing one of my best games ever!” “I missed those two goals, I really want to finish my next chance—who’s watching?” “I hope we win this one, I just got out-dueled.” These thoughts are there, but when I’m living my dream and playing from my gut, I can deal with them. I recognize that it’s okay to have them—everybody does—and bring myself back to my breath, my tree, or my “next play” mantra. Sometimes, when the feeling doesn’t come easily in a particular match, the best technique is to try to “just be there,” with a calm mind, and trust that the game will get into me. That can be enough. It allows the sport to bring out my instincts, my anticipation, and hopefully my total connection with my horses and what I am doing. Outside the parameters of my field, good things come—accolades, money, team offers—because of my connection inside that field, and because of my mindset, which ironically has a lot to do with not caring what people think outside the boards. Even my goals of playing at the highest level of the sport for a long time, of being a great 10-goal player, of fulfilling my potential, are really things outside the boards. What is inside is that emotion of blazing real existence. Visit this often, go for it, and if it’s meant to be, my goals will take care of themselves.

My dream is to immerse in the feelings of intensity that I get from playing the game. I put myself in the most competitive situations possible because these challenges bring the “lightning in my gut.” Love-hate it may be, but these big feelings are my dream. They exist because I care.

I believe competition is a time to emphasize our strengths, to focus on positive things in our control, to trust and play. This is the best way I’ve found for putting expectations to the side, letting go, and enjoying the performance. Famous dance choreographer Alvin Ailey said that “freedom comes through discipline.” The discipline to prepare to the teeth, gives us the freedom to perform all out, thought-free.

I have come to believe that our mood, too, is in our control. Being positive simply means that you see the choices in front of you. We may sense that we woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or that our warm-up was a disaster, but it is usually possible to find (or invent) a positive lining—“bad rehearsal means good performance”—and shift focus onto the little things within our control. “What do I love about my sport?” is a question I ask myself before entering the competitive arena. For me: I love the ball, the teamwork, and the feel of the horse under me.

Free yourself of result-oriented thoughts, and bring your awareness into the present. Feel your calming breath flowing in and out, see the texture of the footing, hear the cadence of your horse’s stride. With your senses wide awake, and in the here and now, execute the task at hand to the best of your ability. Trust yourself. Trust your horse. Put your focus on the doing. After all, as Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch say in Thinking Body, Dancing Mind, “Focusing on the moment-by-moment joy and elation of the event will usually be reflected in winning outcomes.”

This excerpt from Winning with Horses is reprinted with permission from Trafalgar Square Books. Get a copy here. This is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine.

The post Preparing for Competition: Self-Reflection appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

One of the biggest challenges you can face as a rider is trying to effectively incorporate your practice sessions while in the ring at a horse show. All disciplines are affected by the heightened energy at a show, where the nerves of horses, riders, and spectators combine with an unfamiliar atmosphere to make a very high-pressure situation.

Every show (and often different classes at the same show) can have different rules regarding whether riders may practice ahead of time in the arena where they will compete. Even if riders are allowed in the ring ahead of time, there are many variables that may affect that practice session, including other riders, a fresh horse, arena maintenance, et cetera.

However, the one thing that you have complete control over is your mental preparation.

Visualization of Success

One of the most tried-and-true methods in mentally preparing for competition is visualization. Visualization is crucial when riding because it allows you to experience the competition ahead of time in a way that is otherwise impossible.

Something that will greatly enhance your ability to visualize is to spend time around the outside of the arena and soak in the view from all angles. Time spent walking inside the arena is also valuable, but not always possible. This helps your brain build a 3-D picture by taking note of the colors of banners, jumps or other obstacles in the ring, objects just outside the arena fence like seating, landscaping, or judge’s booths, and also getting an idea of the distances and angles between the different obstacles or jumps.

Visualization is extremely effective because when done correctly, it activates and strengthens the same neural pathways as actual physical practice. Visualizing should take about the same amount of time as the actual ride; for example, a dressage test visualization should take about four minutes if that is the projected time for riding the test.

How many times you choose to visualize the ride is up to you. You may choose to visualize a certain number of times, visualize periodically up until your ride, or continue until it flows very smoothly in your mind.

In the event that you visualize something incorrectly, whether it be an incorrect sequence or an actual mistake, you may choose to “rewind” the visualization and start again just before the mistake, or you can restart completely.

It’s important to recognize, however, that thinking ahead about the small corrections your horse may need, such as extra right leg to prevent a right drift, is a crucial part of the plan rather than a mistake in your visualization.

Feel the Ride

Probably the most misunderstood thing about visualization is that people think of watching themselves ride their class, course, test, or pattern as if they were a spectator outside the arena. This does not serve the same purpose nor provide the same benefits as closing your eyes and truly feeling yourself ride the class, course, test, or pattern as you intend to ride it.

Visualization should be an immersive experience during which you imagine activating the muscles you’ll need to execute your plan. This means dialing into your focus ahead of time and building sensory memory.

It’s important to be as detailed as possible during each run-through so that your mind begins to relate to the class, course, test, or pattern as a familiar experience. Tune in to the feeling of your legs on your horse’s sides, stretching up tall through your upper body, looking ahead to where you are going next, or whatever else you know will need your mental attention during your ride.

Be sure to include all aspects of the arena while you are visualizing so that then the crowd, the flapping banner, or the two jumps that are confusingly placed next to each other are all familiar by the time you actually enter the ring on horseback.

Environment and Routine

It’s important that you maintain a focus-friendly environment while you are visualizing. It’s not a good time for friends and family to be bombarding you with questions or playing loud music or videos right next to you.

You may be able to establish a boundary ahead of time by giving a brief explanation of what you will be doing, or it may take a few shows for your supporters to begin to understand this new part of your routine.

Visualization may not come naturally to you at first, but I encourage you to take control of your mind in order to create a competition environment that has fewer variables and more opportunities for practice and preparation than are available solely in the physical body.

This article about visualization skills for riding appeared in the March 2023 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Visualization Skills for Riders appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

One of the biggest challenges you can face as a rider is trying to effectively incorporate your practice sessions while in the ring at a horse show. All disciplines are affected by the heightened energy at a horse show, where the nerves of horses, riders, and spectators combine with an unfamiliar atmosphere to make a very high-pressure situation. Calming these nerves can be difficult given the energy of a horse show.

Every show (and often different classes at the same show) can have different rules regarding whether riders may practice ahead of time in the arena where they will compete. Even if riders are allowed in the ring ahead of time, there are many variables that may affect that practice session, including other riders, a fresh horse, arena maintenance, et cetera.

However, the one thing that you have complete control over is your mental preparation. Following this strategy can help you calm your nerves at your next horse show.

Visualize Success in the Show Ring

One of the most tried-and-true methods in mentally preparing for competition is visualization. Visualization is crucial because it allows you to experience the competition ahead of time in a way that is otherwise impossible.

Something that will greatly enhance your ability to visualize is to spend time around the outside of the arena and soak in the view from all angles. Time spent walking inside the arena is also valuable, but not always possible. This helps your brain build a 3-D picture by taking note of the colors of banners, jumps or other obstacles in the ring, objects just outside the arena fence like seating, landscaping, or judge’s booths, and also getting an idea of the distances and angles between the different obstacles or jumps.

Visualization is extremely effective because when done correctly, it activates and strengthens the same neural pathways as actual physical practice. Visualizing should take about the same amount of time as the actual ride; for example, a dressage test visualization should take about four minutes if that is the projected time for the test.

How many times you choose to visualize the ride is up to you. You may choose to visualize a certain number of times, visualize periodically up until your ride, or continue until it flows very smoothly in your mind.

In the event that you visualize something incorrectly, whether it be an incorrect sequence or an actual mistake, you may choose to “rewind” the visualization and start again just before the mistake, or you can restart completely.

It’s important to recognize, however, that thinking ahead about the small corrections your horse may need, such as extra right leg to prevent a right drift, is a crucial part of the plan rather than a mistake in your visualization.

Feel the Ride

Probably the most misunderstood thing about visualization is that people think of watching themselves ride their class, course, test, or pattern as if they were a spectator outside the arena. This does not serve the same purpose nor provide the same benefits as closing your eyes and truly feeling yourself ride the class, course, test, or pattern as you intend to ride it.

Visualization should be an immersive experience during which you imagine activating the muscles you’ll need to execute your plan. This means dialing into your focus ahead of time and building sensory memory.

It’s important to be as detailed as possible during each run-through so that your mind begins to relate to the class, course, test, or pattern as a familiar experience. Tune in to the feeling of your legs on your horse’s sides, stretching up tall through your upper body, looking ahead to where you are going next, or whatever else you know will need your mental attention during your ride.

Be sure to include all aspects of the arena while you are visualizing so that then the crowd, the flapping banner, or the two jumps that are confusingly placed next to each other are all familiar by the time you actually enter the ring on horseback.

Environment and Routine

It’s important that you maintain a focus-friendly environment while you are visualizing. It’s not a good time for friends and family to be bombarding you with questions or playing loud music or videos right next to you.

You may be able to establish a boundary ahead of time by giving a brief explanation of what you will be doing, or it may take a few shows for your supporters to begin to understand this new part of your routine.

Visualization may not come naturally to you at first, but I encourage you to take control of your mind in order to create a competition environment that has fewer variables and more opportunities for practice and preparation than are available solely in the physical body.

This article about how to calm your horse show nerves appeared in the March 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Calm Your Horse Show Nerves appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.