I’m riding the best horses of my career right now. They’re winning everything, and it’s freaking me out. 

I know, I know. Hear me out. 

Winning is really, really fun but not why I do this, because the actual acquisition of blue ribbons is a little bit about whether you’re good and a lot about whether anyone else is better on a particular day. I can’t control that, and so instead I live my life with The Campfire Rule: Leave every horse in better condition than you found them. And that is where my joy really is. 

Every horse is a puzzle, and I love solving them. I help them learn how to dance, and from the tiniest of aids. I help them become more confident, more beautiful, more sound. And all of my own horses thus far have gone on to be teachers to others. How freaking amazing is that?!

Truly, if showing wasn’t a Thing, and we were all just doing this for funsies in our backyards, I would still be having the time of my damn life teaching horses of all levels and qualities—and, let’s be real, price points—how to be better, and I’d be loving it. 

But showing is a Thing, and I love it too. I’m good at it, and I’ve been lucky to have good horses, and I’m fortunate to have also learned how to be skilled. The end result is a resume I’m proud of, with many accomplishments of regional and national regard. Cool. 

Through that resume-building process I’ve met some amazing folks who have come to believe in me, and we formed the two syndicates for whom I currently work. Through them, into my life strutted Cadeau and Beaker.

And suddenly showing is a whole ‘nother thing. 

Cadeau met me first, in early 2023. Our first test together last summer earned me a 74%. Other than one memorable outing where he grabbed the bit in his teeth and gleefully launched across the arena in medium trot like a runaway torpedo (placing merely second), he won everything he entered, including regional championships at third level. 

Beaker came this year, debuted himself at 73% and has a perfect record from there, with scores through a mind-blowing 77%. (If you’ve ever wondered if a test that gets that kind of mark feels like a test that should get that kind of mark: Yes. I grinned the whole way through.)

Cadeau’s 2024 season started later, and in six tests he has scored below 70% only once. The regional championships this year were his third show at both fourth level and Prix St. Georges, where he won both championship classes with scores above 71%, on a several percentage point lead over the second-placed horse in both divisions, as well as earning the FEI high score for the whole enchilada.

At every single show I’ve competed at this year, I’ve come home with a high-point ribbon of some flavor. Every one. Have I celebrated? Ohhhh, yeah. Have I also remembered how horses are all one hangnail or bellyache away from utter mayhem, to keep myself humble and gracious? Yes, that too. I’ve even managed to browbeat into at least some submission the voice that lives in my reptilian brain and tells me that I’m unworthy of this success because I’ve had help getting there. 

But I’m left dealing with something I’ve never had before: the pressure to continue to make good on my potential. The pressure to continue playing at this level of success. 

It’s … weird.

Let’s be clear: The team of owners behind me are truly amazing humans (psst, Cadeau has more shares available such that you could join in on this fun, wink nudge). None of them are doing anything other than being brilliant supporters loving being along for the ride and being so gracious about the bumps in the road that inevitably arise. My pressure is all from within, these heebie-jeebies I’ve been experiencing. 

This winter I participated in a Mastermind podcast with the brilliant Natalie Hummel, equestrian performance coach and general badass, who preaches “somatic nervous system training.” To dramatically oversimplify, she believes that we cannot train ourselves to not feel emotions that can hinder us, but we can practice feeling them so that we can deal with them with more competence, grace and speed when they arise. 

This appeals to me tremendously, being a person who finds emotions generally fairly stupid. (Years ago a therapist in our first—and last—session said, “Lauren, you have to make time to feel your feelings,” and I have never bolted out of a room so fast in my life.) But I am great at practicing. I’m not the most naturally talented rider in the world, so because I want to be really, really good at it, I am a prodigiously excellent practicer. 

So as I look ahead to the upcoming U.S. Dressage Finals, taking place this week in Lexington, Kentucky, I am not only visualizing how I want my tests to go and meticulously plugging away at details like corners and halts, and getting my new short coat tailored to perfection, but I’m putting my head into the nervous place. Into the expectations place. Into the place where I imagine others watching and judging—and not the ones whose opinion I’m paying for, thanks—and mouthing off in comments sections or to their fellow railbirds. I am practicing the existential dread of “Oh god, what if someone else could be doing a better job with this horse than I am,” and I am living in those feelings because I want to get better at handling them. 

Because these horses are the real thing, guys. I know I’ve thought that about horses before—and I’ve had some splendid animals, please don’t get me wrong there—but I was mistaken. They weren’t like these two. That means this is only the beginning of their Big Hairy Careers, and that means that this is only the beginning of those Big Hairy Feelings. So I’d better get used to feeling them, acknowledging them, and doing my job with skill anyway. 

“Pressure is a privilege,” tennis legend Billie Jean King famously said. Cadeau and Beaker are the greatest privilege of my career, so I’m celebrating the pressure that comes with them. 

Lauren Sprieser is a USDF gold, silver and bronze medalist with distinction making horses and riders to FEI from her farm in Marshall, Virginia. She’s currently developing The Elvis Syndicate’s C. Cadeau, Clearwater Farm Partners’ Tjornelys Solution, as well as her own string of young horses, with hopes of one day representing the United States in team competition. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram, and read her book on horse syndication, “Strength In Numbers.”