My hands tightened, and my jaw clenched. The horse under me was trying to keep his cool, although our baser instincts were moving toward fight (me) and flight (him).
The trigger of this brace was a warm-up arena that contained 15 horses and looked like a playground where 4-year-olds have been given Pop Rocks chased with Mountain Dew. Some of the trainers on the ground were in their own competition of verbally hijacking the shared airspace. It occurred to me that, even with decades of experience, the chaos was having a profound effect on me. Looking at the young riders, young horses and terrified adults around me, I realized I was not alone in my visceral response.
We are building the foundation of our competitive experiences in warm-up arenas that have little order. As it stands now, they are minefields for horse and human athletes. How can we change the culture? Why do participants and organizers accept feral grassroots warm-ups?
To change the culture we need to start by unifying our vision and goals for this space, then create a technical plan to achieve that rooted in understanding. Then let’s bring in some honest discussion around the discipline of emotional control. Also, understanding the warm-up from the horse’s perspective is paramount when figuring out how to upgrade the warm-up from an earthquake fault line to a springboard for success.
Understanding The Why
If I start with what success could look like, what would I see? I see harmony. Yes, the judges have a technical score for it, but harmony is important on a much deeper level for horse and human alike. Harmony with the herd brings safety, comfort, play and a shared confidence. Horses want to be in harmony, the question is: Do they want to be in harmony with us?
A few years ago Linda Parelli told me about a jumper friend of hers who shared an epiphany he’d had. He was upset. He said, “It just occurred to me that my horse only jumps because I ask him too, not because he loves to.” Linda responded with an amused laugh. “Well, thank God! because if he loved to jump you would never be able to keep him in a field!” It’s a great story that reminds us that when horses are programed to seek harmony, the task is less important. They compete not because they love to compete, but because it is something we do together, as a team. A herd.
Technique or philosophy—where should we spend more time? When I was about 18, I went to take a lesson with David O’Connor. I was terrified. I polished my boots, called a friend for a pep talk, and then I headed into the arena. I was confident I was about to learn the mystery of how to get a horse on the bit. After a brief greeting David looked at my bridle and asked me why I had a noseband on. This threw me for a loop. I desperately looked around. All the other horses being ridden had nosebands on. I was confused. I looked back at David and quietly said, “Well, because it came with the bridle.”
Understanding why we are doing what we are doing is key to developing the relationship with your horse, your performance, your expectations and your results. To go into the warm-up and jump the crossrail, the vertical and then the oxer, just because that’s what is there, is the equivalent of me not knowing the function of the noseband on my bridle. If you have the skill-set to jump all three of those jumps then you have a responsibility to make a plan around the order, the height, the number of jumps you will jump, and the time frame you will need.
This is why we see less chaos at the top of the sport in the warm-ups. Most professionals understand the importance of that plan. There is no reason that this planning should not be implemented and expected at the lower levels, too. Many of my amateur students are brilliant in their chosen profession, and they absolutely have the ability to create a thoughtful warm-up plan without needing the technical skills to jump 1.50 meters. It is not good enough to say, “I’ll just do what my trainer says.” Yelling the plan across a warm-up arena, especially in times of stress, is not a recipe for a harmonious and successful warm-up. Talk with your trainer before entering the shark tank.
Look at your own, and your horse’s, technical and emotional skill-set by identifying what needs improvement, what needs repeating, and what needs confidence. Keep repetition and confidence at the forefront of your warm-up plan. Stay away from the rabbit hole of training a new concept or learning a new skill. If jumping the crossrail takes away confidence in the horse, or in you, don’t jump the crossrail at the show. Instead, improve that skill at home. If the crossrail helps the horse’s footwork and helps you as a rider get confident getting in balance with the horse, then jump the crossrail. Both plans can be correct. Plans can always be adjusted, but “I’ll just see how we go,” is random and reactive.
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Practical Changes
Some small changes can make a big difference when you think about restructuring your warm-up. The first step is at home. Spend some time deciding what builds confidence in you and your horse regarding the jumps available in the warm-up ring and how you approach them.
Our options are as follows: crossrail, vertical, oxer, approached off a short, medium, long approach, and off both leads. Take a whole lesson or ride working through what order best produces the right technique and confidence, as well as the number of jumps you need to feel prepared without using all the gas in the tank. After each jump, walk, assess, plan and then proceed to the next jump.
Most people jump whatever is available and have no plan, they just go when no one is in the way. This plan might change at the show but at least you have a starting place to work from. You also might be surprised with insight you gain. Knowledge is empowering.
The first step at the show is find the warm-up area—but also look for any quieter places you could have a walk, trot and canter around to minimize your amount of time on an active runway. This is also helpful to know if you are warmed up early and need to wait or if there is a delay.
As you move into the warm-up space, notice anyone or any horse you might need to keep an eye on. Offense is the best defense. There is always one aggressive driver in the group, politely pull over and let them pass. In the Netflix documentary “Quarterbacks,” Patrick Mahomes says every time he gets knocked to the ground by another player, he compliments them on a good hit—and as that positive energy just landed him another Super Bowl ring, it can work for you too.
If you have your plan from home in order, you will already have a default of an organized approach and a nice straight recovery on the back side of each fence, followed by a calm assessment. You should be able to work this into even the busiest warm-up.
Putting In The Work
This brings us to the discipline of emotional control. Emotional control is not avoiding emotions. It is not not having emotions. It is being able to think logically while having adverse emotions. I use the word “discipline” because developing emotional control is something we have the opportunity to practice every day, on and off the horse. This is not something we hope we have when we get to the show. We can practice emotional control by regularly putting ourselves in situations that are slightly uncomfortable and building our capacity to make rational decisions. Too much discomfort will put you in a survival state, and your rational brain will shut off. No discomfort, and you will never increase your ability to think and respond appropriately under pressure.
This could mean taking that cross-country lesson when you would rather practice dressage; it is trotting jumps at home even though you hate it; it is making the mature decision to put your horse back in the barn when you realize you are too frustrated to give your horse a fair ride.
As the riders and trainers we have a responsibility to deliver a message of confidence to the horse that everything is going to be OK. The warm-up is a pressure-filled area, and we need to be able to deliver on our promise or else trust will be lost. Technical skill is a very important part of the equation. McLain Ward said one of his greatest assets in being able to ride a multitude of horses to high levels is his ability to maintain a correct position at all times. I would venture to say that he has a level of emotional control that allows him to have the discipline to work on having a correct position at all times. In other words, the emotional control usually needs to come first.
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If you are in warm-up, and you keep losing a stirrup, or you are getting jumped out of the tack, the logical thought, even in this pressure situation, should be: I need to go back home and work on a technical skill-set so I can have a stronger position. More commonly I hear something along the lines of: “I’m a horrible rider. I don’t deserve to be here. I’m a failure. I quit.” This is more emotional than logical. Which messaging is more helpful?
Technical skill and emotional control are intertwined, and both require awareness, discipline and training. You have to decide before you enter that space that you are going to be calm in your responses. It’s nearly impossible to make that decision if you are already in a panic because things are not going according to plan.
When two people are dancing, there is usually a leader, and it’s important to be your horse’s leader in the same sense. Deciding what type of leader you need to be, on that day, on that horse, depends on your experience and expectations. Are we going for a dramatic tango, or a dreamy waltz? While investigating this idea it’s helpful to look at things from the horse’s perspective. How can we be the one the horses looks to for direction, in a place of chaos? It’s fairly simple: We need to be predictable and we need to make good choices, from a horse’s point of view.
If you are racing through a scattering of horses to get back to the jump—the same one just you just had an epic miss at—screaming “crossrail!” with no regard for your own balance and energy, your heart beating like machine gun fire, I don’t think your horse would choose you as a dance partner.
We have all seen, or been, that person in warm-up (or sometimes in other arenas of life). If we could do that same scenario differently, from an emotionally controlled place, taking into account the horse’s perspective and our original warm-up plan, what would be different? We would most likely quietly bring the horse back to a walk or halt, take a breath. Maybe look to our coach for feedback. We would visualize our plan for the next approach to the fence. We would calmly pick up the canter and repeat the jump.
Panicking while looking for a solution is like punching the gas pedal when you realize your steering wheel is broken: You’re going to crash.
Rational thinking is not always easy, and it does not always line up with our original expectations. Sometimes we need to leave the warm-up arena and forfeit the competition, sometimes we need to choose leadership over friendship. Sometimes we might choose friendship over leadership. We might need to ask for help, or just stop and take a breath. But I can guarantee this: Panicking while looking for a solution is like punching the gas pedal when you realize your steering wheel is broken: You’re going to crash.
This shift in looking at harmony through emotional control and technical skill in order to be a good dance partner begins in our daily work at home: The way we catch our horses in the field, the way we tack up, how we speak to our students, staff, coaches, partners and kids and in the way we speak to ourselves. Can we take a deep dive into why we do things to make sure we actually believe in what we are doing instead of doing things unconsciously. As leaders for our horses can we shoulder the responsibility to repeatably show up and deliver the message: “This is all going to be OK,” and can we back it up with our emotions and choices. This is how we need to arrive at the warm-up emotionally and technically prepared; this is how we change the culture.
Event rider Sinead Halpin Maynard has represented the U.S. at numerous five-star events around the world, including competing at the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in France and serving as a reserve for the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics. She is the wife of author and event rider Tik Maynard and mother of Brooks (5) and Violet (2). Sinead is active within the USEF Athlete Working Group and host of the In Stride Podcast.
