Do you ever feel paralyzed by show nerves, or ask yourself why you are doing this to yourself? Ever wonder right before you go into the ring why you picked this sport instead of something more relaxing, like golf? I know that I've felt this way before, and have had to process through the nerves to try to get to a place where they can work for me and not against me. I have had the nerves both destroy and enhance a performance, and I recently took time off from showing in order to get my head back together as the nerves were taking over. What do you do to get you and your horse to the other side of the scariest jump you've ever seen? How do you get through the class that seems never ending? What makes you motivated to show, and continue to show?
Last year, we had a very exciting show (dressage) in which my horse behaved like he was on the pro rodeo circuit in the saddle-back bronco division. Very entertaining to all... except me and the judge. Needless to say, the experience set me back and I went home to take stock in what had happened to my normally extremely well-behaved 6 year old. In hind sight, I can think of several factors that could have played a role: We rode at the end of the day and he'd been standing in a hot stall most of it waiting to go. (We usually school in the morning and I probably should have gotten him out for longer that morning and perhaps even schooled as per normal.) I was using a new pad, not the old show pad he was used to, so maybe he was pinched by something. I knew I couldn't end the season like that so I took him out to one more show. While my scores weren't great (there was tension involved so he wasn't as through as he had been previously) we met my goals of staying in the ring, behaving well and staying on course. We're going back to the ring next weekend with those same goals in mind as well as an added goal for me of forgetting there's a judge at C. I'm going to ride as if I was schooling and work on enjoying myself and not chase scores. Anybody else have advice for us?
How do you deal with show nerves?
