Guest blog by Stephanie Brugman.

It can be challenging to eat healthily at horse shows. Back in the day when I was riding full time and going to shows I would always bring my own food and tried to cook as much as possible in my truck. Of course there were also times I chose to eat fast food after a long day. A little older and wiser now, I have realised that what you eat is very important in order to feel fit and have enough energy to compete. We all know we need the energy to make it until the last day and to be feeling at your best. I have put together 5 tips to help you stay healthy and energised at the shows.

The road to excellence is a long one and requires patience, grit and deliberate practice. That is at least if you listen to the experts in the field of expertise performance. According to Anders Ericsson, a researcher in the psychology of expertise and human performance, specific or deliberate practise is of one of the most, if not the most important factor to reaching the top in any given field.
Here are 7 specific tips on how to apply his research to training your own skills in the saddle.

While interviewing riders for my new book, I wanted to know what the most important habits and patterns were to become successful in the mentally challenging sport of show jumping. One of my favorite interviews, Daniel Deusser, is well known as one of the sport’s most natural and confident riders. Here, Daniel shares some practical lessons he’s learned and nine things that have helped him the most on his way to the top.

When people mention they are working with a personal trainer, everyone knows what that means. When you work with a trainer to improve your dressage and flat work, everyone gets it. However, when one mentions they are working with a mental coach, many people are still mystified as to what that actually is. Though I have been sharing my thoughts and knowledge on mental skills and training for equestrian riders for some time now, I often still get asked, “So what do you do exactly?”

With this in mind, in the coming months, I’ll be sharing with you some of the challenges that clients of mine have faced and how, together, we turned things around. For my first case study, I’m sharing Anne-Liza’s story. Anne-Liza Makkinga is a Dutch rider, with her own yard based in the Netherlands. She competes internationally at 2* to 5* level.

Strength of character, perseverance, toughness, or in other words, grit is what creates excellence, peak performance and mastery. It is grit that determines whether you will get up again and again after falling down. It is grit that will get you through the long hours of training and then let’s you train some more.

It is safe to say that the Equestrian sport is a challenging one, not only physically but also mentally. Making one error can result in a bad fall and injuries and might mean, you are out for the season. This obviously adds extra pressure to not make any mistakes. In addition, it is the only Olympic sport that involves working together with a living animal and that too adds an extra difficulty to the mix. Working together with a highly sensitive animal means that your mind not only impacts your body, but your horse will be influenced by it too.