If you watch sports on television, you’ve probably heard an announcer talk about “playing not to lose” instead of “playing to win”. It’s a term that describes athletes (or teams) playing things so safely that they don’t play to their talent level and ultimately go down to defeat.

For example, a golfer playing not to lose will choose safer, easier shots consistently to reduce the risk of suffering a bogey. The problem is, in a field of a hundred golfers, a good many of them will be playing to win. They’ll be taking more aggressive, tougher shots, willing to risk a bogey to make a birdie. And a good number of them will make more birdies than bogeys and take all the top positions on the leader board.

It’s no different in riding. In any given class, there’ll be some riders riding not to lose. They’ll ride safely within their limits, doing everything they can to avoid a mistake that would put them out of contention. These kinds of riders ride very consistently, but rarely ride to the limits of their talent.

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Horse Care

In addition to running a successful boarding and lesson barn near London for twenty years, Carole trained many students for the British Horse Society Instructor and Pony Club examinations. She appeared on two national children’s television programs as the equine expert, giving advice on riding and horse care. She also lectured on horsemastership for London and Surrey County Councils.

She gained her British Horse Society Instructor Teacher and Stable Manager Certification and was appointed Chief Examiner for the British Horse Society, responsible for running the examination days, supervising all the examiners and submitting the final reports to the students and headquarters. In addition, she was an active member of the BHS Examinations Committee, which is responsible for designing and implementing internationally recognized instructor qualifications.

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Learning to ride is a complex process that takes you through several stages of development. What’s more, each stage presents different challenges, and you need to change your approach at each level to keep making good progress. If you don’t, you’re far more likely to get stalled.

That’s why it’s important to develop a good understanding of how things change as you progress from one stage of development to the next when learning a new skill. It gives you the ability to concentrate your efforts on the things that give you your best chance for success at each level. It also helps you keep your progress moving forward instead of getting stuck in ruts.

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Charisma is an intriguing trait.

How is it that some people, regardless of their physical features or what they’ve accomplished, can walk into a room and instantly become the center of attention? What is it about their aura that makes them so appealing and easy to root for? What causes others to admire them so much, or even glorify or reward them out of all proportion? They have “IT”, a quality that seems almost beyond words… because it truly is beyond words.

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We’re always trying to learn more about how a rider’s personality expresses itself in both the training arena and the show ring. And we pay a lot of attention to how different personality traits affect a rider’s ability to perform well in either setting.

One such trait that deserves more attention is decisiveness, which has a big impact on a rider’s ability to provide confidence-inspiring leadership to her horse.

Decisiveness is Particularly Important for Competitive Riders

Decisiveness is important in any aspect of life that requires quick action when something important is on the line. So it’s certainly a requirement for success in the show ring.

But what makes decisiveness stand apart from other performance-enhancing traits is how directly it affects your horse’s ability to stay focused on what he’s supposed to do. Let me explain.

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We often talk about the kinds of challenges riders face when they take their horses to horse shows, especially when they don’t have a lot of show-ring experience.

Most commonly, we emphasize that riding into the show ring and putting your skills on the line for all to see changes everything. That’s because it brings on far more mental and emotional duress than you experience when practicing skills in your home arena with nothing really at stake.

As a result, it’s not that uncommon for a rider to “zone out” in the show ring and perform worse than she does at home.

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If you’ve taken a good look at our website, you know we’re focused on helping riders build inner strength. You probably also know that one important aspect of this is conquering various forms of fear of failure, such as fear of embarrassment, fear of feeling less good about yourself or fear of upsetting someone important to you if you don’t perform as expected.

But even when you’ve largely conquered these things, you still don’t eliminate them entirely. That’s because they tend to reassert themselves periodically as circumstances change and challenges mount. So you also need to be able to manage fear of failure when it sneaks up on you.

Looking at it in the following ways might help you with this.

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How is your hearing working for you? Have you learned how to use the sounds of your riding to improve your performance? Or have you largely ignored this remarkably useful sense?

As a test, if you stand in a riding ring blindfolded, can you tell what diagonal a rider is on just by the sound of her horse’s hoof beats? Can you tell whether or not the horse is counter-cantering? Can you tell how collected or extended it is at various gaits?

This was the subject of an adult-rider clinic I ran recently. And what came out of it surprised even me.

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Over the years, sport-psychology researchers have taken a look at how various coaching styles affect athletes. The central question has turned out to be this. Does a coach who defines an athlete’s success more in terms of winning than in terms of performing better in the arena create greater stress and burn-out in his or her athletes? Across numerous studies, the answer is a resounding YES.

So, what does this mean for you as a competitive rider? It means you need to pay attention to your own perceptions of competition, and work to maintain a healthy, fulfilling, enjoyable approach to it.

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Every riding instructor has a natural coaching style. And every rider faces unique challenges in terms of obstacles to learning and emotional makeup. So the question is, what kinds of challenges do you face? And what do they say about the best coaching style for you?

This is actually quite important, because when an instructor’s coaching style matches up well with your strengths and weaknesses, results come a lot faster. On the other hand, when a coaching style fails to accommodate your unique needs, your progress slows. And this can frustrate both you and your instructor unnecessarily.

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