What Do You and Your Horse Do Well Together?

It’s important to believe in what you and your horse can do.

Performance profiling can sound rather serious, but it can also involve a hot drink, a set of colouring pencils and a conversation with your coach away from the arena.

I like to begin with what is already there. What have you achieved? What are you proud of? What are your strengths as a rider? What are your horse’s strengths, and what do you do particularly well together? Compliments you have received can be useful too,  sometimes somebody else has noticed a strength that you have overlooked.

From there, a rider profile can begin to grow. We can look at areas such as attitude and mindset, partnership, wellbeing, understanding of the training process and technical skill. The purpose is to create a picture of where you and your horse are now and give you and your coach something useful to talk about.

Colour, words, notes and diagrams can all become part of it. There is no reason performance planning has to begin with a spreadsheet. Sometimes sitting around a table with your coach and thinking about your horse can lead to conversations that are harder to have while you are concentrating on riding.

I often include this kind of out-of-the-saddle session when riders come to train and stay with me. Time away from the arena gives us an opportunity to talk about what has been happening, recognise strengths and think about what the rider would like to work towards next. Then the conversation can continue when we are back with the horse.