Victoria Brant, author of the blog 'Diary of a Wimpy Eventer', is on a mission to get her nerve back and get out competing. Here she explains why you're not alone if you're suffering with sometimes crippling eventing nerves...
1. It is perfectly fine and 100% normal to be nervous. If you can admit it, then you can deal with it. Pretending won’t get you anywhere, it really is okay.
2. It can be beneficial to feel that flutter of terror. When it happens, adrenaline is produced to aid our focus and reactions. Embrace it — try to feel the focus, not the fear.
3. You look around, no-one else seems to be terrified? Wrong. Almost every rider, at some stage in their life, has a wobble. For me, it’s weekly. Am I smiling all the way from dressage warm up to cross-country finish line? Yes. Am I nervous to the pit of my stomach? Absolutely. It’s normal and it’s happening to more people than you think.
4. Insurance and legal requirements of all aspects of eventing are rife and extreme safety precautions can make you feel like there is something to worry about. But remember — compulsory safety elements of the sport are preventative and in place to help keep you and your horse safe, so embrace them, rather than being alarmed.
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5. Can we predict 100% what those long, dangly legs are going to do? Not blummin’ likely. Just make the best of what you’ve got on the day and try to not think too far ahead about what COULD happen, instead focus on dealing with the here and now. It will help you to stop predicting a negative outcome if you focus on the job in hand.
6. Try to work out when the nerves kick in. Is it during the entry stage, the course walk, the night before or just on the day? Deal with each phase individually, don’t bundle everything together in your head. Step-by-step processing will help to make the situations seem much less daunting.
What are your tips for dealing with competition nerves? Let us know below…
