the Nix Nerves

from Reined Cow Horse News, March/April 2023, Volume 28, No. 2

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When the pressure’s on in competition, it can be hard to overcome your nerves. Use these tips to help stay cool and collected in the show pen.

The show pen: competitors dream about it, spend hours practicing and preparing for it, and experience some of their greatest triumphs while in it. Why, then, for some people does the very idea of competing cause their hearts to start racing, palms to get sweaty and breathing to quicken?

Athletes can psych themselves out once the pressure is on, and riders are no different. The jitters and nerves that come with competition can cause things that normally might come easy, such as running to a stop or taking a cow down the fence, to suddenly feel impossible. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Properly preparing yourself and your horse, going maneuver by maneuver and learning from your mistakes, will enable you to calm your nerves and avoid freezing up in the show pen.

Prepare For The Show

It sounds like a simple solution, but preshow practice and preparation will create confidence while showing. The more you ride and practice with your horse, the more competent you’ll feel during each maneuver.

Many National Reined Cow Horse Association professionals advise running your horse at “show speed” before a show, whether that’s executing a full reining pattern without schooling in the middle or working a cow down the fence as you would in a show situation. This will give you an idea of any holes you can correct in advance, rather than fixating on what might go wrong once you’re at the show.

“If a certain Non Pro has an area they’re not as confident in or as comfortable in, we tend to work on that part more, so when they go to the show, they have a lot more confidence in the parts that they tend to struggle with,” said Brendon Clark, 2022 DT Horses Western Derby

When it is time to shine in the show pen, the last thing a rider wants to feel is nervous.

BY KRISTIN PITZER

Open Champion. “If they’re feeling good about that certain part, that’s not overweighing the pressure of them making a mistake. Otherwise, if they’re worrying too much about it, then all the things they can do, they tend to not perform as well.”

Don’t dwell too much on the weak spots, though, Clark added. Otherwise, you’ll start to overthink it when it comes to the maneuver and try to force it, which often leads to mistakes. Instead, says 2021 World’s Greatest Horseman Champion Shane Steffen, learn how to trust your horse and his training, which will also build your horse’s confidence in you.

“When you feel like you’re confident in being able to put that show run together or have figured out what it takes to get your horse to listen to you to that degree, then when you have those nerves, it’s just a matter of having a mental talk and saying, ‘I know what my horse is capable of as far as to be able to go put this together, so I’m just going to walk in there and put the best run together that I can and let the judges judge it from there,’ ” Steffen said.

Whether you have several months or a couple of days to prepare for a show, keep your focus on the task at hand, added NRCHA professional Erin Taormino. Think about what your goal is for the present day, rather than the score you’re hoping to mark at the next event.

“I try to just keep things simple and not worry about the end result,” Taormino said. “I focus on what I need to do that day, not what I want it to look like when I horse show three days from now. I try to focus on what each horse needs that specific moment. Sometimes that’s a lot easier said than done because we’re always thinking about showing. Just make sure it’s there.”

Take Things Step By Step

Even with all the preparation in the world, there’s still pressure that comes from showing that can’t be replicated in the practice pen. Show pen jitters aren’t limited to youth and non professionals, either—pros also must learn how to combat their nerves each time they go into the show pen.

To help himself focus, 2022 Snaffle Bit Futurity® Open Champion Lee Deacon has a mental routine he goes through every time before he shows. He also tries to remind himself that showing horses is part of the entertainment industry and meant to be exciting and enjoyable for spectators.

“I pray a lot. I also have some notes I wrote down to get in a consistent mindset: ‘Hang it out there, be entertaining and don’t vocalize anything negative about you or your horse,’ ” Deacon said. “I think of David approaching Goliath on the battlefield. He didn’t walk up to the giant timidly, shaking in his boots. He ran to him boldly and struck him down, despite the odds. Trusting that God has a plan for my life has helped me mentally more than anything. I just have to show up.”

The time before you walk into the pen is better spent centering yourself, he said, instead of anxiously over-schooling your horse. The training part is over, at least temporarily. Use that time to think about your breathing, focus on the job in front of you and psych yourself up, if necessary. For many riders, breaking down the task at hand, whether it’s a reining pattern or the cow work, is an effective way to prepare. Rather than thinking about the entire reining pattern you will have to run, for instance, memorize the direction you will run your circles first and which way you will spin first. The odds are if your first set of spins are to the left, your next ones will be to the right. Then, then take the pattern piece by piece.

“I don’t get ahead of myself,” Clark said. “In the reining, for instance, I make sure I know the pattern, and then I just do each maneuver as they come along. If I try to think too much ahead of what I’ve got to do, then I can forget something or do little things that make my score go down or stay the same, versus gaining points. So, I don’t try to think about the last thing I’m doing first; I just think about it as it goes on.”

Taking each part of a run step by step will also help in the event of a bobble. Rather than focusing on how a mistake affected the entire run and giving up, you can put it out of your mind and focus on nailing the next maneuver instead. Plus, there’s always a good chance that something that felt bad to you will look entirely different to the judges.

Erin Taormino pilots a lot of horses in the reined cow horse pen, which means she is constantly adjusting her timing to fit a specific horse.

“I talk to my wife about what it looked like versus what it felt like,” Steffen said. “It kind of helps being able to balance what you felt in that show pen versus what it actually looked like and how you scored, so you can adjust your mentality of, maybe this didn’t feel exactly like I wanted it to, but it actually looked good

Sire of multiple Champions and Money Earners

or was what I needed to go mark better in that situation. That’s what I try and take away from those runs.”

DEVELOP SHORT-TERM MEMORY

Preparation and grit may be the keys to success, but unfortunately, no matter how much you practice or how carefully you work through your run, mistakes can still happen, especially when animals are involved. How do you keep bobbles from psyching you out and ruining your next trip through the show pen?

“It’s really easy to remember the bad runs over the good runs. It’s not an easy task, and I have by no means mastered it, but I try to not put too much weight in the bad runs,” Taormino explained. “Remember it, watch video on it, understand what happened and then move on from it. It’s horse showing, it’s probably going to happen again. It might happen sooner than later. But you just can’t put too much weight in the highs or too much weight in the lows.”

Treating each trip to the show pen like it’s your first or your last can help you focus on the excitement of showing, rather than what might be at stake. By learning from, but not fixating on, your worst moments and your greatest triumphs, you can prepare your horse the way it needs in the moment, rather than worrying about repeating mistakes or how you’re going to better the last performance.

“The biggest thing is just trusting your own ability,” Deacon said. “It’s hard when your legs are shaking, your hands are clammy, and your body doesn’t feel how it does at home. It’s hard to trust that you will react or respond in the show pen.

“My new favorite saying is, ‘Don’t think, just do,’ ” he continued. “Learn to trust yourself, and then the same with your horses—if you put the work into those horses, even if they don’t prepare well, most of the time under pressure a horse will revert to what he knows best. You’ve just got to go show the best you can.”

Clark took his own advice and didn’t dwell on potentially weak spots but instead rode the horse he knew could win, capturing the 2022 DT Horses Western Derby on CR Hes A Tuff One.

Shane Steffen’s faith and trust in his horse help, along with keeping his outlook positive, helped him capture the 2021 World’s Greatest Horseman title on Gunna Be A Smartie.