Mental Toughness

By Ellen Broadhurst

Oley Valley Combined Training Association (OVCTA) held a Mental Toughness Clinic with Dr. Tyler Held, on April 12, 2024, at the beautiful Heron’s View Farm in Elverson, Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Held is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and former 5* groom, who specializes in working with equestrian athletes of all levels and disciplines. She owns her own practice, Thought Quest, and hosts the utterly charming and inspiring podcast, The Whole Equestrian.

Held is a case study in how to have a career in horses without being a trainer. After earning her Bachelor’s degree from Findlay College, Held began her post-college career working her way up to become a 5* groom, ultimately traveling around the world with Jennie Brannigan. While working as a groom, Held earned her Master’s degree in Sports Psychology and began hosting The Whole Equestrian podcast in conjunction with 5* rider Emily Hamel. The podcast’s theme is “Bridging the Gap between Riding and Wellness,” and the mission, in Held’s words, is to “Promote health and happiness through our love of horses. We do this on our podcast by having conversations about being more well-rounded individuals via our pillars of mindset, fitness, nutrition, and community.”

Held also holds a PhD in Sports Psychology, and focuses on her sports psychology practice (for more information on Dr. Held: Sidelines article).

The objective of the mental toughness lecture was to give riders perspective on fostering and maintaining mental toughness, given the unique challenges equestrians face. In equestrian sports, the risk of serious injury is significantly higher than in most other sports, and the fear that holds many riders back is both real and well-grounded. Sports psychologists step in to provide strategies that help us focus, and actionable advice for building and maintaining confidence. 

First up, what is ”mental toughness”? Traditionally, in the equestrian world, mental toughness has been equated with being able to push through pain. The “if you’re not in the hospital, get back on” mentality has a long history in our sport. 

But more recently, sports psychology practice recognizes that we should not sacrifice our mental health to be perceived as mentally tough. Rather, mental toughness is our ability to overcome obstacles using mindfulness, and other tools, for working through fear. Mental toughness is about developing resilience, discipline, and strategies for dealing with barriers to success. 

The four Cs of mental toughness, according to Dr. Held, are: confidence, control, challenge, and commitment. By thinking through what each of these means to us as individuals, we can develop strategies to help us become more successful equestrians. 

Confidence: Am I Confident? Why or Why not? 

As a rider, are you capable and do you have the competence – the ability – to achieve the goals you have set? If you are not feeling confident, it’s important to think about why. Are you physically strong enough? Are you showing at a level appropriate for you and your horse? Mentally, are you focusing on the positive or are you doubting yourself? 

Confidence increases as we acknowledge the positives about ourselves and our riding; no one ever got better by thinking, “I suck.” 

To develop confidence, Held suggests “flipping the script.” Start by writing down three good things that happened after every single ride. At first, it might be difficult, but what happens, quickly, is that as a rider, you begin to look for the “three things,” and finding those “three things” becomes a pattern of how you think positively overall about your riding. 

Control: Am I focusing on the things I can control, or the things I cannot control? 

With horses and horse showing, there is a lot we cannot control: weather, our horse’s mood, judging, other competitors, behavior of other people’s horses, and a big one, other people’s opinions. Centering our thinking on these things, which are out of our control, can take away from our mental focus, and our ability to perform to our best. 

So, it’s important to, instead, center our focus on the things that we can control: our preparation, our outlook, our warm up, and our pre-performance routine before we get in the saddle. Essentially, we can control our mindset. Between things happening that are not in your control and your response, there is a space for you to decide how you are going to respond. 

For example, if you wake up on show day and it’s raining, how do you respond? Rain is out of our control, and a response of “woe is me, the day is going to be awful,” isn’t a positive or actionable reaction. Instead, train your brain to think, “Here is this thing that is happening, it’s raining. What steps can I take to make this a comfortable day?” Instead of assigning positive or negative attributes to things out of your control, form an action plan and stick to it. 

Importantly, Held asserts, peak performance lives in the present moment. When you focus on things you can’t control, you burn mental energy that is hard to replenish. Focus, instead, on things that are positive actions instead of reactions. A question to ask yourself is, “Am I focusing on the things I can’t control? If so, I need to double down on the things I can control.”

And, Dr. Held pointed out, sometimes we need to evaluate what is happening and change more than just our mindset. If a rider is throwing up every time they step in the ring at a horse show, the right action might be to step back from showing for a bit. Horse shows are meant to be fun. 

Challenge: Do I view the obstacle in front of me as a challenge or a threat? 

As prey animals, humans are hardwired to look for threats. If we look at the psychological needs of humans, safety is number one. The amygdala is a paired structure inside our brain that is a key part of emotional control. When we feel fear, our amygdala is activated, and our brain makes snap decisions about what to do next. Its goal is to keep us safe, seeking the choice that will get us away from perceived danger with minimal harm.

Early Human: If I think a rustle in the bush is a saber tooth tiger, I’m getting out. 

Equestrians: If I go to a show and worry about what is going to happen today, my brain is going to look for what might go wrong and kick into a fear response. 

With horses, as mentioned early, fear is linked to real, possible danger. If you fall off and feel fear, that is normal. Riding is dangerous, so it is understandable when we feel fear. But how we manage that fear can be the difference between success and failure. 

Freezing at horse shows is a real response. It can happen because a horse is misbehaving, a rider suffers from social anxiety, or simply fear of failure. Techniques for riders who need to rewire the fear response involve thinking about their pre-performance state. 

We can use mental exercises to imagine ourselves in scenarios that are frightening, and practice managing the things that frighten us when we’re in a non-fear driven state. 

To start, you can think about what goes through your head when you are being successful at home. Work with your coach to create cue words or a mental script that you can run through to help you prevent a mental short circuit when the amygdala kicks into a fear-driven response. 

The fear response is real, but being able to manage how you respond to your body telling you it’s time to run, when it’s really time to focus and ride as well as you ride at home, takes thoughtful practice, prior to heading to a horse show. Mental preparation to help your brain redirect perceived threats as challenges is a key to managing fear when away from home.  

Commitment: Am I committed to overcoming the obstacles that are in front of me? 

Goals are important. Without them, we can wander a bit aimlessly. But, an important thing to recognize is that goals, especially with horses, can and do fall apart. But values hold us steady, no matter what. A goal might be, “Attend three shows this year to be eligible for a year-end award.” A value is, “I am a dedicated horsewoman, and I care for my horse’s mental and physical well-being.” 

If you are scheduled to ride at a show, for example, and your horse ends up with an abscess, the rider who focuses on the loss of a weekend is focusing on the goals. The rider who understands the value of horsemanship knows that in the long term, there will be another weekend, and focuses on the welfare of their horse rather than being discouraged about a short term goal not being met. 

Another way that our goals can get in the way of our own success is by letting expectations drive our reactions. Pressure happens when we couple expectations with fear of failure. There are a lot of perceived consequences in the horse world. If a rider goes into a test getting caught up in what score they get, that’s pressure and it can get in the way of performance. Sports psychology research tells us that athletes who are task-oriented, or focused on the process instead of the outcome (riding a personal best test versus achieving a specific score) tend to be more successful. 

The net of understanding commitment as it relates to “mental toughness” is understanding that we must couch our longer term goals by facing and growing from short term challenges. Feeling discouraged is natural and human, but building a mental mindset where we face challenges without allowing them to stop our forward momentum is mental toughness.  

Conclusion

Mental toughness does not mean a win-at-all-costs mentality. Mental toughness means finding your core values, recognizing where your mental game needs work, and putting in the pre-work to face challenges to our success as equestrians. 

As equestrians, we put a tremendous amount of time and energy into training ourselves and our horses. Training our “mental toughness” also takes time and energy, in order to develop strategies to overcome the barriers to our success. 

For more information, please visit the The Whole Equestrian website where you can find the Whole Equestrian Podcast as well as contact information for Dr. Held.