How to Prepare Your Brain for Change
By Kristi Seymour, LPC, MBA
Every few years, dressage riders face a familiar challenge: learning an entirely new set of tests. The movements may be familiar. The horse’s training hasn’t suddenly changed. The rider still possesses the same skills developed through countless lessons, schooling sessions, and competitions. Yet a new test can make even an experienced rider feel unexpectedly uncertain.
Why?
Because changing a familiar pattern requires more than memorizing new letters and movements. It requires the brain to adapt, attention to shift, and the nervous system to tolerate uncertainty. With the 2027 US dressage tests taking effect December 1, 2026, riders have an opportunity to prepare not only their horses but also their minds.
Why Familiarity Matters to the Brain
Think about riding a test you know exceptionally well. You approach the next movement almost automatically. You know where you are going, what preparation is required, and how the movements connect. That familiarity reduces the amount of conscious effort required to navigate the test. Your attention can remain available for the horse beneath you: the rhythm, balance, connection, straightness, and quality of the transitions.
Now imagine riding a new test.
Instead of anticipating the next movement effortlessly, you may find yourself mentally rehearsing the sequence while simultaneously trying to maintain the horse’s performance. Is the transition at this letter or the next one? Did I remember the change of direction? What comes after the lengthening?
Suddenly, you are managing several competing demands.
Here is where neuroscience gets interesting
Your working memory is the brain’s limited-capacity mental workspace. It allows you to temporarily hold and manipulate information, such as remembering that the next movement begins at H while preparing your horse for the transition.
The prefrontal cortex plays an important role in directing attention, maintaining goals, and managing competing demands. But working memory has limits. When a rider is simultaneously remembering a new test, adjusting their horse’s balance, listening to a trainer’s instructions, and worrying about making a mistake, those demands compete for attentional resources.
There is another fascinating complication. Well-practiced motor skills become increasingly automatic with experience. But under pressure, athletes sometimes begin consciously monitoring movements that normally occur with much less deliberate thought. Researchers call this explicit monitoring or reinvestment. Instead of simply riding the half-pass, you begin thinking about every individual aid while also trying to remember where the movement ends. You have not forgotten how to ride a half-pass. Your attention is simply being divided among too many competing tasks. Anxiety can make this more difficult by drawing attention toward worry and perceived threats, leaving fewer resources available for the task itself.
This is why learning a new dressage test is not merely a memory exercise. It is also an exercise in managing attention, cognitive load, and the balance between conscious planning and automatic performance.
Your Nervous System Does Not Know It’s Just a New Test
A new dressage test is not inherently threatening. But the brain’s response depends partly on how the rider interprets the situation. One rider sees the new tests as an interesting challenge. Another thinks, What if I forget the pattern in front of the judge?
A third worries about disappointing a trainer, not getting year-end award scores, or making an embarrassing mistake. The circumstances may be identical, but the nervous-system responses can be very different.
When a rider perceives pressure, their physiological activation may increase. Their breathing can become shallow, their muscles may tighten, and their attention can narrow toward perceived mistakes or threats. These change your ride!
In The Regulated Rider, I explore how different nervous-system states influence what riders notice, how they interpret information, and how effectively they respond to their horses.
Consider two riders who forget the same movement. One becomes increasingly activated, rushes the next transition, tightens the reins, and tries to regain control by doing more. The other becomes mentally overwhelmed, hesitates, loses the sequence, and struggles to make a decision.
Same mistake. Different nervous-system responses.
And here is the important distinction: The regulation strategy that helps one rider may not be the strategy the other rider needs.
A highly activated rider may benefit from reducing their physiological arousal and widening their attention. A rider experiencing a freeze-like response may need a different approach that supports them doing things to orient themselves, engage their body, and respond.
In The Regulated Rider, I use a four-state framework to help riders recognize these patterns, understand how they affect communication with the horse, and select practical strategies matched to what they are experiencing.
The goal is not to label yourself or eliminate every uncomfortable emotion. It is to recognize when your nervous system is beginning to interfere with your riding—and know what to do next.
Five Ways to Prepare Your Brain for the New Tests
1. Learn the Pattern Before Adding Performance Pressure
One of the most effective ways to reduce unnecessary cognitive demands is to separate learning the test from performing it. Before expecting yourself to ride a new pattern beautifully, learn its structure. Walk the test on foot. Draw it on paper. Divide it into meaningful sections. Notice where movements begin, where preparation is needed, and how one movement connects to the next.
Then practice recalling the sequence without constantly referring to the written test.
The goal is not simply memorization. It is to make the pattern familiar enough that remembering it no longer consumes most of your attention.
2. Practice Mental Rehearsal
Visualization can help riders become familiar with a new sequence before entering the arena. But effective rehearsal involves more than picturing a perfect test.
Imagine entering at A. Feel the rhythm of your horse’s movement. Picture the arena letters and the line you intend to ride. Mentally rehearse preparing for each transition and maintaining your connection through changes of direction. Include the sensory details of riding rather than watching yourself from a distance. You can also rehearse recovering from a small mistake. Perhaps a transition happens later than intended. Instead of mentally having anxiety or feeling like you have a crisis, imagine recognizing the error, reorganizing your attention, and preparing for the next movement. This teaches a VERY important psychological skill: a mistake does not have to determine what happens next.
3. Recognize Your State Before You Ride
Before beginning a schooling session, take a moment to notice your nervous system.
Ask yourself: Am I breathing comfortably, or am I holding my breath? Is my jaw relaxed or clenched? Are my shoulders and thighs soft enough to follow my horse? Can I take in my surroundings and respond to what is happening? Am I thinking about the order of movements in front of me and/or worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet?
These observations are not simply a relaxation checklist. They are clues about your current functional state—and the kind of intervention that may actually help.
If you notice tension or feeling activated, try a comfortable, slightly longer exhale through your mouth like you are blowing out a candle, soften your jaw, and widen your visual attention to include more of the arena. If focusing on your breathing is uncomfortable, use an external grounding cue instead, such as noticing the arena letters or feeling the rhythm of your horse’s walk. The objective is not to eliminate every sensation of nervousness. It is to restore enough regulation to ride effectively
4. Train Your Recovery, Not Just Your Accuracy
Dressage riders often devote considerable energy to avoiding mistakes, but an equally important performance skill is recovering from them. Imagine riding a new test and briefly forgetting the next movement. Your immediate reaction might be frustration, embarrassment, or panic. Your shoulders tighten. You become preoccupied with the error because the timing with your horse now feels off and you have to catch up to execute the next movement. This is exactly where recovery becomes essential. Rather than analyzing what went wrong while the horse is still moving, redirect your attention to what you can influence.
Feel your seat. Notice your horse’s rhythm. Exhale with one of your horse’s back feet footfall. Identify the next appropriate task. In my work with riders, I emphasize a simple principle: The next stride matters more than the last mistake. You cannot change the movement you just rode. You can influence how you ride the next one. Practicing this response during schooling helps develop a more adaptable performance mindset.
5. Rehearse Under Manageable Pressure
Once you know the test, gradually introduce elements that resemble competition. Ride the pattern without stopping. Ask your trainer to observe. Practice with someone watching from the side of the arena. Occasionally ride the test after a normal warm-up rather than rehearsing every movement immediately beforehand.
These experiences introduce manageable uncertainty. The objective is not to overwhelm yourself. It is to become familiar with performing while experiencing some activation. Afterward, evaluate more than whether the movements were correct.
Ask: Did I remain aware of my horse? When did my attention shift? Did I recover after a mistake? What helped me return to effective riding? These questions help transform each schooling session into an opportunity to strengthen both technical performance and psychological flexibility.
Your Horse Still Needs You
Perhaps the most important thing to note is that your horse does not know the test has changed. Your horse responds to the information you provide through your seat, legs, hands, balance, timing, and preparation.
When your attention becomes consumed by remembering the pattern or worrying about a mistake, the clarity of your communication may suffer. This does not mean every moment of rider anxiety automatically creates anxiety in the horse. Horse-rider interactions are more complex than that. It does mean that changes your tension, timing, and consistency can influence the quality of the aids your horse receives.
A New Test Is an Opportunity to Develop a New Skill
The introduction of the 2027 dressage tests gives riders a practical opportunity to examine how they respond to change. Do you become frustrated when familiar patterns disappear? Do you rush to master something new? Does uncertainty make you question skills you already possess? Or can you approach the learning process with curiosity, flexibility, and patience?
These questions extend well beyond dressage.
The ability to remain functional under pressure, adapt to unfamiliar demands, and recover after mistakes is central to athletic performance and well, life. You do not need a perfectly calm nervous system to ride a successful test. You need the ability to recognize what is happening, respond appropriately, and return your attention to the horse and the movement in front of you.
The tests may be new. Your nervous system is the same. But the way you work with it can improve.
About the Author
Kristi Seymour, LPC, MBA, is a licensed clinical therapist, equestrian sports performance coach, lifelong competitive rider, and author of The Equestrian Mind and The Regulated Rider: Understanding Your Nervous System, Your Horse and Yourself.
She is also the creator of EquiMind, a mobile application focused on rider mental performance and nervous-system regulation. Her work translates clinical psychology and performance science into practical tools for riders and trainers.
References
Seymour, K. (2026). The Regulated Rider: Understanding Your Nervous System, Your Horse and Yourself.
United States Dressage Federation (2026). 2027 US Dressage Tests. Effective December 1, 2026.
Wilson, M. (2008). From processing efficiency to attentional control: A mechanistic account of the anxiety–performance relationship. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1(2), 184–201.
