Strengthen Your Mental Game

Prepare your mind for peak performances with your horse by implementing these tips from reining trainer Shane Brown

- SHANE BROWN

My philosophy toward competition is to stay positive as much as we can because we tend to sabotage ourselves. We're hard enough on ourselves as it is. So finding good things about our riding, using mental exercises that will keep us in a positive place, and having a mental game plan are all important. It's just as key for us as riders to have a mental game plan for ourselves and our horses, as it is to have a plan for how we'll physically prepare our horses to show.

Slow It Down

Performance events such as reining and cow horse are very fast-paced. Something I've found helpful for riders in these disciplines is trying out ranch riding. The ranch riding is slowed down a gear, and you purposely want to take your time in some places. You don't want to rush.

So going into an arena to show in ranch riding, you can see how you can mentally slow down and not be in a hurry. I've found that makes you a better reiner and cow horse competitor because you learn how to be more patient, think through each maneuver, and separate the maneuvers as well.

Handle Errors

If something goes wrong, learning to mentally tell yourself 'that maneuver is done, I'm not going to dwell on the mistake we made' and being able to move on to the next one is key.

Often, an open competitor can mark two points higher on a non-pro horse than the non-pro can. Why is that? It's because when a non-pro rider performs a stop, and they have a -1 score on that stop, they start to focus more on that stop instead of planning for the next two stops.