Mastering focus through every phase of eventing

Across a three-day event, the fittest horse and the most polished technique can still unravel if the rider's mind drifts for a single stride. The mental game quietly decides ribbons in dressage arenas from Adelaide to Aachen, and it rewards riders who treat concentration the way they treat galloping sets — as a trainable skill. Eventers who place at venues like Melbourne International Three Day Event or the Sydney International Three Day Event tend to share one habit: a written, practiced plan for staying present.

For Australian riders especially, focus is tested long before the start box. Crossing time zones for northern-hemisphere seasons, hauling horses across the Nullarbor, or working through the spring calendar at Werribee Park National Equestrian Centre all demand energy that must be rationed. The mind, like a young horse, responds to clear cues, repetition and patient recovery.

Building routines that stick

A reliable pre-ride routine acts like a personal warm-up arena. Riders who arrive with a familiar sequence — checking the course map, walking the first three fences, adjusting girths in the same order, listening to one song — give the brain a settled place to land. The ritual does not need to be elaborate; it only needs to be repeatable.

Australian riders often layer routines around practical realities. Cooling a horse after a long float from regional NSW, dealing with sudden southerly changes at Ballarat, or squeezing a schooling session between meetings in Brisbane all shape how much mental bandwidth remains. Writing the routine down, even on the back of a feed receipt, turns scattered habits into a script the nervous system can recognise on competition morning.

Visualisation sharpens that script. Spending five minutes each evening picturing the dressage test, the cross-country questions and the jumping track trains the brain to fire the same pathways it will on the day. Pairing the practice with slow breathing — four seconds in, six seconds out — drops the heart rate and signals safety to a body braced for effort.

Dressage: quiet mind, quiet horse

Dressage asks the rider to be still while the horse moves, which is the most cognitively demanding paradox in the sport. A judge in the C box at Boneham Park or the Sydney Dressage Club can feel a wandering mind within a single transition. The remedy is micro-focus: pick one body part for each movement and keep returning to it.

Common focal points include the inside heel, the corners of the mouth, or the rhythm of the breath. If attention slips after a trot half-pass, riders can use a quiet reset word — "soft", "flow", "down" — to bring the brain back without disturbing the horse. This kind of cue is best trained at home, before any contact is taken, so the rider's recovery is automatic by the time the judge presses the button.

Honest self-talk helps too. Eventers prone to inner commentary can swap "don't mess up the canter pirouette" for "ride the canter pirouette". The first phrase plants a picture of failure; the second plants a picture of execution. Over weeks of schooling, the inner narrator shifts, and the rider enters the arena already half a mark ahead.

Cross-country: reading the course and yourself

Cross-country is where focus gets loud. Hooves drumming over brown Victorian clay, crowds at the Adelaide Three-Day Event calling encouragement, and fences rising out of long grass all compete for the rider's attention. Successful runners know that the first 100 metres after the start box set the tone for the rest of the course.

A useful framework is to walk the course three times with three different intentions: once for the line, once for the gear, once for the rhythm. Each walk trains a different layer of attention, and by the third pass the brain holds a richer picture than any single inspection could provide. Riders who walk with a state squad coach or a trusted friend often catch details they would have missed alone.

Pre-jump focus also matters. Many eventers count strides aloud before a related distance or whisper a single word — "ride", "wait", "balance" — before a drop fence. Studying pieces like this overview of top five cross country fences every eventer should know helps riders match their mental cue to the type of question, so the right word arrives at the right gap.

Show jumping: recovering from a cross-country run

Show jumping on the final day is often where focus is thinnest. Legs are heavy, the horse may be fresh, and the rider's body still remembers the cross-country speed. The mental task here is recovery: letting the previous phase go so it does not contaminate the next.

A short on-site reset helps. Riders can sit on a mounting block for two minutes after warm-up, drink water, and mentally file the day's cross-country as finished. Crossing it off a notepad, even symbolically, tells the brain the chapter is closed. A tight warm-up pattern — three poles, three cross-rails, three verticals, three oxers — gives focus a clear runway before the buzzer.

Small comforts matter for those who travel long distances. A familiar jacket, the same brand of glove, or a playlist queued for the jog-up can steady a tired mind. Some competitors plan their show-day outfits in advance by browsing the Stilettos and Sequins blog, removing one more decision from a packed morning and freeing the brain for the round ahead.

Travel, time zones and off-site focus

Australian riders face a unique mental load: the southern-hemisphere calendar runs opposite to Europe and North America, and many chase points by flying to events in the UK, Germany or the United States. Sleep, hydration and light exposure become part of the training plan rather than afterthoughts.

Before a long-haul flight, riders can shift their sleep window by an hour each night for a week, pack an eye mask and a familiar pillow, and schedule demanding schooling sessions in the new timezone. Once on the ground, morning light and short afternoon naps reset the body clock faster than willpower alone. Riders who build these habits into their spring tours often arrive at the first trot-up already adjusted.

At home, the off-season is when mental skills are built. Quiet winter weekends in regional Victoria, Tasmania or the Adelaide Hills are ideal for journaling about what worked, what cracked under pressure and which routines need tweaking. Reading, yoga or short meditation sessions fill the same role as cross-country schooling: they give the mind the practice it needs before the real test arrives.

Habits that strengthen eventing focus

• Write down your pre-ride routine and follow it in the same order at every competition, from a local horse trial at Gidgegannup to a CCI4* in Adelaide.
• Practise box-breathing or four-by-six breathing twice daily so the pattern is automatic when pressure rises.
• Walk cross-country three times with three different intentions — line, gear, rhythm — rather than once for everything.
• Keep a short focus word for each phase, such as "soft" for dressage, "ride" for cross-country and "forward" for show jumping.
• Schedule sleep, hydration and light exposure as carefully as galloping sets when flying to a northern-hemisphere season.

Dom and Jimmie Schramm share their routines, schooling notes and competition plans through regular stories on Schramm Equestrian, where emerging eventers can follow the pair's progress from Pennsylvania to international fixtures. Riders building their own mental toolkit can explore the site's archive for course-walking tips, travel diaries and the practical advice that keeps a competition day on track.