Reflecting on the Nationals.....

  

  Now the horses are qualified for the Dressage Regionals and Louis next event is in a few weeks there is some time to reflect back on the British Dressage Nationals....

I qualified four horses, Daya, Finn, Bing and Louis all for the Advanced Medium Restricted Class, Bing and Daya for the Advanced Medium Music and Bing also qualified for the Meidum Open and Medium Open Music. 

It was a very busy Nationals and I was very relieved to have such a big efficient team who took care of the horses wonderfully- Thank you.

In the lead up to the Nationals I worked with Lisa Sparrowhawk who gave me performance coaching. I have been working with Lisa since the start of the year which helped me focus at the Regionals in February where I had to ride 10 different tests on four different horses. 

With the Nationals fast approaching it was time for a meeting with Lisa....I was very set on the outcome I wanted and was stressed as there was so many variables and things that could go wrong having four horses in one class with forty minutes between each test. Lisa helped me understand that when you purely focus on the end result what often happens is your internal dialogue and unconscious mind focus on not achieving the result/outcome you are looking for....the effect of this is that your performance suffers. So we shifted my mindset and focussed on all the small details that would result in an overall good performance. We mapped out each small step and stage of the competition and then used some visualisation techniques so I could get in 'The Zone' easily...after doing this I was filled with calm and felt positive going to the Nationals. Between each test I made sure I refocussed using visualisation techniques before getting on and starting to warm up the next horse. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and felt so lucky to have four fantastic horses at the Nationals and I couldn't have wished for a better result.

Daya Won on 69.56%

Affinity Bay was 2nd on 68.55%

Urbanus was 7th on 66.52%