Introducing The Champion Zone
I still remember the feeling at the start of a cross-country course when I was a junior.
Walking around the start box, heart pounding in my helmet, waiting to start, asking myself why on earth I had agreed to do this — again. I often felt almost nauseous with nerves, and there were a few times I very nearly talked myself out of competing altogether.
It didn’t help that the horse I was riding, Forge Ahead, was a chestnut thoroughbred who was utterly WILD at the start. Nearly 40 years later, I can see how much of that behaviour I was actually contributing to — simply by not being able to manage or regulate my own emotions.
My attention was everywhere. I was distracted, anxious, and I’m pretty sure I looked pale and green.
At the time, I had no idea that it was even possible to present myself at the start in a different — or better — state of mind.
Fast forward more than 40 years.
Walking into the arena with Jazzy to jump our first one-metre class, after years of learning and growing as a rider — and as a mental skills coach who understands the importance of mental preparation for peak performance — I probably still looked pretty pale. Possibly even green.
But internally, the state I was riding from was entirely different.
I was focused on the present moment. I remembered to take several steadying, grounding breaths.
There was time and space. I felt connected. I was able to notice, adjust, and stay with what was happening stride by stride.
That clear round didn’t happen because I wanted it less, or because I “didn’t care so much”. It happened because I was no longer reacting from a state of emergency. I was able to regulate myself and stay in — or close to — the ZONE of peak performance.
Between those two moments sit decades of lived experience in high-performance environments, and very intentional work on understanding state.
State is the internal platform you ride from.
It’s the combination of:
your nervous system
your focus
your emotional tone
your relationship with pressure
And it determines far more than most riders realise.
As competition season approaches, I see a familiar pattern:
Most riders train skills.
Some train fitness.
Very few train the state they ride and compete from.
Yet that state determines:
decision-making
feel and timing
adaptability under pressure
consistency across rounds and days
In my work, I tend to see two broad patterns when riders arrive at the warm-up and walk into the main arena — and neither is uncommon.
The first is the rider who has very little awareness of state at all.
They arrive feeling frazzled and rushed, their system already overloaded. They look busy — frantic even. Inside, there’s a level of anxiety they haven’t yet recognised or named. Because of that, they struggle to regulate their nervous system enough to settle, breathe, and truly feel their horse.
They’re doing their best — but riding from this state makes it hard to access timing, feel or adaptability. A passable performance can feel like an achievement, while a peak performance feels out of reach.
The second pattern looks very different on the surface.
This rider is organised, prepared, often perfectionistic. Notes have been written, revised, and rewritten. Strategies are memorised. Videos have been watched and rewatched. Anxiety-control tools are well understood. They care deeply — wildly, madly — because this performance matters.
And without realising it, they begin to overthink and overcook.
What was set up to be a beautiful performance from a Champion’s Zone of peak readiness becomes a push-and-pull, heroic quest for the holy grail of half-decent strides.
It turns into a quiet grind. Holding on. Pushing through. Managing rather than riding. And the self-doubt and loss of confidence that follows can make even the most experienced rider quake in their well-polished boots.
Interestingly, either of these states can still result in a reasonable day at the show.
Riders often begin to believe that this is it — the best they can hope for under pressure.
But it isn’t.
When time is spent deliberately producing the state required for peak performance, something shifts. Those many hours of technical training and fitness work begin to click seamlessly into place. Decision-making sharpens. Feel becomes accessible. Effort drops away.
This is where flow lives.
And flow is what allows riders to enter the ZONE of peak performance.
I suspect you can recall moments like this — even if you’ve been struggling to access them on demand lately.
This is where I introduce you to The Champion Zone — the place where Forging Ahead Mental Skills Coaching supports riders just like you to recognise, train, and return to their optimal performance state.
If you’re curious about what becomes possible when state is trained as deliberately as skill and fitness, get in touch. You will notice the difference.
