01/12/2026
A performance coach I know once said to me that the biggest difference she saw between the average amateur and the average professional is that the professionals aren’t as afraid to screw up.
I don’t mean screw up in a way that’s mean to their horse, of course, but an amateur is more likely to hang on with the reins to keep Dobbin from falling out of a connection, whereas a professional is more likely to drop the horse, even if it means Dobbin comes off the bit. On a horse that is chronically insufficiently forward, the professional is more likely to see what happens if she tells that horse to really giddyup for a moment, even if it means the horse ends up going too fast, or past their natural rhythm and making a mistake 🤷♀️
If you overcorrect and swing the pendulum of whatever you’re working on too far, you aren’t sent to Dressage Jail. It just means that that’s not the answer either, and you keep plugging away. But no one has ever ruined a horse’s education by (kindly, fairly!) accidentally correcting too much in the opposite direction of the way it’s not working.
