When your mates beat you to the ribbons: handling envy in the eventing world

You have spent months preparing for this weekend. Your horse feels good, you have done the homework, and you are ready. Then you watch your best friend float through a double clear round in the show jumping phase while you pick up four faults. That knot in your stomach is not just disappointment, it is a sharp, prickly envy that you wish you could shake. Every rider knows this feeling, even the ones who pretend they do not.

Jealousy is one of the most common emotional struggles in eventing, particularly in Australia where the community is tight-knit and riders often travel long distances to compete together. Whether you are heading to a local ODE in the Adelaide Hills or a big three-day event further afield, the chances are high that someone you know will outscore you on the day. Learning to handle that emotion without letting it poison your love of the sport is a skill worth developing.

The green-eyed monster is part of the sport

First things first: feeling envious when a fellow rider does well does not make you a bad person. It makes you human. Eventing is a sport built on measurable outcomes. There are scores, times, and placings printed on boards and posted online. Your performance is ranked against your peers in a very public way. It is only natural that a competitive person would feel a sting when someone they ride with, train with, and socialise with beats them.

The unique thing about eventing compared to other sports is how close you are to your competitors. You might be warming up next to someone in the dressage arena, and then you watch them execute a test that leaves the judge nodding. You might be waiting at the start box while your mate gallops past on cross-country, their ears pricked, flying over the fences you struggled with. The visibility of the performance makes the emotional response immediate and raw. In a sport where we often say it is you against yourself, the reality is that you are also competing against the rider in the next stall.

Why comparison creeps in

Comparison does not happen in a vacuum. In today's world, it is amplified by social media, where a winning round gets shared within minutes, complete with slow-motion replays and glowing captions. You scroll through Instagram after a tough day and see your training buddy grinning with a rug and a sash, while you are still scrubbing the green sweat off your horse. The contrast can feel brutal.

Beyond the digital world, the culture of eventing often ties a rider's identity to their results. If you are someone who has built their self-esteem around being a good rider, a poor performance can feel like a personal failure. When your mate succeeds, it inadvertently highlights what you perceive as your own shortcomings. This is especially true in the Australian eventing scene, where many riders balance work, family, and horses, and pour limited time and money into the sport. The pressure to make every outing count is high, and the disappointment when it does not is proportional.

Shifting your focus back to your own journey

One of the most effective ways to manage envy is to redirect your attention to your own path. Instead of fixating on your friend's score, look at your competition schedule and identify what you are working toward. Are you aiming for a specific qualifying score? Are you building towards a long-term goal with a young horse? When you reconnect with your personal objectives, the noise of comparison starts to fade.

It also helps to process the emotion rather than swallow it. Talk to your coach, your partner, or a trusted mate about how you are feeling. Many Australian riders have a tradition of debriefing over a beer or a coffee at the canteen after the last phase. Naming the feeling as envy, rather than pretending you are fine, takes away its power. You might also keep a training journal where you note the small wins: a better canter transition, a more balanced half-pass, a horse that finally understood the question. These entries serve as a reminder that progress is not always reflected in the placings on the day.

Leaning on the mateship of the eventing community

Australia has a strong tradition of mateship, and that extends into the equestrian community. At most local events, you will see riders helping each other set up jumps, holding horses, and offering words of encouragement regardless of how they finished. This culture of looking out for one another is one of the best antidotes to envy. When you genuinely support someone else's success, you train your brain to feel pleasure from their win rather than threat.

If you find yourself struggling with envy, consider volunteering to help your mate at their next event, or offering to be their groom for the day. You will see up close the work that goes into their success, and you might gain a deeper appreciation for the effort behind the ribbons. Additionally, working on your own physical preparation through targeted rider biomechanics training can boost your confidence and give you a sense of agency over your performance. When you feel stronger in your own body, you are less likely to be threatened by someone else's results.

Building a healthier relationship with competition

Ultimately, dealing with jealousy is about redefining what success means to you. If your sense of worth is entirely tied to a placing, you will always be vulnerable to envy whenever someone else does well. But if you can expand your definition of success to include the partnership with your horse, your growth as a rider, and your contribution to the community, you create a buffer against the inevitable ups and downs of competition.

This shift takes time and intentionality. It might mean setting process goals rather than outcome goals. It might mean celebrating a clear cross-country round even if the dressage score was not what you hoped. It might mean being grateful that your horse came home safe and sound, sound enough to try again next weekend. In a sport where horses are unpredictable and the elements, from the heat in January to the flies in March, can throw curveballs, focusing on what you can control is the only sane way forward.

If you are tired of letting envy steal your joy, start by acknowledging the feeling, then take small steps to refocus on your own goals and lean on the people who want to see you succeed. The ribbons are a bonus, but the ride is the thing. Share your own stories of dealing with competitive feelings through the site, or send them through to KC for a future post. Until next time, keep your legs on and your heart soft.