Keeping your head before the cross-country bell rings

Waiting for your cross-country start time has a strange kind of weight to it. You have done the work, the dressage is behind you, the rails in the show jumping are cleared, and now there is nothing between you and the long format except a clock and your own thoughts. For riders in Australia, that waiting is often spent in the shade of a truck at Werribee, on a folding chair at the Adelaide Horse Trials, or pacing the lorry park at Sydney, where the spring sun can feel deceptively gentle until a southerly buster rolls in off the harbour.

It is normal for focus to fracture during the wait. Your legs feel odd, your horse looks too fresh, then too quiet, and your brain starts running the course in a loop that loses its shape. The trick is not to ignore the nerves, it is to give them somewhere useful to go. Over years of scribbling in notebooks between phases, I have picked up a handful of habits that help turn those jittery minutes into something steadier.

This piece walks through the routines, breath work, course visualisation, people management, weather preparation and final-minute rituals that keep my mind where I need it to be. None of it is fancy. Most of it is the kind of thing you can do in jeans and a team jacket while your horse grazes on a haynet.

The hour before: practical routines that anchor you

An hour out from your start, the simplest thing you can do for your brain is to give your body a job. I tidy the lorry. I check the studs again. I lay out the bridle, the gloves, the body protector, the number bib and the air vest so they sit in the order I will put them on. That little sequence is a ritual, and rituals lower the heart rate faster than any pep talk.

I also write down the times I need. Not in my head, on paper. First call, second call, the actual start, the optimum, the minutes per fence. The pen scratches the page and somehow my thoughts come with it. I have a friend who braids a plait in her horse's forelock over and over, unplaiting it to start again. Anything repetitive and physical works. The goal is to occupy the part of your brain that likes to worry so the part that knows how to ride can stay clear.

If you are competing with family, hand them a job too. Hold the towel. Fetch the water. Time the next walk. People feel less anxious when their hands are busy, and that includes partners, parents and very patient siblings who have driven you to the event.

Breathing and body awareness in the warm-up ring

The warm-up is where the nerves either sharpen or unravel you. The trick is to notice where your breath is sitting before you ask your horse to canter a single stride. Most riders, including me, hold the breath high in the chest when they are nervous. Shallow breathing tightens the shoulders, which tightens the rein, which makes the horse behind you brace.

I try to drop my breath low. Three slow exhales through the nose, long enough that the ribs soften at the bottom. I do it sitting still on a loose rein before I pick up trot, and again at every walk break. By the time I am cantering practice fences, my elbows feel heavier, my seat sits deeper, and my horse feels it too. He stops rushing. He starts listening.

Body awareness does not have to mean yoga. It can be as simple as unclenching your jaw, releasing your knees, letting your heel drop a fraction, or uncurling your fingers between fences. Riders are athletes, but we are also passengers, and the passenger has to be the calmest thing in the partnership. A minute spent noticing tension is a minute you do not spend fighting your horse later.

Visualising the course one fence at a time

Course walks are the single best thing you can do for your focus, and the worst thing, because they flood your head with information. After a thorough walk at somewhere like Melbourne Three-Day Event or a smaller grassroots run at Boneo, my mind tends to be a soup of questions. What if the corner comes up too fast. What if the trakehner pulls. What if I get there in six and need seven.

The trick is to visualise one fence at a time, not the whole track. Sitting in the lorry, I close my eyes and walk a single combination in my head. I see the stride, the line, the balance, the rhythm. Then I open my eyes, write one word about it on my glove or my hand, and move on. By the time I have cycled through the course, I have a string of single words that I can read on the way to the box. Stride. Wait. Push. Quiet. Half-halt.

This is also where music helps some riders. A song with a steady tempo that matches your canter can lock the beat into your body. Other riders prefer silence, or the sound of their own horse breathing behind them. There is no right answer, only the one that suits your nervous system.

Managing other riders, well-wishers and your own inner voice

Eventing is a community sport, and the holding area is full of people who mean well. Coaches, friends, your mother, the friend who has already gone and wants to tell you every stride of her round. They are all there with love in their faces and advice in their mouths.

Years ago I made the rule that I do not take technical advice in the last twenty minutes before cross-country. I will smile, I will hug, I will accept a coffee, but I will not change my plan because someone is excited. If my coach has a last-minute note, she writes it down. If my partner wants to say something encouraging, he says it and walks away. The quieter my last conversation, the cleaner my head.

The harder voice to manage is the one inside. Riders are excellent at telling themselves stories, and most of them are not kind. I have started replacing the script with a few blunt phrases. One fence at a time. Trust the prep. He is with me. They sound simple, even childish, in the holding area at Wallaby Hill or wherever you may be lining up, but they push out the spiral. The spiral does not need fuel.

Weather, layers and staying comfortable in the holding box

Australian weather during the eventing season is a moving target. You can be roasting in September at Maitland, then shivering through a southerly change at Geelong the next weekend. I learned the hard way that being physically uncomfortable is one of the fastest ways to lose focus. Cold fingers fumble with gloves. A damp body protector feels heavier with every minute. An overheated horse starts jigging.

Dressing in layers is the obvious move, but the real skill is knowing when to strip off. I start the warm-up in a polar fleece and a vest, peel down to a base layer before cantering, and have a clean dry layer ready to put on the moment I dismount. For winter events in particular, I always pack one extra complete set of kit in a dry bag, because nothing frays the nerves like pulling a damp jacket on when you are already running hot.

If you are heading somewhere truly chilly, like a high-country horse trial in the southern states, a dedicated guide on how to stay warm at a cold weather event is worth a read before you load the float. Warm hands, warm toes, and a properly zipped body protector can be the difference between a sharp start and a sluggish one.

The final minutes: what to do when your number is called

When the steward calls your number, everything you have built in the previous hour either holds or collapses. I have a very small routine for this window. I mount up. I check my girth one last time, then I check it again after ten steps because girths always need a second tighten. I walk a circle on a long rein. I let my horse see the flowers, the judges' box, the dressage letters, anything that stops the first sight of the start flags being a surprise.

I say one phrase out loud, usually the name of the first fence. I have done this at Adelaide Horse Trials and at tiny agricultural shows across regional New South Wales, and it works the same way both places. Naming the first commitment out loud turns my brain from commentator to rider. After that, the course speaks for itself.

I do not look at the clock. I do not check the optimum time. I look at my horse's ears, I feel his back under the saddle, and I let the canter come. The start box is just a doorway. Everything that matters has already happened in the waiting.

If you have read this far, you have already done the hardest part of cross-country, which is showing up to the start box with your brain intact. The rest is just the next fence, and the next one, and the one after that. Follow along here at Mania in the Middle for more honest recaps from horse trials across the country, the messy bits and the magic ones, and if something in your own warm-up routine needs a tune-up, the comments are always open. I will see you at the next event.