Ep 355: Developing & Testing Your Horse’s Mental Toughness
We spend a lot of time talking about getting our horses physically prepared for competition. We condition them. We work on the fundamentals. We practice the skills they'll need to perform.
But there's another side of preparation that's every bit as important: Is your horse mentally tough enough to handle the job when things don't go exactly according to plan?
That's something I've been thinking about a lot with the horses I'm preparing for some of the bigger ropings coming up this fall. At an event like the Riata Buckle or the World Series Finale, I may compete in five or six different ropings and run four steers in each one. By the time we get to that fourth steer of the last roping, I need my horse to still be there with me mentally and physically.
You don't build that kind of toughness once you get to the competition. You have to develop it at home.
Practice the Situations You Want to Be Prepared For
Wade and I have gotten very intentional about creating different scenarios during our practice sessions.
One thing we do is designate a steer as our "$100,000 steer."
We may be practicing at six o'clock in the morning. I may have a brand-new rope in my hand. It may be the first steer I've run all day. None of that matters. In my mind, I have to catch that steer.
Obviously, nobody is standing at the end of the arena waiting to hand me a $100,000 check. But just calling it that changes the way I approach the run. It gives the practice a purpose and puts a little pressure behind what I'm doing.
That's important because the more experienced we become, the easier it can be to simply go through the motions. If you've ridden and competed for years, you can make a pretty decent practice run without being completely engaged in what you're doing. So sometimes, you have to create situations that force you to stay sharp. And this isn't limited to roping.
If you're preparing a barrel horse, pole horse, show horse, or competing in any other discipline, think about the situations that are likely to challenge you at an event. Then find ways to practice them. Don't make everything perfect at home and expect yourself or your horse to suddenly know how to handle imperfection when the pressure is on.
Mental Toughness Has to Be Developed
I've had to think about this quite a bit with my horse, Boone. Boone has tons of ability. He's athletic, he's broke, and physically he's extremely capable. But throughout his training, I've had to be careful about how I developed him mentally.
That's the thing about talented horses. Sometimes we've bred them to be so physically gifted that the mental side is where we have to spend more time. A horse can have all the physical ability in the world and still become anxious, insecure, or overwhelmed when the pressure increases.
That's why I think about mental preparation a lot like athletes going through two-a-day practices. Yes, those practices improve physical conditioning. But they're also teaching you that you can keep going when you're tired, uncomfortable, or when your mind is telling you you've had enough.
Our horses need opportunities to develop some of that same resilience. That doesn't mean overriding them or running them into the ground. It means progressively asking them to handle more responsibility and learning where their limits are. If you want your horse to become mentally tougher, at some point you have to test them.
More Work Doesn't Always Mean More Pressure
Testing your horse doesn't mean every ride needs to feel like game day. In fact, I think the opposite is important.
There are times when Boone gets ridden multiple times in a short period. I may rope on him in the morning, Bridget may ride him later, and then he may be back in the practice pen with me the next morning. But we're not making every one of those rides full contact. When Bridget rides him, she may slow work him around the barrels. She may ride him around the place or take him through the pasture.
I want him to understand that being caught and saddled doesn't automatically mean something physically or mentally demanding is about to happen. Instead of anticipating what's coming next, I want him listening for what we're actually asking him to do. That's part of mental maturity, too.
A mentally mature horse isn't constantly trying to predict what comes next and getting anxious about it. They're able to stay present, listen to their rider, and respond to what's being asked in that moment.
Physical Fitness Supports Mental Toughness
We can't separate the physical and mental sides of training completely because they build on each other. The more physically fit a horse becomes, the more capacity they have to handle challenging situations mentally.
Think about yourself. When you're physically exhausted, everything feels harder. Your patience gets shorter. Your decision-making gets worse. Situations that normally wouldn't bother you can suddenly feel overwhelming.
Our horses aren't that different. If I'm asking a horse to handle pressure when they're already physically unprepared for the job, I may mistake exhaustion for a training problem. That's why I want mental and physical toughness to elevate together.
As Boone has gotten fitter and we've put more consistent work into him, I've seen him become stronger mentally as well. The work isn't as overwhelming because he's physically capable of doing it. He's also experienced enough repetitions to understand what's happening and what I'm asking of him.
Of course, there's a line. If it's extremely hot and both you and your horse have reached the point where you're simply trying to survive the ride, you're probably not accomplishing much. Use some common sense. Toughness isn't built by ignoring what your horse is telling you.
Time in the Saddle Builds More Than Fitness
Years ago, I had a young buckskin gelding named Mingus. That spring, I was taking care of outside cattle, and I used that horse a bunch. There were mornings when he'd be in the trailer before daylight and afternoons when we'd unload after a long day. But that didn't mean I spent every minute drilling on him.
Some days we were doctoring cattle. Sometimes we were checking fence. Sometimes I'd work on collection, and sometimes I'd simply put my hand down and lope down a fence line. By the time I started roping calves on him that summer, he was mentally and physically tough. He'd seen things. He'd spent hours underneath me. He knew how to handle himself.
Going to the roping pen and spending an hour scoring and running a handful of calves was one of the easiest jobs he'd had. That summer, I rode him at Cheyenne as a four-year-old. After my first run, one of the top calf ropers met me at the gate and asked if he was for sale.
Looking back, what made that horse wasn't just practicing his eventual discipline. It was all the quality time that came before it.
Understanding Creates Confidence
We may not all have the ability to spend entire days horseback anymore. I certainly don't have as much time to put those kinds of hours into one horse as I did earlier in my career. But the principle still applies.
The more quality time you can put into your horse, the more opportunities you have to develop them mentally and physically. You're developing feel. Feel creates understanding. And understanding creates confidence.
That's why sometimes the answer isn't another hour drilling your discipline. It may just be riding your horse. Go somewhere. Give them a job. Work on your body control. Put your hand down and let them travel. Expose them to different situations and give them opportunities to stay connected to you through those situations.
I've seen some extremely successful competitors build outstanding horses this way. They obviously teach their horses the discipline, but they also put a tremendous amount of value on simply riding them. Eventually, you develop a horse that doesn't need to be micromanaged through every maneuver. They begin to feel you, understand what you're asking, and prepare themselves for what's coming. That's mental maturity.
Get Comfortable in Game-Time Situations
The whole point of scenario training is to make the things you'll face in competition feel more normal. At a big roping, everything isn't going to be perfect.
You might draw a steer you don't like. You might not have the rope you wanted. Your warm-up might not go according to plan. You may have already competed several times that week. Your horse may be tired. You may be tired. But, you still have to perform.
That's why I want to practice situations at home where everything isn't perfect. If we never put ourselves in those situations during practice, why would we expect to feel comfortable when they happen at an event?
That's what the "$100,000 steer" is really about. By the time I'm actually running one for that kind of money, I want to feel like I've already been there.
Habits Grow Stronger With Repetition
I've been going back through some of the notes I've taken from Atomic Habits, and one statement fit this topic perfectly: Habits grow stronger with repetition.
It's simple, but there's a lot to it. Every repetition is reinforcing something.
When you ride consistently, you're building habits. When you practice staying connected to your horse through pressure, you're building habits. When you create scenarios and practice performing through them, you're building habits.
The goal isn't perfection every single day. You're going to miss days. You're going to have bad practices. You're going to have runs that don't go the way you planned. Start again.
What matters is accumulating enough quality repetitions that the response you want becomes familiar—for both you and your horse. That's what preparation is really about.
Build the physical fitness. Develop the mental toughness. Give your horse enough quality time and enough different experiences to build understanding and confidence. Then test what you've built by putting yourself in situations where you're required to perform.
Because when game time comes, you don't want to be asking yourself whether you or your horse can handle the pressure. You want to feel like you've already been there.
