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Riders often assume confidence should feel calm—steady, controlled, and free of nerves. But in a recent episode of The Plaidcast, mental skills coach Tonya Johnston challenges that assumption. Confidence, she says, doesn’t require riders to feel relaxed. It requires them to stay mentally engaged with what is actually happening.
“People think confidence means you’re not nervous,” Johnston said. “But confidence is really about staying present and staying functional, even when you’re feeling nervous.”
That distinction matters in environments where pressure is unavoidable. Riders don’t lose effectiveness because emotions show up. They lose effectiveness when their attention leaves the ride.
Presence Over Emotion
Johnston repeatedly returns to the idea that riding only happens in the present moment. The instant a rider’s focus drifts to what already happened—or jumps ahead to what might happen next—they disconnect from the horse underneath them.
“You can be physically in the ring, but mentally you’re somewhere else,” Johnston said. “And when you’re somewhere else mentally, you’re not actually riding.”
That mental absence often shows up immediately after a mistake. Riders replay the error, analyze it, or rush to fix it, all while the horse is still moving. Johnston points out that this instinct, though understandable, pulls riders out of sync with the moment they’re in.
“The horse doesn’t need you solving the whole problem right now,” she said. “They need you available to what’s happening in that moment.”
Staying Functional When Things Go Wrong
One of Johnston’s central themes is functionality. Riders don’t need to feel confident, brave, or calm in order to ride well—they need to remain operational. “You don’t have to fix everything in the middle of the round,” she said. “You just have to stay functional enough to make the next decision.”
That idea reframes recovery. Instead of viewing mistakes as something that must be immediately corrected, Johnston encourages riders to focus on maintaining engagement. The priority is continuity.
“When riders start trying to fix everything emotionally,” she said, “that’s when they stop riding what’s actually happening.”
Confidence as a Skill, Not a Trait
Some riders appear naturally better at bouncing back from mistakes. Johnston cautions against assuming that recovery is a personality trait.
“Recovery is something you practice,” she said. “It’s a skill, not something you either have or don’t have.”
That practice involves noticing when attention drifts and choosing to bring it back without judgment. Riders who recover well aren’t ignoring mistakes. They’re simply not letting those mistakes pull them out of the present.
“They acknowledge what happened,” Johnston said, “and then they come right back to what’s happening now.”
What many people interpret as confidence, she explains, is really the ability to re-engage quickly.
Attention Is the Real Currency
Johnston emphasizes that attention is the real currency of effective riding. Where a rider’s focus goes, their effectiveness follows. “When your attention goes to what already happened,” she said, “you’re riding the past.” When it jumps ahead to outcomes or consequences, riders begin riding hypotheticals instead of horses.
Confidence, in Johnston’s framework, isn’t a feeling riders need to generate. It’s a decision to keep attention anchored to the present task. “You don’t need perfect emotions to ride well,” she said. “You need focus that you can actually use.”
Johnston’s perspective offers relief to riders who believe confidence should feel a certain way. Confidence doesn’t require silence in the mind or calm in the body. It requires participation.
Riders can feel nervous and still ride effectively. They can feel unsure and still make good decisions. The difference lies in whether they stay mentally connected to the horse.
“Confidence isn’t about how you feel,” Johnston said. “It’s about whether you stay with the ride.”
By redefining confidence as engagement rather than emotion, Johnston gives riders something reliable to work with. Presence becomes the goal. Function becomes the standard.
Confidence, rather than something riders wait to feel, becomes something they actively create—moment by moment, decision by decision.
Hear the full conversation with Tonya Johnston, Keri Potter, and Weatherly Stroth on The Plaidcast, where they explore intention, performance, and staying grounded in the middle of demanding seasons. Want more insight like this? Subscribe to The Plaidcast for conversations with the most influential voices in the equestrian world.
