Ep 32: Every Champion Started as a Beginner Who Refused To Quit

From performanceriders.com. this is the Pabry podcast. I'm Nat Foxen, and each episode I challenge World equestrian Games top 10 dressage writer Brett Parbury to explain and discuss what I call a Parburyism. That's a pearl of wisdom I've written down over the years of working together in our performance writers programs. Brett doesn't know what today's Pabraism is. Let's get into it. Brett, you've been away for a couple of weeks. We've had a little break from the podcast for a couple of weeks, so. I'm so glad you're back.

Yeah, I've been. It's. Look, it's good to be back. I've been over in the US and I love America. Absolutely love it.

I'm so glad you actually got on the plane and came home. For a minute there, I thought you might stay there because you were enjoying the coaching and everything so much. And this episode, everyone's going to find out a little bit more about why you were enjoying your time so much there. Because in this episode, we have a borrowed Pabrism today. It's actually a Boydism. And the Boyd I'm referring to is Boyd Martin, the very successful and famous eventing writer. And the stock stolen potteryism is from Boyd. Every champion started as a beginner who refused to quit. Okay. Every champion started as a beginner who refused to quit. Do you love that one?

I do. And I mean that. That's really interesting because that probably captures Boyd himself and his attitude to eventing. That just captures him in one statement.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so before we sort of delve too much into talking about that stolen potpourrism, why don't you tell us a little bit more about what you were doing over in the States with Boyd, the coaching and the work that you were doing alongside Boyd and Silver.

Yeah. So Boyd is a longtime friend of mine, Silver also, to be honest, I've known Silver longer than I've then Boyd has known Silver.

Oh, I didn't know that.

But yeah, no, look, we all came through the sport together, so it's really, really good to be back working with, with him and with Silver. My involvement there is really just some outside eyes on the ground for Boyd. Boyd trains with Silver. That's, you know, husband. It's been a husband and wife training arrangement which has worked really well. I come in now as the outside eyes, trusted eyes, you know, they. They trust that I'm going to give them a very, you know, open and transparent outlook on the whole thing. And, and then also come with some information and just, you know, at the end of the day, we're just trying to get Boyd better and get him more successful and finishing his dressage phase at the top of the leaderboard rather than midway, you know. So, you know, with that, I work with Silver as well on her horses, on her team of horses, and it's just been really good to get back with them. And to be honest, it's been really good to get back involved with the. With the sport of eventing.

Yeah. How different is it working with the eventers versus the straight dressage riders?

It's a little different. I mean, I really enjoy the horsemanship involved in eventing. I enjoy the fact that they are doing dressage on jumping horses, horses that are really that specialize in galloping and jumping. So I, I love that challenge. But look, to be honest, the eventing riders are especially at the level of that Boyd is at. The eventing riders are very good riders. They're very skillful. They, they're good at getting dressage out of horses that aren't necessarily, you know, bred or, or, or suited to it, but. And also are not doing it all week. They're doing it, like, for one or two rides a week. So it's, it's really good. The principles are still the same. Everything's the same. It's just the horses are slightly different, and there is probably a slightly different expectation in inventing dressage as far as what the judges are looking for. And as opposed to straight dressage, which is really about, you know, expression and power and, and horses that look like they're really, really working where the eventing horses probably need to be a lot more relaxed and a lot more free flowing in the way they move.

Yeah. Okay. And while you were over at Boyd and Silver's place, you took part in a camp that they offer for riders as well. Do you want to tell us about that?

Yeah. This is an initiative that Boyd has come up with in partnership with Taylor Pence, and Taylor handles Boyd's media stuff. And they've come up with this. This thing where they have a camp where people can come in and for three days get a really, really intensive look at the team that are around Boyd Martin, and that includes sponsors to people who train, who train him, who coach him, whose eyes are on the ground for him. Also coaching Boyd coaches them himself because he's a very good coach and a very accomplished coach, together with working with members of his team. But then Boyd also invites along sponsors and other people that contribute to his success. Sports psychs, physiotherapists, and that's just to name a few. And yeah, so it's really a glimpse on what for people to come in and see what it takes to be a top performing athlete like Lloyd. So it's great. Look, everyone comes at that with a really good attitude. Everybody gets in and works hard. And the vibe around that camp is just so positive and, and you know, people sharing information and there's no ego there. That's one thing I love about those things and love about the event is, you know, they don't, they don't generally have egos. They generally just, you know, because at any one stage one of the disciplines can, can, you know, they could follow any of the disciplines. So they generally are very down to earth people. And yeah, I really love being around that sort of those sorts of people. They're really the real, they're real people.

How receptive were the eventing riders at the camp when you turned up and as the dressage rider and the dressage coach, were they, were they open to what you had to say?

Yeah, they were. No, they really, they're really good. I mean, it helped that we started the camp by, by Boyd and myself and Silva. We all rode a dressage test in front of everybody. I borrowed a horse and borrowed a horse off Silver and borrowed. I borrowed everything actually, Boots, gloves, riding pants, because boy forgot to tell me I was doing it, but borrowed everything. The horseman really well, beautiful mare. And so we rode some tests. So that helped to break the ice for me. You know, the participants could see that I wasn't just going to be barking orders at them, that I was prepared to get on and show them how I ride. And yeah, it went really well. And, but everybody, they come to those sorts of events with just an open mind and they're there to learn the beautiful part. I think of those things especially with the instructors like myself, Silva, Peter Wild, who's Boyd's jumping coach, Boyd himself, Peter Gray, who's a very good judge. That's just to name a few. We all come at it from the same direction, you know, different words. But, but the philosophy is the same that when it's when, when this, when an equestrian is done well, or to be honest, for any horse riding for that matter, when it's done well, it should look easy. It should look easy because it looks like we're doing nothing and we should be looking like we're doing nothing because we are in fact spending most of our time Doing nothing with very small aids and light aids and cues and things to get the horse to perform. So that message went right the way through the camp. The simplicity of a training structure and, and systematic training that also went through the camp. So I think all the participants would have gone home with a really clear. As clear as you can be to be honest, in three days because it takes decades to really master this, but they would have gone home with a really clear message.

Sounds so, sounds just an awesome opportunity. Okay, so the Parbury ism, the stolen papyrism from Boyd we're using today is every champion started as a beginner who refused to quit. So after spending some time with Boyd, you've spent lots of time with Boyd. But after this recent stint, what stood out to you about his approach to perseverance, overcoming setbacks, perhaps in his own journey or in how he coaches other people. How do you see that stolen paburism playing out for Boyd?

Well, I think the one sort of highlighting factor of someone like Boyd, and look, he hasn't changed. He was like this when he lived in Australia. But the one thing is just his attitude. He's, he's just so positive for a start. Everything's can do. There's no such thing as a can't do attitude with him. Everything, everything is can do. And he's been like that since he was a kid. But with that comes then persistence, resilience, problem solving. You know, he's very good at problem solving. There's a, there's a horse that has a problem and he's instantly about thinking about solutions. I think when you do approaches with a really positive mindset and a really open mindset, you do open yourself to become good in all the facets, all of those facets of problem solving. Perseverance, patience, resilience, because you're approaching it from the right place. There's definitely no searching for shortcuts, fast forwarding, you know, jumping the queue, jumping steps on the way through. It's a very systematic step by step process. I mean, event is, and I'm always amazed by this when I see event is because the strain for eventing is so high with all of the galloping and all of the getting horses fit. Boyd has a really regimented program when it comes to keeping his horses sound. So he's always checking them every morning. You know, the horses trot up in front of him, the, the stable hands get them out and trot them all up and he gets a gauge on any horse if there's any inkling of a an issue, he's immediately onto it and if there is, he's immediately straight to the best people he can get his he can get in touch with. He just does not muck around with.

Anything like that because Void watches his horses trot up every day.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah. Yep, that's it. They all come out and they trot up in front of him. Wow. And you know, you know, not mainly the good, the really good ones, the high level ones, the ones that are in a lot of work, I wouldn't say all like the low level ones are, but the certainly the high level ones. Like he really, really has a good handle on them and runs his hands down their legs and he gets a good feel of their legs and he's really across their soundness.

Just a quick message from us. If you're enjoying the podcast, you'll love the Performance Riders app where you can access free training and get fresh inspiration each week in our weekly hack. Download the Performance Riders app from the App Store. Now let's get back to the episode. If we turn the spotlight to you you for a second, can you share a moment from your own riding career when you felt like giving up and what kept you going through that period?

Yeah, look, I've had a few of those. Generally those sorts of periods come from you've worked very hard and there's been some major disappointment whether a horse is taken from you. You know, regardless of what people think, professional riders really love their horses. Like that's what we do it for. And when you lose a horse, when an owner takes a horse for one reason or another, it does take a little bit of you, especially the good ones. So it's not easy to come back from those things, especially when you put so much effort in and or for example, a horse going lame. So I've had a number of these things throughout my career because I've really never had the chance to ride my own horses at the top level. It's always going to, it's always been someone else's. I was trying to think of, yeah, probably like losing victory salute in 2011 before the 2012 London Olympics after he'd been one of the best horses in the world in 2010, I really had my sight set on going to London and trying to repeat the successes of 2010 in WEG and trying to do it at an Olympic level. When he died in 2011, that, that really took the steam out of my sails. I did have a second horse, which probably distracted me from really falling in a heap which was Lord of Loxley and I had to quickly go on with him. But yeah, I, I probably took a long time to recover from losing him that way. And, and after 2012 London, I was prepared to probably finish up with dress Sergeant. I must say I was looking at actually playing around with a bit of low level eventing to stay close to the sport. I was in that point in time, I was coaching the eventing team, the Australian Inventors, and I was really enjoying hanging around with the inventors and I loved their attitude and they were definitely my type of people and I thought, well, I nearly, I don't really have any good dressage horses in my stable and maybe I should be looking at something else. So I went and did some low level eventing for a little while and then an opportunity came where I had was able to take on a stable of quite nice horses and, and resurrect my dressage career. But that was, that was definitely a low point. But I mean, I've been through a lot of low points in my career and you know, I won't, I won't lie, like there's been times where I haven't had any other option. Like coming back to dressage was probably the only option at the time. If there'd been another option, maybe I wouldn't have come back to it, but it was the only option. And, and you know, probably just recently I've had the opportunity to probably step away from it a bit more. But the love of the horses probably kept me in there and the love of training, love of training horses, the love of being around the sport, the love of being in that arena every morning helping other riders and co. And training myself, that that's probably my biggest satisfaction. And competing at a very high level, I really, really enjoy that. I don't particularly like competing when the stakes aren't very high, but when the stakes are very, very high, I really enjoy it. So I could probably take or leave, take or leave competing at local shows, but I really enjoy competing at the high level.

I remember recently when you were talking to the writers in our Gold program, you said to them, you know, whenever I think about not having horses or not riding and I think, oh, I could be a normal person and go and have dinner and go on holidays, but, and you said, oh, but I'd get sick of that in about 24 hours.

Yeah, it's tempting, but I think you're right. I do believe that once you're in this and once you're in it to the level we're at. It really is a bug and it is your lifestyle, it's who you are, it's, it's your definition of, of who you are and enjoying the good parts. I think if you let the competitions determine your enjoyment, you're really setting yourself up for failure. But if you enjoy the lifestyle, enjoy the, the things that we're supposed to enjoy, which is the development of the horses, the train them, the connection to them, the mistake making the, the problem solving all those really fun parts and, and developing these horses into horses that are usable by everybody, anywhere. They're rounded horses that can be, that can be walked down a road or up a, up a bush track as well as in an arena doing that. I really, really enjoy that.

So the stolen poverty ism we're talking about today is every champion started as a beginner who refused to quit. And we've stolen that from the eventing rider Boyd Martin, who Brett works with now. Brett, in your experience, what separates riders who do eventually reach the top in the sport and what separates them from riders who plateau or walk away? Is there anything in common that you've recognized there? Maybe mindsets or habits? What are you seeing in those most resilient riders?

Well, I'll start by probably just defining what my, you know, what I think you mean by the top of the sport, because one thing I've noticed is that my definition of the top of the sport is different to somebody else's. And I, I see and hear people really celebrating victories, or not victories, but performances that are different to my definition of what the top is. But, and, and okay, these days with social media, you can make anything sound like it's a world championship, you know, even a right prize of local show. But my definition of the top of the sport is first of all, someone competing at Grand Prix level. I do believe that that's, that is what dressage is about. So you know, when you're talking about the top of the sport, right? Yeah, someone competing at Grand Prix level and someone probably competing or regularly performing at a level above what they can do normally or, or what is, you know, going to get them a prize at a, at a major show, like, that's the, that's the top of the sport. And regularly, regularly and you know, maybe ultimately over time on a number of different horses that would also be somewhere at the top of the sport. So when it comes to that, because, I mean, you see some riders will get there with one, which is fine, it's all good, like not, not criticizing them, but I don't think you get the full spectrum of emotions until you've done it on a few different horses. Because the longer you're in the game and the more times you put your neck out on the line, the more things go wrong and the more times you eat humble pie and get disappointed. So yes, resilience would have to be a key attribute to someone. Determination, a really dogged determination and a hunger to keep going would absolutely be part of the makeup of a top person at the top of the sport. I don't think one horse or maybe even horses that are purchased, ready made, I don't think that can really give someone the full experience. I think, you know, once someone has made a horse, they've got a different outlook to someone who's possibly bought a horse and just riding someone else's work. So I mean, these are all things I guess I get to see over a long period in the sport that the riders who continually make the make their own horses, they put their own blood, sweat and tears in and those horses end up performing at the top of the sport. Those riders definitely have been through everything and they have emerged, you know, tough, wise, patient, humble people. And that's the attributes that I see make those top riders.

I was just thinking as listening to you say that, was it their attributes that created that for them or was it the process of just keep on going every day after day after day that sort of built those attributes in those people? You know what I mean?

I think the second, I think you have a little bit of it at the start because that's what keeps you going if you're in it. If, if these people were in it for quick stimulation, they wouldn't last because it doesn't. So, so definitely there's, there's elements of those, but I do believe you get more and more humble and more and more wise the longer you're in it and the more horses you go through, through the journey with. So there's parts of that that definitely cannot be shortcut. And you know, it's funny, I was in the States and I heard this story about a girl who's pretty good, you know, pretty successful rider in the US and that she sort of was maybe thinking about giving it away and she's not that old and I just thought that would be such a shame for her to give that away because she's really shortcutting herself and maybe avoiding some of the toughest times, but actually some of the more character building times and things that are really going to shape her because she's a very nice person. I don't actually know her personally, but seems to be very nice and everyone tells me she's nice and really shame for her to give it away at that young age without putting herself right through it and possibly putting herself through the opportunity to train one right through the levels herself. So. Yeah, I hope. Did that answer your question?

Yeah. It's just so interesting hearing you talk on this topic. It's fantastic. A final question for you. How do you help your students reframe failure or slow progress so that they can stay motivated, especially if they do feel that they're at that beginner stage or facing a tough patch? How do you help the students?

Yeah, I mean, that can be hard. Like when, like I know personally, when I have a student who has a really tough time, I actually feel it as well. Not maybe as much as like personally, but I don't. It certainly doesn't go missing with me. Like, I really feel it because I know how hard they've worked and I know how hard we've worked and what it's. What's cost them. And I really feel that disappointment, you know, so you can't help but feel disappointed and get in the doldrums with them. But at the same time, the, you know, you're trying to find some positive, some good spins, some. Some logic, try and find some logic in the, in the, in the problem or in the result to try and help them. So I know what it's like. You're in a fog when things aren't going well and you've had a bad result and you've really built your hopes up to be at the competition and things haven't gone well and it's a bit of a fog, you know, it's. You can't see through it and you're not sure how to solve the problem. So I guess trying to just get them to think, go through a process of elimination. What do we do well? What do we do not so well? What can we do better? How are we going to train that? What's the lessons learned and try and take away some positives from there for them.

Yeah, yeah. We've got to wrap it up there. It was such a great conversation and I really appreciate that you're willing to share, you know, stories about your own career that it's not only the highlight reel that we love, love to see on social media, it's a little bit deeper than that.

Yeah. And it feels like the highlight reel, like, is 30 seconds of something that's taken 20, 30 years. You know, like, it's. It's. There's so many more days of not highlights.

Yeah.

The grind, the disappointments, and. Yeah. So it feels like the highlight reel is just not even worth. You know, you just think, oh, that's right. Okay, I can remember that. You know, I can remember that was great, and we had a great time. But you do probably think way more about the. The disappointments. Like, they're the ones that really upset you and. And. And probably shaped your career, shaped your character more than the high, than the highlights.

Yeah. Yeah. And ironically, probably, they're also the days that give you that dogged determination to get back out there the next day and do it again.

Yeah. You always come back better from those things. You always come back stronger. You always come back with a different view. We'll do. We'll do this differently. Like, you're always stronger for it, so it's hard, but, I mean, we went into this. I mean, I was lucky enough that I was in a horse family, so I. I went into this knowing full well what the disappointments were. I certainly was under no illusion that it was going to be all roses. So. Yeah, I have to remind myself of that as well as I. I knew I. I was the one that signed up to this. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

Great conversation. Thanks, Brett. And thank you, Boyd, for providing that stolen papyrism for. Maybe next time we'll get Boyd on here. Here as well, Brett.

Yeah, that'd be good. I think he'd be. He'd be really keen to come on.

Great conversation. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, D.