The Mental Game of Elite Eventing — Felix Vogg

I typically kick the episodes off by having the guest tell us who they are and what it is they do. My name is Felix Faulk, I’m 35 years old. I ride for Switzerland ride all my life long and I like to educate the horses from young age. The top Do you find yourself producing a lot of your own horses, or do you have people that are trusted to source horses at a certain level for your program? I like to find them around it’s only as but I try not to buy all the horses than 7 or 6 because I feel often some stuff about the health or how they build up their body difficult or nearly impossible to change later on.

I already had all the horses, but it wasn’t that easy always, you know? You have a lot of success at the top level, and what do you think about your program? Because you’re young, 35 is not that old in the grand scheme of equestrian sports, but you’ve had a pretty long career thus far at the top level. What do you think contributes to your ability to keep at it and keep producing horses successfully? When you’re younger, it’s always difficult to say if you’re not successful or not, but I always had the feeling that the other ones were ahead and maybe as well because I never had that superstar coming around the corner in junior years, younger idols and bringing me into the senior level.

But I think that makes you, if you stick to it, if you stick to the sport and if you stick what you’re doing, I think it makes you harder and it makes you fight even more for it. You’re in a better position to stay alive against everything what maybe comes into life, like the difficult parts. So I think this is what happened with me a little bit and I’m usually never someone who gives up. So we are these are key things made me, but I’m not at the end. Of course, there’s still hopefully more to come.

And I think what is what keeps me maybe a little bit there is that I don’t use up the horses. I like to take properly care of them in the way that I’m not a really different rider on every show. Like I prefer to pick two or three shows a year with each horse mostly only two shows and the rest is mostly only educating or saving them for the important events. And coming from a country where you may be getting the most owners and so many owners. So you have to be careful how many horses you have or how many horses you use up.

If you say it badly, I think this is what kept me the top to keep this owner and these horses for a long time. Dan it probably in a sport like eventing where the sport itself is tough on the horses, it probably pays off to keep the relationship good with the horses and then you keep the try up versus and something like show jumping where sometimes they’ll buy the horse. I think before Paris there were a lot of combinations that it only been together for a few months. You probably know your forces pretty well. In the long run, that’s probably a benefit.

Yeah. One of the things that I wanted to chat with you that kind of leads into what you’re chatting about a bit is you’ve obviously ended on a really great note this season winning Maryland and then you won Petroni the four-star long and but you started your season a little tough with a fall. And I remember I was watching badminton when you came around and I thought your round was really beautiful. And then just an unfortunate sort of slip. How do you like one for the listeners who may not know what kind of preparation goes into gearing a force up for these top level events?

And then how does it feel when it not only doesn’t go to plan, but like really doesn’t go to plan? So what it takes to build up a horse? Yeah. Or like the preparation, the days, the years leading up to competing at that high level. You speak, you said a good thing because mostly people talk about we trained 4 years for the Olympics, but that’s not true.

We trained the last 20 years. And that’s actually quite crazy if you think about. And I talked to the owner on Sunday about the owner of Catania, which one, Maryland. And I said, look, it’s just amazing how you stick to that horse and how you gave her the time and believed in it and believed in the whole plan that we want to do with that horse. Because she had it since seven years and the horse never won a competition until a few weeks before Mary landed, won the Nations Cup in Switzerland.

But who has fun to wait seven years until they see success? Of course we have other horses. We have a little bit, they are success and they are a little bit now starting preparing Catania for Badminton, what is beginning of May. But yeah, the preparation is like already a few years ago. And I said always what you do this year is good for next year.

If you didn’t take too much care of a horse in 2025, I will feel it in 2026. I won’t feel it so much in 2025, but it’s mostly one year after that. You did mistakes, but it’s sometimes good, but sometimes it’s really hard because it’s not something you do in a day or in a week or in months. It takes years. Not just the ride, but as well as the horses for sure.

There are some riders there. I know Kenki, sad to a friend rode for. He started before his Olympics, first Olympics. He started eventing 3 years before. It’s possible.

The question is always is it long term or not? To actually repeat the doing over and over and to get the horses there it takes years. And the same with the horse Catania, now 40 runs before or 39 international runs before Maryland if you think they only like 5 or 6 a year. Yeah. OK.

So it’s like December, beginning of December and you’re starting your preparations now for a competition in May because she’s obviously had the fitness build up from the other runs. Does it look the same building a horse up like that versus a horse that is coming into it, it’s first time? Or can you do a little, maybe not less fitness work, but less vigorous work? What does the difference, if any, look like? Depending on the horse it’s the same with some horses building up muscles is easier.

For the other example Calero is in with Blue Mill and Pratone now really fast and building up and getting him ready. Of course he doesn’t have the fitness but just the right ability and that you actually can go to the point where you want to love the fitness and muscles they need in the season. But example, Catania takes way longer or a horse like Frida, the horse which I wrote that the Europeans and then I have again Dow, which was last year at the Olympics, he took so long to build actually the muscles. The biggest problem with these horses, they loses as well quite quickly again. So it’s the same like with the human, I would say, but like some people are just maybe depends as well.

What do you do in the young? They’re just some horses they’re in just naturally a little bit more having the muscles already or the shape. Same like with humans. And of course then it’s way easier now example if you take Catania, it takes long to build it up, I think. Now for Badminton, I do read the same routine and the same stuff compared to Frida, which is three years younger and which had a quite slow progress in her career.

You feel that the muscles which I talked about from a young age, that fitness that is missing and they’re usually not getting lost. What do you put once in a body? Of course the muscle go away, but would say that the usual the common fitness normal human being had. Like cardiovascular fitness? But you feel, example Freda, that this is not there yet.

This you build actually up when they are 5-6, maybe 7. So it’ll take 6:00-ish months, maybe a little longer to get the horses fit from holiday in order to get them ready for this event. Just going back to that, the amount of time that it takes to just prep the horses for the events. And so going back to Badminton when you had that fall, what kind of goes through your mind in the hours, days, weeks after that? Are you coming up with a new plan?

Do you try to change anything or do you just stick to your plan and say no, I think everything was right? I think this was a freak thing or these are some things we could have changed. Look. Like that first what you said, the six months, that’s obviously it’s quite long, but it’s for a horse which has done it already. Once a horse which hasn’t done it, it takes even a little bit more time.

She was OK now in Maryland she was really fit, but as Lynn Batman she was fitter than ever. So I think it wasn’t that that the issue and she was really good going like last two minutes. If you are worried or if you said the time you spend, it’s wrong because I prepare for that event. I do it because I like to do it. I like to educate the horse, get the horse better and more comfortable.

So the time is not something I would think too much about it. I would be quite into details watching videos for 100 of times and I’ll look what I can do next time better or it happened. This I even do when it goes well, so it happens after every round of competition, right? Do it anyway. We’re obsessed with progression.

I think it’s equestrians where we’re always trying to make things better. So when things go good, it’s easy to look at the video and continue to find the things that just need to get better. But when it goes bad, you go, OK, was this a fluke? Was this? Obviously there’s always things that we can improve upon, but sometimes I think we can dwell a bit on the negativity versus we don’t tend to dwell on the positivity as much, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I think you’re not allowed to be. It’s not allowed to drag you too much, too long, for sure. A person who is in my bones for a really long time. But yeah, you have to find a way out of it. I still think now what I did a few years ago wrong, so it doesn’t let me go.

But I you’re not allowed to stop doing the good stuff or try to make it. I think that’s I would say you should do. So how do you keep progressing instead of maybe getting stuck in certain things? Like I know some riders that will train and train, but they never really progress in terms of moving up for competition outcomes or whatever, versus some riders who might fall off at one event and then it just always gets a little bit better, but they never stop themselves from progressing. What do you do in order to not allow yourself to get stuck?

It’s not the competition, it’s not the success against the other ones or like the competition against the other ones. Quite a lot of riders. An athlete in general. My goal is always to be the best person for a horse I can be one day, and I’m not dead with 35 or 40. Maybe you get in that stage when you’re 60 or something like or even older.

And this is my goal. I want to be if my kids come up to me and ask me a question, I want to be able to give an answer or someone else. And this is what drives me. I want to be not the best in the sport, but I want to be one of the best ones one day around the horse. And that not just includes riding, it includes the horsemanship next to it and standing a horse from the ground and the grooming part and all that stuff.

Doesn’t help me when I’m 60. I’m a good rider because then my days are old, but I maybe still have 20 years to live and I can do something with that. What I did I often in my days or like a few years ago, I did always look by myself because I’m going to be the person I have to understand it so I can repeat it and then I can as well perfectly explain it to someone else or teach someone else to say. But what I started problem bias is a bit, I didn’t grow up like in a system like England or other countries where you get so much support. So I was always a bit alone.

Then you tend maybe as well to be alone. I try more to get the best people a bit around me. Since a few years. I said last year something, my goal is in the future to have employees which are better than me. What is obviously difficult to do, but I want employees which are better than me in a specific thing, like example grooming or dressage or jumping or whatever.

Still difficult because most people these days then do it themselves. But I think if you surround yourself around good people, it helps a lot and it keeps you improving. But my biggest thing that I don’t get stuck is actually wider or the long term what I want to reach and. Yeah, I think I’m lucky to be in the US and I’m in kind of a horse hub. Even if I just recovered from an injury, I could still go anywhere and watch my trainers, teach lessons and ride the horses.

But I’m from a very northern part of the US where it’s not as horse hub. And luckily I had Pony Club, but very similar where it is easy to find yourself on your own. And I’m very similar where I feel like I need to really understand the concept of something. I remember a trainer yelling at me about inside leg to outside rain. And I was like, why?

Because it feels good when I do inside leg and inside rain. And then they’re like, yeah, but that’s not right. And but it keeps you, that curiosity, I think keeps it alive because there’s always something to learn where people who do just get bogged down by competition, if it doesn’t go well, their earth is shattered. And then it takes a lot of rebuilding. But I also think it can tend to feel a little hollow versus you mentioning that you don’t want to be done at 60.

I think there’s a lot of people who in in all sorts of sports, right? Not just our sport, but they want that, that big win, and then they’re good to step away. But the thing about horses is that each horse is a bit different and you can learn from every horse. And although a system may work in order to produce horses, they all have their individual things and that’s what makes the sport just so fun. So what made you realize that you needed kind of more outside support?

What was that thing that. It’s crazy demand if the other federations put into it. I should see the sport developed in the last few years so much. It got much more into details. I remember a few years ago we had one trainer.

Now we have maybe 3 trainers or 4 even. One for yourself as well for the fitness and stuff like that. So I just don’t. If I want to keep up with the other ones, I have to do something. The hardest part actually is to finance that whole thing because the good trainers cost money and they are only like, yeah, you see sometimes rider, they grow up with one trainer and it’s really successful and the trainer takes them on the hand and shows them the way.

But on this side, where I live, for this federation or this country I write for, it’s not like that. Biggest part now was actually to see how to finance it. And I’m still on it because it’s not that easy. So what does the business side look to? You have owners for the horses.

Do you teach? Do you have training horses? What does your sort of program look like? I used to teach before Tokyo Olympic, I used to teach a lot, like up to 400 people months in the winter time instead of Lego. But now actually nearly to nothing help my girlfriend Leo Siegel, like we have another rider coming next year, which will ride for myself, but I will help her.

And then maybe someone from different countries come for the Asian Games, but. Otherwise than that, it’s riding my own horses and selling your horse here and there. I prefer not my own ones. I prefer only building, like finding your horse and sell it, but on the other side as well. Try now more to focus on outside of horses, outside of horses, but on other stuff where I’m not sitting in a saddle or standing on the ground.

Just to finance it better. I think it’s needed. If I want to do more or progress more on the riding, I need more money. So I thought that if I want to get even better, I have to do it as well with my own money. So how many horses do you have in your personal competition string I?

Used to have quite a lot because last year I still rode as well show jumping with more show jumping horses, but we sold them not all the beginning of the year. I maybe have still 12 or 13 horses. Now I cut down to 7. Some of them I still own or the owners own them but with the other rider and I personally only have 7 at the moment. I see, I saw that example.

Calero quite somewhat under that. He is not any more than #1 So I want to get him back again a bit, give him the time, give him the attention. And I can’t do that with 12 horses because for me there’s always also a lot to do on the ground with the horses. We have over here quite problems with stuff. So if I have seven horses, that’s something what I can do myself on a day.

Like I don’t need an extra rider and I can do that with one group. So it’s a little bit different things, but the main reasons actually that I have more time for them. Yeah, I was chatting with a big sales program between France and the US, and she had, I want to say, like 17 horses in the barn at any given time. And she realized she cut down to six or seven. And she was like, I actually make more money with less horses because you don’t need as much staff.

You don’t need as many people in the barn. You can give them more time. Sometimes I find with equestrians, we’re really good at equating productivity to busyness, to feeling like we’re accomplishing things. Did you have a little bit of a crisis when you went down in horses because you felt like you weren’t doing as much? Or did you feel almost like you could take a breath because you could give the horses a more individualized or?

My problem was a bit, I couldn’t say no. Like if someone came up can you ride a horse? Did it and it’s well, I’m bad in giving up on a horse like I’m bad in saying I’m not getting along with it. So I tried to get it. It’s maybe as well advantage because I get along with quite a lot of different type of horses.

But yeah, for me it was I didn’t want it to run anymore behind stuff I didn’t want to anymore. Like I have to be finished in one always this horse or in 45 minutes, otherwise my day won’t run after the plan. That was my thing. But I think the issue what we have a little bit, I showed jumpers to that quite a lot that they don’t have so many horses. But our problem is if a horse gets injured, let’s say you have two horses injured or the gay go out of the sport and then you have a gap, you will see it in four or five years.

So I think we plan mostly that this gap doesn’t happen. And then on the other side, you can win a medal with one horse, but you can’t be on the top of the world in the rankings if you have one horse. That’s why some riders have forty horses or thirty horses. If you imagine like Ross Kenda won this year, 3, five stars and she’s not even on the top three. It’s crazy.

You need quite a lot of horses. Yeah, And we talked a lot in the States about that constant pipeline of horses. You don’t want that gap to happen where you might have a few horses, but they’re all at the same level and they’re all got the same age. And then there’s nothing younger coming up through the ranks. If that’s something that I had to deal with.

And I’m just getting back five years later to competing like overcompensated and now I have a lot of horses. But it’s such a scarcity mentality. I don’t know is quite the right word. But if you do want to always have a horse going and getting produced, then you really do need to have a string at all sorts of different levels, at all sorts of different ages so you don’t fall behind in the rankings and all of that. So I think that’s a really, yeah, it’s a, I think it’s hard for my fiance is not horsey and sometimes he’s, you have a lot of horses.

And I’m like, yeah, but this one is going to be doing this and then this one maybe in a couple years we’ll get sold and this one. And we always have plans for them. But then that time comes and I think you hit on. It’s really hard to let some of them go or to admit when some things aren’t working. And so you mentioned working horses on the ground.

What would entice you to work with a horse on the ground versus figure it out through riding? Does that make sense? Why would you work a horse to groundwork or any of that? I call wouldn’t call. Like if a laundry horse is not really groundwork, even lunging, you can educate a horse, get it better.

But yeah, I think it’s not just it’s even bring your horse in a Walker or bring your horse to the field or walk around with the walls or graze it. You can take quite a lot away from earner out of it how divorce actually is. And that maybe brings a step forward in the riding that you understand why it has this behavior in the riding or why it’s not able to do this and this. And then I have or had some horses. Some horses just feel less, especially when they’re young, doing something on the ground on the lunge or jumping over a log or anything like that.

But I hate as well horses. Like example Dow, the one from Paris last year, it didn’t work out at all from the ground. He wouldn’t jump the log, but he didn’t jump the log as well, not with it sitting on it. It was it was as well they should go. But yeah, I think you just get understand divorce is sometimes better and you can fix some stuff.

And I always say to my people as well, I feel it on the horse if someone on the ground is good. And for me this is a big part. If you have a dog which is educated on a leash or listening to you, it’s way easier. You’re not driving the dog. But obviously the horse, if it listens to you on the ground, is way easier to ride if that’s that was always.

Yeah, I do all my own grooming and stuff. Sometimes I feel like you just get so much from who you see, who they are before you even bring them to the arena when you’re spending that little bit of time with them to find someone who can groom but also articulate to you as the rider what they are feeling with the horses. Sometimes the thing that’s missing in some programs were like people just tack up the horse in hand, the horse off to the rider, and then the rider just gets the horse versus really understanding, Oh yeah, they maybe are a little tight or there may be a little lucky or they pulled back on the cross ties 6 times today or whatever. So really understanding their baseline personality I think is almost a little bit of an advantage when you then go to ride them because you know their tricks and who they are and what their baseline is. Yeah, I think especially the grooming, I usually like to groom a horse if you.

This is what I did example with Calero when he won in LA Moore and I did this as well. Now again with Catania when I don’t do it often, but yeah, on some shows. Perez I did it last year in a training camp, so I spent the first few days by myself. Istanbul that even the weeks before I bring them out myself in the field, though, I take them up and brush them myself and wash them down and bring them to the Walker. And I think you don’t dare you.

I know Calero now since I think 11 years. I know him inside out, but he pays it to you back if you do it like he gives you more, he gives everything. And it was now the Swiss Catania. She never was as good as in Maryland. The first few days I thought something is wrong with her, but I think she was just really comfortable with me and that we spent the time together and that’s what I’ve been.

I think especially when they paid back to you if you take care of them, what it makes sense and human is as well the same. Are you familiar with any of Andrew Mclean’s work? Andrew McLean, I heard the name but. He started, he speaks a lot now on like horse welfare, but he has coined how horses learn. And one of his big things is horses actually have huge release of endorphins with like physical touch and when you’re constantly grooming and heading and just physically there with your horse, they actually show less pain signs overall.

And so it probably is something to when you as the rider take the time before a competition to just be there with them, It probably makes them feel just overall more comfortable. Yeah, I found that interesting because it goes back to when you were talking about downsizing, so you had more time for the horses. Sometimes I think that’s one of the first things that goes, is when we feel rushed. It’s the little things that we don’t do anymore. I call it like putting money in the bank, like all the little things that you do for the horse.

Like I have a horse that loves getting her PMF treatment. Some horses don’t really care, but for that one horse, it’s the best thing. So she always gets it and she gets it more often. And I can always tell the next few rides she’s just so grateful. So yeah, really understanding what they like as individuals and then making sure that the little things never slip, which I think if you look at the best programs in the world, the little details are always the things that they pay the most attention to because they pay off the most in the long run.

Yeah. How do people find you? Follow along with what you do. All of that good stuff. Where do you find me on social media under my name and same under Facebook.

Awesome, thank you so much for joining me. No problem.