Simon Grieve and Autograf. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
It’s a topic that plagues us all: we experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, even at the smallest levels of the sport, but the drug that is eventing keeps us coming back, dogged try after dogged try — even when our inner dialogue tells us it’s the last thing we should be doing. Simon Grieve knows this feeling all too well, but thanks to, frankly, being open and candid about it and finding his sentiments echoed back to him, he’s starting to conquer that ever-chatty monkey on his back. Inside his own journey through mental hurdles lies inspiration for us all to take with us.
It wasn’t a specific incident that knocked Simon, but he’ll be the first to tell you that he struggled with a bit of a “crisis of confidence” earlier this season.
“I don’t know why it happened,” he mused. “I’ve had lots of crashes and lots of falls in the past, and I’ve got straight back on, cracked on, and been absolutely fine. This time I don’t know why it happened — it was just suddenly in my brain.”
He’d retired on cross country in the 4*-S at Thoresby’s Spring Carnival in March with his Burghley mount, Autograf. Straight after, Simon went to consult a sports psychologist. “It was all me,” he said, noting that he also enlisted the help of Chris Bartle for some lessons to help set him back on the right track.
Simon put the help he got from that support team to practice at Burnham Market the following month: “I rode like a demon,” he laughed. “And he was amazing. We were amazing. You know when you finish, you’re like, ‘my God, that was brilliant’? That was us that day.”
Simon Grieve and Autograf. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Momentum is a very real thing in sport, and Simon’s been able to take that momentum forward to now, on the cusp of Autograf’s first 5* cross country and his rider’s first Burghley since 2019.
“It started off a little bit not so great, but we’ve blossomed together,” Simon said. “He was fabulous around Hartpury last time out. So yeah, I’m feeling like we’re prepared in a good way, and really happy about Saturday.”
As with any elite pursuit, it can sometimes become difficult to silence the inner critic, the “chimp” on your back who tells you that you’re total shit, that you shouldn’t even be trying, that if things aren’t perfect, they aren’t good.
“It’s the Chimp Paradox, isn’t it? My chimp was definitely having a chat back then,” Simon said. “He was saying, ‘You’re rubbish, you can’t do this.’ So I had to shut him up.”
He says that changing his inner dialogue has made a world of a difference.
“A few years ago, I was riding a horse I wasn’t confident on, and I remember having a conversation with myself: ‘Right, you’re allowed to be as scared as you like all week, up until Saturday morning. Friday night, you can ring everyone and say, Oh God, this is terrifying, I’m so scared. But on Saturday morning, you’re going to wake up and you’re going to be professional. You’re going to say, This is my job, I’m going to do a good job, and I’m just going to get on with it.'”
That, he says, “is exactly what happened. I was talking to my sports psychologist this week, and I said that that’s what had happened, and I was like, ‘it’s really random!’ She was like, ‘yeah, that’s actually a thing — you’ve got to keep your chimp really busy and get it tired, and then off you go!'”
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Simon, who recently started a YouTube channel and also co-hosts the Shut Up and Ride Podcast, started to share these struggles with his followers, and what he found validated the notion that this was not a unique struggle. “I think the more I talk to people about it — and actually I’ve put a lot of it online, on my YouTube channel and that kind of stuff — lots of people have messaged me about it. It’s exactly the same for them, from all levels. Whether it’s from doing a 70cm all the way up to top level, I’ve had people saying, ‘Oh my God, I’ve had exactly the same thing.’ We don’t really talk about it, and it’s really important that we do.”
As for his tactics to keep that chimp quiet? After that Burghley, and that chat with his sports psychologist, he knows that he’s got to tire him out for the next couple of days. “I’m going to try and do just that this week — talk about how scared I am!”
While a five-star debut, as this week is for thirteen-year-old Autograf, is always a voyage into the unknown, there’s a little bit of familiarity he’s bringing with him that feels like something of a lucky charm, too.
“I was hacking out with Will Rawlin on Wednesday and he said, ‘you definitely have a type, don’t you?’ Because Autograf is a little brown horse who’s so like Drumbilla Metro, who went around here a couple of times,” he smiled.
We’re wishing Simon and Autograf the best of weekends. They’ve started off with a 37.8 in the dressage yesterday and will now look ahead to tackling cross country tomorrow — with any luck, without any extra primate passengers.
Many thanks to Kentucky Performance Products for their support of our Defender Burghley coverage! Click here to learn all about their science-backed and time-tested nutritional support products for horses.
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