Steffen Peters Not Riding to Prepare for Olympics, Championship for 1st Time as he Deals with Nervous System in Hands, Feet

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Suppenkasper ridden by Steffen Peters completing the Grand Prix for USA at the Paris Olympics his last competition on the horse. Suppenkasper was retired after the Olympics. © 2024 Ken Braddick/DRESSAGE-NEWS.com

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Steffen Peters is not riding in preparation for an Olympics or major championship for the first time in a half-century career to become America’s most successful rider as he deals with neuropathy, a nerve affliction of his hands and feet.

Steffen, who turned 60 years old a month after his sixth Olympics, in Paris, is feeling improvement in his health and he doesn’t rule out the prospect of seeking a start at the 2028 Games where dressage is proposed to be staged at Temecula, less than an hour’s drive from his home in San Diego, California.

Although he doesn’t have a Grand Prix horse at the moment, he’ll deal with that when he feels ready.

“Big life changes at the moment,” he told dressage-news.com.

“I am simply investing time in myself, and I’m still enjoying the clinics; I usually do two a month.

“But I’m spending a little bit more time in between taking care of myself, especially of my nervous system.

“Unfortunately, I’m dealing with a lot of neuropathy in my feet and in my hands.

“I noticed this year after the Olympics when I took this amazing mountain bike trip in Austria that things got a whole lot better but as soon as I started riding again, the neuropathy returned.

“It’s pretty simple after exactly 50 years of the show arena. I started when I was 10 years old now I’m 60. It’s only normal that eventually, your body and your nervous system says, ‘Wait a minute! This has been a ton of pressure for 50 years. Maybe it’s time to take a little break’.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Steffen’s first Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 for USA team bronze on Udon that he started as a three-year-old in Germany and brought with him to his new home in California was the beginning of decades of top sport.

From 1996 to 2024, six Olympics for silver and two bronze medals, four World Equestrian Games for silver and bronze team medals and two individual bronzes, one of only two Americans to become World Cup champion and two team and two individual Pan American Games golds. Plus the only American to bec0me dressage champion at the World Equestrian Festival at Aachen, Germany, the globe’s most prestigious equestrian event.

Steffen Peters at the end of Ravel’s last competition, the Olympic Games in London. © 2012 Ken Braddick/DRESSAGE-NEWS.com

His favorite routine these days is to hit the sauna early in the morning, stretch a bit, warm up in the sauna then go for a swim and hit the sauna again. Every other day he also does weight training.

“I’m just simply starting the day exactly the way I always wanted to,” he said.

“Doesn’t mean that I am retiring from riding. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m retiring from teaching, but I’m simply investing time in myself.

“It’s a little bit past due. I should’ve done it a little bit sooner, but in this sport we always push it definitely to the limit and then we usually learn the lesson the hard way.

“I’m very fortunate that I have no structural damage in my body from riding. But my nervous system took a hit and that’s what I’m taking care of right now.

“There’s a lot of meditation involved daily and that’s becoming a wonderful routine and I’m just still simply amazed how much effort and how many trials it take each and every day just to shut the mind off.

“Another thing that I’m guilty off of not taking care of during competition years, this whole idea of decompressing that I never took seriously enough. I enjoyed my hobbies, but I simply didn’t take care enough and listen to my nervous system.

“I truly believe in meditating. I know that the mind is very powerful and it can heal.

“And I know that my body reacts to the way I think so I know that the quality of my thoughts determine the quality of my life and at the moment I’m feeling pretty good.

“I am thinking more positive about healing and I appreciate every single day when I wake up without a headache without nausea without pain and I really feel that’s what life is all about, to wake up every single day and feel fairly decent.”

Steffen made a point of how much he’s looking forward to returning to Wellington, Florida for clinics that are being organized by dressage trainer Ilse Schwarz who managed several years of his Wellington sessions previously.

He’s planning a relaxed clinic schedule–working three or four days with a day beforehand and a day after to relax.

“This doesn’t mean that I am retiring from the sport or from the international sport,” he said. “I’m simply taking a break to heal; has to be a lot of healing that needs to be done.

“But I’m looking forward to a wonderful change in my life and since I started this already a few weeks ago, I can clearly feel the benefits.

“Physically, I am still training as if I’m going for the Olympic Games because I feel without a certain physical fitness there can’t be enough mental fitness; I really believe this.

“An Olympic Games is not completely excluded in my thought process every day, but if I am able to get on a horse without my body switching into competition mode, then I will continue.

“This is going to take some time after competing for 50 years. Logically, it’ll take a little time to decompress from all this and that’s my mission.

“2028 is not completely excluded.”