Nov. 11, 2025
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
Steffen Peters is back in the saddle after a year off riding for the six-time Olympian with silver and two bronze medals to deal with a nerve condition.
Steffen, at age 61, is riding for pleasure and despite admitting he still has strong competitive feelings after five decades of riding was reluctant to discuss returning to high performance dressage. Though he admits he’s excited about the 2028 Olympics, in Los Angeles about 120 miles/193km from his farm in San Diego, California.
He stopped riding after competing Suppenkasper on the American team in Paris in 2024, his sixth Olympics. He had been diagnosed with neuropathy, a condition that affects the hands and feet.
“I told myself if I can teach my body to get on a horse and just truly enjoy the training without my body going into a competition mode and getting anxious or nervous or whatever, then I continue and that seems to be mastered,” he told Dressage-News.com while giving a riding clinic in the Wellington, Florida area.
“I just simply gave my ear, my body and my nervous system a year to recover and reset and that seems to be working. I did a ton of work on that.”
Specialists had found so much neuropathy in his fingers and hands but they couldn’t really figure out the cause because his blood pressure was always low, never a fast heart rate or a panic attack.
Turned out the answer, as he put it, was “very simple. It is a form of anxiety. And you know, there are so many different ways how anxiety comes across. For me, that was the terrible neuropathy.”
Steffen moved to the United States from his home in Germany in 1984 and became an American citizen in 1992. He developed a highly successful career–and the anxiety that went along with it. He was the top American dressage rider for many years. Six Olympics, for silver (on Suppenkasper in Tokyo 2021), two bronzes (on Udon in Atlanta 1996 and Legolas in Rio de Janeiro 2016); four World Equestrian Games for silver (Suppenkasper in Tryon 2018), two individual bronzes (on Ravel in Lexington, Kentucky 2010) and one team (on Floriano in Aachen, Germany in 2006) and one World Championship (in Herning, Denmark in 2022) as well as team and individual golds at two Pan American Games (on Weltino’s Magic in Guadalajara, Mexico 2011, on Legolas in Toronto 2015).
And World Cup champion, one of only two Americans to win the annual championship, on Ravel in Las Vegas in 2009.
Steffen said the improvement in his health came about “through a ton of meditation, not just meditation, but really, really deep and disciplined meditation, where everything disappears, where time disappears, family disappears for a moment, horses disappear.”
His daily routine began immediately when he woke up was to go into a cold plunge that he keeps at 45 degrees fahrenheit/7C at home and “then afterwards I meditate at least 20 minutes, half an hour. And then the day begins with some physical activity, either with a workout in the gym or half an hour of swimming.
“And that did the trick, and being really, really careful the way I think. I learned over the years that the quality of your thoughts truly determine the quality of your life. And so it took a whole year. And even then, I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to do it again.”
But, he said, some of his clients have some amazing horses that he’s getting on occasionally.
“There’s possibly a competition horse in the future,” he said, “But honestly, that’s not the priority at the moment.”
The change began when for weeks and weeks, he said, “I clearly felt better and just a whole lot calmer.”
He asked his wife, Shannon, if he could sit for a little while on Mani’s Endeavor, a nine-year-old that she has been competing at Small Tour. It was also the last horse that Steffen rode before his year’s hiatus.
“And that was a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed it. That’s my mindset now when I get on a horse–enjoy it, there’s only so many years you can do this.”
The rest of his body besides the neuropathy he describes as “doing pretty good and, yeah, it’s time to give it another try.”
Competitions? he was asked.
“To be to be honest,” Steffen said, “and I hope this doesn’t sound too ridiculous and too much bragging, but it would be an honor to compete once with six Olympic pins on the tailcoat.”
A seventh Olympics?
“That, honestly, I’m really not sure of, because I’m not sure if I need to do that to my nervous system. It’s just… It’s doing right now really, really good. And I’m not sure if that pressure would trigger some discomfort again. And I’m not sure if that’s necessary.
‘There’s no doubt that, you know, that that desire to compete is still there. I mean, we’ve got the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, you know, that would be absolutely fantastic. And I’m glad that I never ever said I’m retired. I certainly was 90% there, but that 10 % was pretty strong to get me back in the saddle.”
He credits Shannon for her help, support and example in her own life for helping restore both his physical and mental health.
“Shani and I had many discussions about that and what really helped that she’s a serious role model in all of this,” he explained. “You know how disciplined she is about physical exercise and about taking care of mental health, I mean it’s amazing honestly and I’m not just saying that because she’s my wife. That was a huge inspiration and she also understood me so to answer your question, no, there were not a lot of people, that was between Shani and I.”
In addition to his daily regimen, especially as he gets older, “the physical exercise, I take that pretty serious. And everybody knows with a bit more age that it’s not that easy to keep your muscles and your cardio up. So I saw clear benefits from that.
“And I know 100% that anybody who deals with a little depression or anxiety without exercise, it doesn’t matter what medication you take. I think it’s impossible to get out of that. So exercise was one thing and then I love my time out in the desert, out on the Colorado River. There’s many vacations I do for four or five days on my own and I love the peaceful wide open space and enjoy nature more than ever. So besides that obviously my model airplanes and I mean, honestly, I’ve never been bored for a minute in my life. There’s always been something that occupies me and fascinates me.”
Part 2: Steffen’s Views on Current State of Dressage
