Natalie Hummel

Natalie Hummel

From Practical Horseman Podcast by Practical Horseman Podcast

October 23, 2025 · 54 min · Episode 117

About this episode

Natalie Hummel discusses her journey from upper-level eventer to performance coach, focusing on mental and emotional blocks in equestrian sports.

This week’s  Practical Horseman Podcast episode, sponsored by Dechra , is with leading high-performance coach and nervous-system expert Natalie Hummel. She coaches top professional athletes in all sports, but her experience as a former upper-level eventer enables her to especially relate to riders. Natalie started riding at 10 and after moving up the ranks she eventually achieved three-star status and started working for Michael Pollard. But after back-to-back tragedies involving the unexpected death of several horses, her heart was too broken to continue in the sport and the energy and passion she’d felt for riding started to shift toward pursuing higher education. After getting her PhD in clinical psychology, she went on to develop Natalie Hummel Coaching—her personal performance coaching program that aims to help equestrians break through mental and emotional blocks. Drawing from neuroscience and somatic integration, Natalie helps elite athletes rewire their physiological response to stress so they can access clarity, consistency and flow when it matters most. She’s worked with a number of top eventers—including Boyd Martin and Hannah Sue Hollberg—and countless other…

People in this episode

Guest: Natalie Hummel

Topics covered

  • performance coaching
  • equestrian sports
  • mental blocks
  • neuroscience
  • stress management

Keywords

  • performance coaching
  • equestrian
  • mental health
  • stress response
  • neuroscience

Sponsors

Dechra

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