Professional Biography

Dr. Janet Edgette - sport psychologist Dr. Janet Sasson Edgette is a clinical and sport psychologist who has pioneered the application of performance enhancement principles to the equestrian industry. For eight years, she wrote a monthly column on sport psychology for Practical Horseman magazine, and served as their sport psychology consultant. Blending her clinical and performance expertise, Janet wrote the ground-breaking book entitled Heads Up! : Practical Sports Psychology for Riders, Their Families, and Their Trainers (Doubleday), which advanced this still-maturing field past the limiting traditions of relaxation and imagery work. Her newest book, The Rider?s Edge: Overcoming the Psychological Challenges of Riding (Primedia), is a collection of essays about the broader experience of owning and riding horses.
Natural, innovative and sensitive to the ways in which people truly can change, Janet's strategies go way beyond traditional sport psychology techniques in order to fit the program of the amateur and professional rider, rather than the other way around.
Janet also addresses the concerns of other people close to the rider, such as instructors, trainers, parents, and spouses, whose actions have enormous impact on the quality of that person's riding. She offers ideas to promote the best possible working relationships among all parties involved to enhance enjoyment and maximize satisfaction.
Janet's work has been featured in Horse and Rider, Hunter & Sport Horse, The Morgan Horse, Quarter Horse Journal, HoofPrint, the American Horse Shows Association Horse Show, and other magazines. She has spoken for the American Horse Shows Association, Syracuse International Horse Show, International Centered Riding Symposium, American Hunter-Jumper Foundation, United States Combined Training Association, American Riding Instructor's Association, American Morgan Horse Association, and the American Saddle Horse Association, among others. Beside lecturing and conducting workshops in both the sport performance and mental health fields nationwide, Janet consults individually to recreational, amateur, and professional riders as well as to trainers, instructors, and other equestrian industry professionals.
Janet has been a competitive rider since childhood, riding in the equitation, hunter, and jumper division of major east coast horse shows. As a junior, she qualified several times for the Maclay and AHSA Medal Finals. As an adult, Janet has ridden in the jumper divisions, including the high amateur owner jumpers under the direction of George Morris and Chris Kappler, winning ribbons at such shows as American Gold Cup, Autumn Classic, Upperville, St. Christopher's, and the Winter Equestrian Festival and Budweiser Amateur Owner Invitational in Tampa, Florida.

 

GEORGE MORRIS, Olympian and Trainer for the U.S. Equestrian Team says:
ON SPORT PSYCHOLOGY:
"I was brought up with a teacher named Gordon Wright who told us as teachers we had to be part psychiatrist. And he is a teacher that dealt with his pupils' mental fears, especially the fear of making a mistake -- which is what Janet deals with a great deal. In a very primitive crude way, I've always been aware of this field. Way, way, way back when I was a kid, I was aware of it, but now they refined it and made a science out of it and a real field out of it, and I think it's a wonderful thing. Many people have been helped a great deal by Janet and people like Janet and I think that's a big part of the sport and of life in the next century.
ABOUT JANET'S RIDING:
"Janet is a very heady intelligent rider and she's got a natural talent. She has good timing and she's cool under pressure, which I'm sure ties in very much to her profession as a sport psychologist. And I believe that, though now she's riding in the amateur-owner division and she has a very nice amateur horse, I believe it would be no problem at all for Janet to ride in the professional divisions and at some point in time, ride in the Grand Prix. She rides very well."