Pegasus Physiotherapy

🏇Being upright is not the same as being balanced when on a horse. Balance is about centre of mass over base of support. But if you are not balanced you can use legs to press (grip) against the horse to keep you upright.

🙌 One of the reasons I’m so passionate about understanding rider biomechanics is because it’s incredibly easy to convince ourselves we know why something worked.

A rider changes after a coaching cue, they ride better, and our brains naturally fill in the rest of the story. We don’t just think, “That helped.” We often think, “That’s what the problem was.”

But those aren’t the same thing.

A successful coaching cue tells us that something changed. It doesn’t necessarily tell us what changed, why it changed or whether the explanation we’ve attached to it is actually correct.

That’s where I think we need to be careful.

We’re all influenced by our previous experiences. If we’ve seen the same thing a few times before, we naturally start looking for it again. If we believe a particular movement causes a particular problem, we’ll often notice examples that support that belief without giving the same attention to other equally plausible explanations.

That’s simply how human brains work.

There’s another complication too.

The cue we give isn’t always the cue the rider receives.

Every rider interprets instructions differently depending on their body awareness, previous experiences, confidence, physical limitations and movement strategy. Two riders can be given exactly the same instruction, both improve, and yet the mechanism behind that improvement may be completely different.

I also think this explains why so many coaching cues create short-term improvements but don’t always produce lasting change.

If the rider’s physical capacity hasn’t changed, whether that’s their mobility, strength, balance or motor control, they’ll often return to the movement strategy their body has relied on for years as soon as they stop consciously thinking about the cue.

That’s why I start by asking, “Why has this rider’s body adopted this movement strategy?”

For me, that’s the difference between changing what a rider looks like for a few minutes and creating meaningful, long-term change.

Because understanding how the body functions is very different from assuming why it moved.

Everyone is loving the new Insight Dura gloves!

🔗www.symmfit.co.uk

You’re not alone!

It’s a really common things riders tell me they struggle with, especially when trying to process everything else that’s happening at the same time.

But the Insight Gloves don’t just help you recognise your left and right.

They help you see what your hands are actually doing.

Are your thumbs staying on top?
Is one wrist collapsing?
Is one hand pronating more than the other?
Are you gripping differently with each hand?

So many riders have no idea they’re doing these things until they can actually see them.

Once you can see it, you can start to understand it.

Once you understand it, you can start to change it.

That’s why every colour, line and marker on the Insight Gloves has a purpose- not to hold your hands in a position, but to give you the feedback needed to improve your own hand control.

🐎Every rider influences their horse, whether they realise it or not.

The way we balance, transfer weight, absorb movement and use our bodies all affect the information the horse receives. Sometimes those influences are obvious, but often they’re surprisingly subtle.

That’s why I enjoy sharing rider assessments as they help riders see things which aren’t often looked at. They show how things like a lifted big toe, reduced hip mobility, a stiff ankle or limited trunk control can have an effect throughout the body and, ultimately, on the horse.

Recognising those influences isn’t about saying someone shouldn’t ride. It’s about understanding them so we can make informed decisions, work around physical limitations where needed, and keep improving for the benefit of both horse and rider.

The goal isn’t to create a “perfect” rider. It’s to better understand how the human body works, because the better we understand ourselves, the clearer our communication becomes and the easier it is for our horses to do their job.

📆Some spaces still available for the weekend clinic Hurstwood Farm Equestrian Centre 🙌

Well done Evie! Looking forward to hearing how you and Troy get on 🙌

Today, our youth riders have been travelling from all over the region and heading to Vale View for the 2026 Youth Home Nations🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 We're going to introduce all four teams this evening and this time we've gone for Welsh rugby club team names so first up we have, Team Cardiff:

❤ Evie Bayman riding Bendyth Point
❤ Poppy Anderson riding Cooper II
❤ Carys Dillon riding Bastiano