Better Rider Project

01/09/2026

It's my mission to make it clear and simple for riders to feel and understand their body and movement in the saddle, and have the opportunity to practice until they can trust what they're feeling. It's somewhat surreal watching myself on video, just "doing what you do" everyday, living that mission. It turns out, I do say some smart stuff!

Huge thanks to Ben Netterfield and Dare to Coaching for showcasing what I do with riders using the simulator and sensors. It is a long video, but worth the watch to see the principles that I think are fundamental to helping riders find trust in their body, and find the feelings that promote harmony and connection with their horses.

On a personal note, Ben has been an invaluable support and cheer squad for me as I've worked with riders over many years 👏. He's always been someone I can call with a tricky question about teaching and coaching (and my own struggles in the saddle too!)

Quick note: We filmed this in June 2026, and you'll see an early prototype of the analytics system that we've continued to update. Building technology systems is an ever-changing job, but if you're keen to see the new version, please get in touch!

31/08/2026

YOUR HORSE IS LISTENING. WHAT IS YOUR BODY ACTUALLY SAYING?

Last week another wonderful schoolmaster told me, quite clearly, that I was saying “stop” with my body in the saddle.
It wasn’t anything overly dramatic, but I heard his “nothing” response loud and clear. I thought I asked quite nicely for him to walk on, applying a correct forward aid, with no response. I can’t even get this horse to walk? I got frustrated, embarrassed and then started down the familiar mental path of “you’re such a terrible rider” that shows up in my body as more tension, holding back the tears of being found out as a “bad rider” once again.

Let’s get real here, I’ve been a physiotherapist and “movement expert” for a long time now. I built the tests I use to assess riders for mobility, stability and symmetry, and I can pass them with flying colours. The easy story here would be that I just need to be stronger, use the whip, and be “tougher” to just make it happen. These well-trained horses are not telling me I’m weak, they’re telling me that my body is not making sense to them, I am not speaking their language, and in this instance, they’re the experts.

I know that feeling of not speaking the language, having lived in both Lisbon and Shanghai, with just enough of the local language to order a coffee and find a bathroom. When my vocabulary ran out, I never once solved the problem by saying the same broken sentence louder. Saying the same nonsense at higher volume doesn't make it more Chinese, it just makes me a dumb, loud foreigner. What actually worked was slowing down the words, finding someone to help translate, and looking for small points of shared understanding until something actually landed.

I have a hunch that we can think of skilled performance in riding as a similar problem, played out through the body instead of the mouth. When a schoolmaster doesn't respond to my "correct" aid, the problem usually isn't commitment, or body capacity. It's pronunciation. My timing, my sequencing, or my body's default tension is saying something slightly different from what I intend, and the horse is responding to what I actually said, not what I meant to say. Riding with stronger aids in that moment is the equivalent of shouting broken Chinese. It doesn't add clarity, it just adds emphasis to the wrong sentence.

I wonder about two different questions often: when is a rider effective, and when is a rider ethical?

“Effective” asks whether the rider can get the horse to use its body in the way we desire. “Ethical” asks whether that change came at a cost to the horse's health and welfare, in the short or long term. In theory, these ideas should line up perfectly. A rider whose aids are clear and consistent should be building a horse's strength and confidence over time, improving their welfare over their lifetime. In practice, this is where a lot of training goes wrong, because force and strength can look like effectiveness in the short term. Horses are so incredibly generous that they’ll usually comply if they’re shouted at loud enough, but at a cost. It’s a humbling and difficult path for a rider to carefully look at their own vocabulary and comprehension, and learn to speak more fluently, for the good of the horse.

If we treated rider body skill as a language rather than a set of strength requirements, I think we'd train very differently. Less "hold this position more firmly," and more "here is what your body is currently saying when you hold your breath and brace your body." I think we should be aiming to train rider’s bodies to be capable of ease of movement, fast timing and release of effort, not focussing on force production capacity in the way that athletes have traditionally trained.

When I was living in China, I used to think the people who spoke fluent Chinese were somehow smarter than me. Turns out most of them had studied it formally, or lived for years in smaller cities with almost no English, which forced the skill out of them whether they liked it or not. I also met expats who'd lived there a decade and hadn't progressed much further than me. They'd built a comfortable bubble, got around just fine, and never noticed what they were missing, the deeper, more nuanced parts of the culture that only open up once you're actually fluent.

I think riding offers the same two paths. You can build a bubble, get by on strength and compensation, and most horses, being generous, will let you. Or you can do the harder thing, actually study the language of your body, put in the hours of immersion, and develop the fluency that lets you hear what a horse is telling you before anyone has to raise their voice. This schoolmaster wasn't telling me I was a "bad rider." He was telling me I wasn't fluent yet, that's all. There's a world of difference between "not yet skilled" and "not good enough." One is a stage. The other is a verdict, and it's the one that had me blinking back tears in the saddle over a halt-to-walk transition.

I'm curious where else you've handed yourself that verdict too early? On a horse, in a new job, in a language you were only three months into learning. What did it take to realise you weren't failing, you just hadn't finished learning yet?

27/08/2026

BOUNCING AROUND PORTUGAL
For someone like me who loves food, wine and horses, Portugal is heavenly. Having a Portuguese husband and family means we can do extended visits, like this whole month of August. I’ve only ridden 4 times while I have been here, slipping into some casual rides with Nuno Velloso, and his wonderful stable of school horses. Nuno was the teacher that helped me start riding again six years ago, and it’s always a pleasure to check in with him when we come back.

Nuno put me on his horse “Artiste”, one of his wonderful old showjumpers. My Portuguese husband assures me “Artiste” is less of a word for “skilled with a paintbrush” and more of a word like “will charmingly smile while he steals your wallet”. Luckily I learned this after my first ride, which involved a lot of Spanish walk, regardless of what transition I thought I was asking for. Nuno smiled knowingly, this is Artiste’s favorite trick. “You’re using too much hand, too heavy in your seat” Nuno says, familiar sentiments that I know well, but in a way, I’m relieved to know that these are so apparently obvious to my 4-legged friend.

Artiste and I popped round some cavallettis for fun. My loved the joyful feeling of a truly bouncy canter, and I made a “body note” trying to remember the feeling to aim for in future, to put my brain in the horse’s back legs, not in my hands. As usual, I was so busy thinking about that, I forgot to actually think about the outside world, sending me hurtling into the oncoming path of a piaffing Grand Prix rider, who happened to be riding at the same time as our class.

Concentrating on my feel, connecting myself to the felt sense of the horse in my body, takes all my attention. Connecting brain and body is like meditation, yet we have to do it on the back of a moving animal, sometimes staying out of the way of 15 other people in a lesson. Concentrating on feeling my body makes me look like an idiot that doesn’t know arena rules or doesn’t listen to instructions from my coach. And yet, this is the most important thing that we need to develop to become skilled and ethical riders. Fitness is a pre-requisite to feel, but fitness alone doesn’t create the brain-body connection that allow us to speak the language of the horse’s movement with our body.

I'm taking these musings on "finding feel" and creating faster responses and reactions on the plane with me as we make the long journey back “down under”. I’m looking forward to getting back to work, to the gym and to my regular routines, in and out of the saddle, and to be re-united with my beloved Sven the simulator ❤️

04/08/2026

I might be on holidays, but Sven is still busy working, and our SeatIQ software is reaching more riders with Marcel Loeb Equestrian taking the reins!

Meet Sven! 🐴

I have a slightly unusual guest joining me for the next few weeks…

“Sven” is a horse simulator fitted with sensors and an app called SeatIQ, developed by Lissanthea at the Better Rider Project.

It shows coaches and riders what the horse is feeling from the rider’s body position and weight distribution in the saddle, so they can feel and fix the problems they see and develop the body awareness needed for correct use of their seat and weight aids.

He’s on loan with me until early September, so there’s a chance to include a SeatIQ assessment in your coaching session. If you’re curious about what Sven can show you, send me a message.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be putting Sven through his paces and learning how to use the SeatIQ feedback in my coaching. 💪🏻

SeatIQ measures rider skills such as:

• Position and straightness
• Balance and stability
• Hip and trunk mobility

A big thank you to Lissanthea for trusting me with him! ☺️

04/08/2026

Well done Amy and Marcel, I love seeing these changes in action ❤️

Progress and skill development takes a team, and finding new capability and movement in the saddle can’t happen if you don’t have what you need physically (fitness, strength, body control and awareness) or the feedback in the saddle to understand if the new feelings you’re getting are worth repeating, so you build those new feelings into your automatic movement patterns. That’s movement science (such as physio) and coaching - but I think there’s another step that’s often missed between the two, building a “thinking body”.

Amy is smart, and found out what was missing (using SeatIQ testing on the simulator and physio clinical tests) so she could work on exercises at home, but we also used the simulator for practice and feedback on finding new feelings and awareness, without her horse having to help in those early steps of change.

Bands, balls and other tools help your thinking body to find new feelings, and learn to use different movement patterns, for the good of the horse!
- Lissanthea

03/08/2026

The name says it all, right? We have two athletes in equestrian sport - two distinctly different entities that must develop collaboratively, for their future together.

We need spaces that help us hold the future of equestrian sport up to the light, and recognise the many perspectives and voices that will influence how we adapt to the changing pressures and influences in the sport.

Well done Closson Dressage and crew for launching something wonderful, I look forward to all you've got brewing with this project...

Educational initiative exploring equine well-being, performance & longevity through thoughtful conversation and world-class perspectives.

27/07/2026

A Canter con highlight for me was delivering the closing keynote, at the end of a very busy weekend. I did it from the saddle, because I'd always rather show, than tell, what we'd been doing with riders all weekend with the SeatIQ assessment system.

The brief I got was "be inspirational" but I didn't need to be because the coaches who were there all weekend were the inspirational ones, I heard so many great stories from all walks of equestrian life. And the room was still full at the end of Sunday (helped by the draw for the Garmin watch, I'm sure!)

I talked about Rider Skills in Action, especially the importance of unblocking rider movement and learning, so they continue to progress towards their goals in the saddle.

The physio wisdom I left the coaches with was:

1. Rider movement skills are not invisible (but they're hard to see on the horse, as the movement planning and ex*****on systems have decided how a rider will move well before you can see them do anything, but we can train those automatic movement responses on a simulator like this one).

2. Riders should "pass a vetcheck", and coaches have a leadership and mentoring role in helping their students recognise that they need help. Equestrian athletes are disproportion affected by low back and pelvic pain (Zoe Farrant from The Riders Physio did a brilliant presentation on this too), and pain affects movement options and attention regulation for the rider, both of which affect learning. A rider than can't walk well is potentially missing some of the "factory settings" needed for movement with the horse, so let's not think it's ok to just grit our teeth and persist! (Obviously acknowledging here that we have riders of different physical abilities, and this should be applied flexibly with different types of riders).

3. Old dogs can learn new tricks (and by old, I mean, over 17 years old!) I think we tend to think that the well-worn grooves of how our movement systems work are hard-wired and can't be changes, but with the right stimulus, awareness and some positive "errors" that help you feel something different, there's never an end-date for learning (and the more you keep your brain active and connecting new information, the better it'll be for a lifetime!)

Huge thanks to Michelle Clough and the whole team organising this event, who listened to my wild ideas for including SeatIQ in the program, and helped make it a reality!