30/08/2026
❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙🩷
OUR DISABILITIES CAN AFFECT OUR HORSES
🩷💙🩵💚💛🧡❤️
Here is some research and I will cite the professionals, not try and pass it off as my own (ahem….charlatan selling pages) 🙈🙈
Not because a disability somehow magically “transfers” from human to horse, but because when we ride, we become one biomechanical system.
If we have
Previous injuries, chronic pain, reduced mobility, weakness, neurological differences, joint problems or simply being stronger on one side can change how we sit, stabilise ourselves and distribute our weight.
And our horses feel that.
Research looking at horse and rider biomechanics has shown that rider asymmetry can produce measurable differences in the forces underneath the saddle. A rider collapsing through one hip increased loading on the opposite side, while leaning the upper body increased pressure on the same side. Both horse and rider asymmetry contribute to what is happening underneath the saddle. (PubMed)
Researchers have even deliberately created rider asymmetry by altering one stirrup and demonstrated consequent changes in the horse’s locomotion and thoracolumbar movement. (PubMed)
Our position in rising trot matters too. Sitting versus standing phases change both the pressure beneath the saddle and movement of the horse’s back. (PubMed)
This doesn’t mean disabled riders shouldn’t ride. Quite the opposite.
It means that some of us may need to understand our own bodies just as carefully as we understand our horses.
If I protect one side because it hurts, rotate my pelvis, collapse a hip, carry one shoulder differently or consistently load one stirrup more heavily, my horse may have to compensate for that pattern stride after stride.
That doesn’t automatically mean I am hurting my horse either. Horse, rider and saddle interact as a system and it isn’t always possible to look at an asymmetry and decide who caused it. Lameness, horse conformation, saddle fit and rider posture can all contribute. (PubMed)
That’s why I’m increasingly interested in working on myself as part of looking after my horse.
Pilates, strength work, mobility, physiotherapy where appropriate, good coaching and occasionally having somebody video us from behind can highlight things we simply cannot feel ourselves.
The goal isn’t to create a perfectly symmetrical human. Very few of us are.
It’s to recognise what our body is doing and, where possible, prevent our horse from continually having to compensate for it.
Sometimes improving our horse starts with looking at the rider.
References (💛please learn to assess what people are pretending they were born knowing and ask them to cite the professionals💛)
Gunst S et al. (2019). Influence of Functional Rider and Horse Asymmetries on Saddle Force Distribution During Stance and in Sitting Trot. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science. DOI: 10.1016/j.jevs.2019.03.215. (PubMed)
Mackechnie-Guire R et al. (2020). The Effect That Induced Rider Asymmetry Has on Equine Locomotion and the Range of Motion of the Thoracolumbar Spine When Ridden in Rising Trot. (PubMed)
Martin P et al. (2016). Effect of the rider position during rising trot on the horse’s biomechanics. Journal of Biomechanics. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2016.02.016. (PubMed)
Greve L & Dyson S. (2015). Saddle fit and management: An investigation of the association with equine thoracolumbar asymmetries, horse and rider health. Equine Veterinary Journal. DOI: 10.1111/evj.12304. (PubMed)
