18/04/2026
Can we try a faster pony?
It's one of the most common things we hear.
Can they try a faster pony? They can't seem to get this one going.
It's a completely understandable thing to ask. If the pony isn't moving forward, a more forward-going pony seems like the obvious solution.
But here's what's usually actually happening.
When a rider is learning - whether they're working on position, trying to coordinate their aids, or simply still finding their confidence - their body braces. Not because they're doing anything wrong. It's an entirely natural response to the demands of something new and physically complex. But a braced body is a body that restricts movement. And horses feel that.
A pony that might otherwise move quite willingly will naturally find it harder to go forward when the rider on top is holding on, gripping, or locked through their back and pelvis. The restriction travels both ways. It isn't the pony being lazy. It isn't the rider being weak. It's two bodies trying to find a language they don't quite share yet.
Putting that same rider on a more forward-going pony doesn't solve the problem - it transfers it. A naturally more energetic horse with a rider who is braced and uncertain is a more difficult combination, not an easier one.
What we work on instead is helping the rider understand something that isn't always obvious: horses are not machines. They have a nervous system just like ours. They read our bodies - our tension, our weight, our stillness - and they mirror what they feel. A rider who is braced will feel that reflected back from the horse beneath them, because the horse is responding to exactly what it's being given.
Horses also don't automatically know the most efficient way to move their feet under a rider. Part of our job and part of what we teach our riders to understand, is how to educate the horse gently and consistently, so the communication becomes clearer for both of them.
This is biomechanics. It's behaviour. It's nervous system awareness - theirs and ours. It's understanding how the rider's body state translates directly into what the horse experiences.
Sometimes the clearest way to show this is to demonstrate it. We've swapped riders mid-session - moved a rider who's been struggling to get a horse forward onto one that another rider has had going beautifully, and vice versa. Within moments, the horse that was forward is reluctant, and the one that wasn't is moving. Same horses. Different bodies on top. The horse tells you everything you need to know.
The answer to "can we try a faster pony" is almost always no. But the reason behind that answer is where the real coaching lives. 😊
