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Monday 9am - 7pm Tuesday 9am - 6:30pm Wednesday 9am - 8pm Thursday 9am - 6pm Friday 9am - 6:30pm Saturday 8:30am - 5pm

Barguse Riding Centre, The Grange, Barguse Farm, Saint Austell (2026)

31/08/2026

“I’ve completely lost my nerve.”

That’s often the phone call we may get around six months after someone has moved from lessons into buying or loaning a horse or pony before they were quite ready.

Sometimes it’s:

“I don't want to ride the horse.”

“I don’t want to hack anymore.”

“He’s got too strong for me.”

"I'm even too scared to lead now"

And once we start talking, there’s often a story behind it.

The horse has spun.
Run off.
Bucked.
Refused to go forward.
Or simply become harder and harder for that rider to manage.

Then the thought creeps in:

“This isn’t the horse I thought I was getting.”

Occasionally, horses are genuinely misrepresented.

But in my experience, that is not the norm.

Far more often, you need to look at what has changed around the horse before deciding that the horse itself was the problem.

And if behaviour changes, physical discomfort, tack and veterinary causes should always be considered too.

More often than not, the horse hasn’t suddenly become a demon.

Its whole world has changed.

👉Its rider is different.

👉Its workload may be different.

👉Its routine and environment may be different.

👉And the experienced support it previously had may have disappeared.

Those things matter far more than people sometimes realise.

A horse may have been happily doing its job in its previous home because it was in regular work, ridden by someone experienced, managed in a routine that suited it and surrounded by people who noticed small changes before they became bigger ones.

Move that same horse somewhere else and change several of those things at once, and you may start seeing a very different version of the same horse.

This is something riding schools understand very well.

People often talk about “riding-school horses” as if they are somehow easier than other horses.

They’re not.

They’re horses.

At Barguse, we have quieter horses and ponies, sharper ones, competition types and everything in between.

The difference is that they are managed.

👉Their workload is monitored.

👉They are schooled between sessions when needed.

👉Their feeding is managed appropriately.

👉Their behaviour is noticed.

👉And riders are gradually introduced to different horses depending on their current skill set and confidence.

There is a whole support structure sitting behind what happens in that lesson.

When you buy or loan, that structure doesn’t automatically come with the horse.

Unless you are on an experienced yard or have knowledgeable support around you, all those decisions suddenly become yours.

And that is a much bigger step than simply being able to ride the horse.

It also matters because confidence lost at a crucial point in a rider’s journey can be much harder to rebuild afterwards.

Not impossible.

But much harder.

A couple of frightening experiences can quickly become something the rider starts anticipating before they even get on, and once that happens the whole partnership can become harder to untangle.

So if things start to go wrong after buying or loaning, before deciding:

“The horse has completely changed.”

ask instead:

👉What has changed in the horse’s routine?

👉Is the workload the same?

👉Am I able to give the horse the same level of riding and consistency as the previous home?

👉Has the management changed?

👉Do I have experienced support?

👉Has the horse gone from a busy life to a quieter one?

Because sometimes the horse isn’t the problem.

The match, management and support system simply aren’t the same anymore.

And that’s why moving from lessons into loaning or ownership needs far more thought than just finding a horse you like.

You’re not just taking on the horse.

You’re taking on everything that was helping that horse be the horse you saw in the first place.

13/08/2026

You can’t change what you can’t feel.

And you can’t reliably repeat what you didn’t notice.

I’ll often be teaching a rider when suddenly I see their horse’s way of going improve.

Maybe the horse becomes softer.
The rhythm changes.
The contact improves.
Something that looked difficult suddenly becomes easier.

So I’ll ask: “What did you just change?”

And quite often the answer is: “I don’t know.”

That matters.

Because if you don’t know what you changed, how are you going to repeat it?

This is why body awareness is such an important part of riding. It’s not just knowing what you’re supposed to do. It’s being able to feel what you’re actually doing.

I often describe riding as a huge jigsaw puzzle.

Balance, timing, breathing, tension, position, coordination, feel, attention, the horse’s response - all of those pieces interact.

Sometimes one small change suddenly makes several other pieces fit.

But first, the rider has to notice it.

This is where I try to develop what I call a thinking-feeling rider.

Riders are often very good at the thinking part.

They know the aid.
They understand the exercise.
They know where their leg should be.

But knowing something and feeling yourself doing it are not the same thing.

And simply saying, “Relax your arm,” isn’t always enough.

Because what does relaxed actually feel like?

If I ask a rider to show me their completely relaxed arm, I might call that a 1 on a scale of tension.

But what they genuinely believe is their 1 might look more like a 4 to me.

So we have to establish the same reference points.

Otherwise it’s like using a spirit level where the bubble is in the wrong place. You can keep adjusting, but your starting point is off.

So we deliberately create a range.

Show me your most relaxed arm. That’s your 1.

Now add tension. What does a 5 feel like? What does a 10 feel like?

Now come back down. Can you find your 1 again?

And then comes the really important question:

What does your horse do at each point?

Because the horse is part of the feedback system.

Change your balance and the horse adapts.
Grip differently and the horse adapts.
Soften, breathe, rebalance and the horse adapts again.

That’s why, when I see a horse change, one of my first questions is:

What changed in the rider?

Sometimes it’s tiny.

A softer hand.
A moving elbow.
A breath out.
Less grip through one leg.
A small change in balance.

The horse often feels it immediately.

The rider may not.

And that is the learning.

The aim of coaching isn’t just to put the rider in the right place.

It’s to help them learn how to recognise the right place for themselves.

Feel → notice → calibrate → observe → adjust → repeat.

And this is also why I’m cautious about the idea of “natural feel”.

Of course some riders start with better balance or awareness than others. But so much of what we call feel can be developed.

Body awareness can improve.
Timing can improve.
Coordination can improve.
Your ability to connect what you did with what your horse did next can improve.

Some riders may start with more pieces of the jigsaw already in place. Others have to build them deliberately. That doesn’t mean they can’t build them.

Good coaching isn’t just about telling a rider where to put each piece.

It’s about teaching them how to recognise the pieces and eventually put the picture together for themselves.

03/08/2026

We have been made aware of a road closure due to a large pothole in the road as you approach us from Luxulyan, please allow extra time to follow diversions.

They have also placed a road closed sign on our turning off of the Bugle road , if using this road do drive passed it as you can still get to our driveway

13/07/2026

Why now? They used to be absolutely fine.

It's one of the most common things I hear from parents and from riders themselves.

They used to hack alone, jump without a second thought, canter without hesitation. So why is this suddenly a problem?

Before we get to the answer, it's worth acknowledging something. Riding is genuinely one of the most complex sports there is - not just because of the technical demands, but because it requires all of that whilst remaining relaxed, focused and present on an animal that mirrors your body state in real time. Your horse isn't just responding to your aids. It's responding to your tension, your hesitation, your confidence, your doubt. Every ride is a two-way conversation whether you're aware of it or not. That complexity matters when we talk about why things accumulate.

Most assume something is wrong with them. That they've lost their nerve. Become a different person.

They haven't.

Sometimes there's a clear moment - a fall, a frightening experience, something the nervous system logged immediately and loudly. The rider knows exactly what happened and when.

But sometimes there's no single moment to point to. Instead it's accumulation. A series of experiences layering up, sometimes obviously connected, sometimes not, building gradually until something finally tips the balance. The rider can't pinpoint when it started because there wasn't one moment. There were many.

This is the one that confuses people most. Because without a clear event to point to, it can feel like it came from nowhere.

Every unsettling experience, however small, adds weight. A slightly tense lesson. A transition that didn't go quite right. A moment that was shaken off and moved on from. None of it felt significant at the time. But the nervous system logged all of it. Quietly. In the background. Layer by layer. Until one day the response feels completely out of proportion to what's actually happening.

That's not overreacting. That's a system that's been carrying weight for a while finally showing you it's there.

And it's worth understanding why. Your nervous system isn't malfunctioning when this happens. It would rather fire a hundred times unnecessarily than miss the one moment where you genuinely need it. We're not trying to switch that off. We're learning to tell the difference between a real situation and an anticipated one.

It happens across every type of rider I work with - those having weekly lessons, those who bring their own horses, those riding with us to improve position or technique. It doesn't discriminate.

I had an example today. A rider trotting around beautifully - relaxed, rhythmic, no issues at all. We came to canter and the transition fell apart. Not because she can't canter. She has her own horse. She canters regularly. But in that moment the pressure of getting it right took over and I watched the spiral begin. If I don't get this transition I'm not a good rider. If I'm not a good rider how will I manage my young horse. How will I ride that dressage test next month.

One transition. A spiral that went three steps into the future in seconds.

So I stopped her and asked a simple question. If you don't get the canter transition - what does that actually mean?

She thought about it. And then: I suppose nothing, really.

That's the spiral examined. And when you actually look at it, it almost always dissolves. The threat felt enormous. The reality was a transition we were going to work on together anyway.

So in a lesson, here's what we actually do.

The brain doesn't recognise a negative instruction. Telling yourself not to tense, not to worry, not to think about the transition doesn't work - the brain goes straight to the thing you're trying to avoid. It also doesn't tolerate a vacuum. If you don't give it something specific to focus on it defaults straight back to the pattern it knows.

So we break it down. One thing at a time. Not the canter - the quality of the trot going into it. Not the outcome - the next stride. We ask riders to scan for tension before it takes hold, to name it without catastrophising it, and then give the body a specific physical command to move towards rather than something to brace against.

It doesn't always go perfectly. But it goes better than leaving the brain to its own devices.

That's not weakness. That's just how nervous systems work. And knowing that is where things start to shift.

12/06/2026

Your body isn't being difficult. It's being protective.

One of the most common things I hear from riders - and from parents at the gate - is some version of this:

I know I'm gripping. I know it's not helping. But I can't seem to stop.

Or: She knows she needs to sit up. We've told her. The coach has told her. She just keeps doing it.

Here's why.

When most people hear "nervous system protective response" they picture a dramatic moment. A fall. A bolt. A near miss. Those absolutely register. But that's not the whole picture.

The nervous system responds to anything unfamiliar. Anything it doesn't yet have a map for. The wind past your ears at speed. Not knowing where your body is in space. A live animal shifting unexpectedly beneath you. A transition that came a beat earlier than expected. None of these are dangerous. But to a nervous system still building its map of this sport - unfamiliar and unsafe can feel like the same thing.

And so it responds. Automatically. Before a single conscious thought.

The gripping knee isn't just tension - it creates a chain reaction. Seat lifts out of the saddle, lower leg swings back, hips stiffen, and the rider can no longer move with the horse. The horse feels it immediately. Most riders know this. You can find it on YouTube in thirty seconds. And yet when the nervous system fires, the knee grips anyway. Same with the vice-like hands, the hollowed back, the flared ribs. The knowledge is there. But knowledge and nervous system response operate on completely different tracks - and in that moment, the nervous system wins.

The cruel irony is that every one of those responses makes riding harder, not safer. The body tries to protect itself and creates the very instability it was trying to prevent.

I sometimes demonstrate this deliberately. I'll ask an experienced rider to brace, grip, hollow, hold on - and the group watches what happens to the horse. It tightens, shortens, resists. Then I ask that same rider to do the complete opposite. The horse changes. Same horse. Same rider. Completely different conversation. No amount of explanation does what that moment does.

This is also why a good coach is managing several things at once. Teaching a new technique requires the rider to try something unfamiliar - which the nervous system will read as uncertain. So whilst the technical instruction is happening, an experienced coach is simultaneously watching for the protective response firing in the background. Push too hard and the system overloads. Don't push enough and the skill never develops. Getting that balance right is one of the most nuanced parts of coaching well.

Knowing why your body does this doesn't immediately stop it. But understanding it changes your relationship with it. And that is where things start to shift.

01/06/2026

The culture of a lesson matters as much as the lesson itself.

There's something I ask at the end of every session, without fail.

What did you do well today? And what would you like to improve on next?

It might sound simple. But there's a reason it never gets skipped.

When a rider - of any age - is asked to reflect on their own session, something shifts. They stop being a passenger in their own development and start taking ownership of it. They notice things. They begin to understand that progress isn't something that happens to them. It's something they're part of.

That only works in a certain kind of environment. One where trying and getting it wrong isn't just tolerated - it's expected. Where a mistake isn't a failure, it's information. Where nobody is performing for the approval of the coach - they're genuinely attempting things because they feel able to.

Gareth Southgate spoke about this in the context of elite football - the idea that when players operate from a protective place, when the fear of getting it wrong outweighs the desire to try, they stay within their comfort zone. They don't push. They don't grow. The culture around them determines whether they feel safe enough to test their edges or whether they quietly retreat from them.

It's exactly the same in riding.

Riders who stop pushing at something the moment it doesn't go right. Who decide they can't rather than trying a different way. Who are so focused on not looking silly - in front of the coach, in front of the group - that they've stopped actually riding and started performing instead. That rider isn't going to develop. Not because they lack ability. Because the environment hasn't given them permission to fail.

You cannot get it right without first getting it wrong. That isn't a flaw in the process. That is the process. And the faster a rider internalises that, the faster the real progress begins - not just for them, but for their horse. Because a horse ridden by someone who is tense, guarded, and afraid to commit is a horse that finds its job harder than it should be. When a rider understands why they are developing these skills - for their own enjoyment and for the welfare of the animal beneath them - they become more motivated, not more pressured. They want to get it right. And that wanting, in an environment where getting it wrong is part of the journey, is where the best riding comes from.

This is why we ask every rider - child or adult, struggling or thriving - to name something they did well at the end of every session. When that becomes the culture of a group, nobody is watching anyone else and judging. Everyone is in it together. And that collective safety is what makes it possible to keep attempting, keep learning, and keep improving without the weight of self-consciousness getting in the way.

Creating that environment is as much a part of my job as any technical instruction I give. You can have the best coaching in the world. But if the person in front of you doesn't feel able to keep trying, none of it lands.

17/05/2026

Learning to ride isn't a straight line. It never was.

If you've ever felt like you were getting worse just when you thought you were getting better, this one is for you.

Learning any complex skill - and riding is one of the most complex there is - doesn't follow a smooth upward path. It feels more like a rollercoaster. And understanding why that is changes everything about how you experience the process.

When you start learning something new, it's hard. Your brain and body are working flat out just to process what's being asked of them. Gradually, with repetition and time, it starts to click. Things that felt impossible begin to feel possible. You find your trajectory and progress feels real.

And then you plateau.

This is not a problem. This is the point.

That plateau is where the skill embeds itself properly. Where what you've learned stops being something you have to think about and starts becoming something you just do. Staying in that place for a while - consolidating before moving on - is not stagnation. It's the foundation for everything that comes next. Think of each point of consolidation as a gatekeeper - building a buffer around your progress so that if you have a wobble further down the line, you won't go all the way back to the beginning. You'll only ever regress to your last point of embedding.

This is also why rushing that process works against you. Ask too much too soon and the nervous system doesn't just struggle - it pulls back. The comfort zone shrinks rather than grows. And what felt like a shortcut becomes a much longer road.
Then we ask something new of you. And for a while, it feels like you've gone backwards.

You haven't.

Nobody learns a new skill without getting it wrong first. That's not a detour from the process - it is the process. You're gathering information. Working out what works and what doesn't. Your brain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, it just doesn't feel that way from the inside.

This is why we don't rush progression. Not because we don't believe in you. Because we understand what learning actually looks like - and we'd rather you embed something properly than move on before you're ready and spend twice as long unpicking it later.

The rollercoaster isn't a sign something is wrong. It's a sign something is happening.

10/05/2026

Why repeating myself is part of my job.

I wrote this originally for my dedicated mindset coaching page and it seemed to resonate, so I wanted to share it here too.

A rider apologised to me recently.

Not for anything she'd done wrong. She apologised for needing me to repeat myself. Said she felt stupid. Wondered out loud whether I must get frustrated going over the same things again and again.

I want to address that. Because I suspect she's not the only one who feels this way - and I'd imagine more than a few parents have wondered the same thing from the other side of the fence.

Repeating myself is part of my job. Not a sign that you're failing. Not a reflection of your ability. Just how learning actually works.

Your brain has a finite number of slots available at any one time. When you're concentrating hard - processing instruction, managing your horse, maintaining your position, thinking about what comes next - those slots fill up fast. There's only so much the brain can hold at once before new information simply doesn't land.

This is why a rider can hear something in a lesson, understand it in the moment, and then seemingly forget it the next time. The brain wasn't ready to file it yet. It needed more repetitions, more time, more space. And sometimes it needed the same thing explained from a different angle entirely - because the way information is delivered matters just as much as how often it's repeated. Finding the explanation that finally lands is part of the process too.

But here's what happens when something is truly mastered. It stops needing a slot. It becomes automatic - and suddenly there's space for the next piece of information to come in. That's not stupidity. That's exactly how the brain is supposed to work.

Learning a new skill is frustrating. That frustration is the brain's way of keeping you engaged - still searching for the answer, not yet ready to give up. It means you're in the process. Not stuck. In it.

So no. I don't get frustrated repeating myself. I get sad when riders apologise for being human.

27/04/2026

If I had a pound for every time I've had this call.

They used to be so confident. I don't know what happened. They just don't seem like the same child anymore.

It usually starts with a pony. Owned or loaned. One that felt exciting at the time - forward, fizzy, full of energy. And then something happened. The pony took off. Bucked. Felt like too much. And the child who used to canter around without a second thought is now standing at the gate not wanting to get on.

This is more common than most people realise. And there's a very specific reason it happens.

When the brain and body experience something that feels threatening - a pony that bolts, bucks, or simply feels out of control - the nervous system registers it. That's its job. But when that experience happens repeatedly, or when it happens before a rider has the physical or emotional resources to process it, the nervous system doesn't just remember it. It consolidates it. It strengthens the response. And in doing so, it begins to create more distance between the rider and anything that feels like that threat again.

The comfort zone doesn't stay the same size. It shrinks. Which is why the child in front of you no longer resembles the confident rider they were. They haven't become less capable. Their nervous system has become more protective. Those are very different things, and they need a very different response.

This is also why putting that rider back on a forward, energetic horse isn't the answer. A rider carrying tension sends a signal and a reactive horse will respond to it in one of two ways. Some will move into flight, reading the rigidity as a fear response and reacting accordingly. Others will absorb the blocked energy, becoming more tense and harder to ride as that energy builds with nowhere to go. Either way, the conversation between two nervous systems has broken down and the rider is in a harder situation than the one they started in.

Matching a rider to the right horse at the right stage of their development isn't about limiting them. It's about protecting the progress they've already made, and giving their nervous system the conditions to build confidence progressively and consolidate it - quietly, consistently, and without being asked to do something it isn't ready for yet.

Getting that match right is one of the most important things we do.

15/04/2026

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. 😊

Barguse Riding Centre

31/08/2026

13/08/2026

03/08/2026

13/07/2026

12/06/2026

01/06/2026

17/05/2026

10/05/2026

27/04/2026

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