Pegasus Physiotherapy

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Pegasus Physiotherapy Chartered Physiotherapist and ACPAT Equine Physiotherapist covering Cheshire, Wirral & North Wales.

Chartered Physio & ACPAT Equine Physio
Rider Physio | Cheshire + UK clinics
Riding Ready | Online rider courses
SymmFit | Rider biomechanics clothing

www.pegasusphysio.co.uk Special focus on rider physiotherapy with sessions on mechanical horse at Racewood HQ in Tarporley, Cheshire using state of the art equestrian simulators.

🙌And we are ready for a busy cross country day!
19/09/2026

🙌And we are ready for a busy cross country day!

👠”Your seat bones are like stilettos pressing into your horse’s back.”Except they aren’t pressing directly into your hor...
19/09/2026

👠”Your seat bones are like stilettos pressing into your horse’s back.”

Except they aren’t pressing directly into your horse’s back.

We load the saddle. The saddle loads the horse.

That distinction is important. At the rider-saddle interface, loading may be relatively localised around the seat bones. But there is another interface underneath - the saddle-horse interface - and the pressure distribution there is not the same.

One of the fundamental mechanical functions of a correctly fitting saddle is to distribute the rider’s load over a greater surface area of the horse’s back. And because pressure = force ÷ area, distributing a force over a larger area reduces the average pressure and helps avoid focal areas of high pressure.

So suggesting that we need to take weight away from our seat bones and “spread it through our thighs and feet” to turn the stilettos into trainers misses the important bit.

The saddle is the trainer.

We load the saddle through our body. The saddle then takes that loading and distributes it across a much greater surface area of the horse.

And this isn’t just theoretical - pressure-mapping studies comparing ba****ck riding with a conventional saddle have demonstrated focal pressures associated with the ischial region when ba****ck, while adding the saddle increases the area over which the load is distributed.

So saying “we load our seat bones” doesn’t mean we are driving two small points of pressure into the horse’s back.

We load the saddle. The saddle distributes the load.

Which is also exactly why having a correctly fitting saddle matters so much.

🙌Thank you to my other half for helping me set up and being here for the last two days
18/09/2026

🙌Thank you to my other half for helping me set up and being here for the last two days

18/09/2026

💪Lots of riders seeing their position in the saddle clearly with the training tops and jackets on my Frank Baines Saddlery Ltd !

👀When I put posts up talking about how you hold the reins, I’m sure most of you are pretty confident that you hold both ...
18/09/2026

👀When I put posts up talking about how you hold the reins, I’m sure most of you are pretty confident that you hold both reins the same way.

But having watched thousands of riders pick up the reins on the simulator and at shows, I can tell you… they often don’t!

This rider came to see me at Blenheim and had absolutely no idea that her thumb wasn’t actually securing the rein on her right hand.

What was particularly interesting was that she told me she is always being told to shorten her right rein because she loses it.

When we looked at her hands, we could see the likely reason why. The thumb helps provide stability to secure the rein, leaving the fingers free to make the smaller adjustments needed to feel and respond to changes in rein tension.

Your fingers can hold the rein without the thumb providing that stability — but now they’re being asked to do two jobs: hold the rein AND make adjustments.

And two jobs is harder than one.

The biggest problem was that she had no idea her two hands were doing something different.

She bought a pair of Insight Gloves so she can use the visual markings to recognise the difference in her thumb placement and start developing the body awareness to correct it herself.

I’m also using my new Henry James Saddlery reins at Blenheim, which have a visual thumb-placement area. This works really well with the reinforced index-finger patch and black touchscreen section on the thumb of the Insight Gloves, giving you clear reference points for where everything is actually sitting.

So, how confident are you that both your hands are doing the same thing?

If you’re at Blenheim Horse Trials, come and see me and find out.

📍 Stand A131

Independent hands start with holding the reins the correct way 🙌

17/09/2026

😂

17/09/2026

🙌Lots of great feedback today but a couple of comments I think we need to consider;

- being wonky is not somethint tk be proud about
- sometimes simple corrections work, sometimes they don’t - but lets not overcomplicate things from the off!

👍 Yes. Not because I care what your hands look like, or because I’m being pedantic about tiny details. It matters becaus...
17/09/2026

👍 Yes. Not because I care what your hands look like, or because I’m being pedantic about tiny details. It matters because thumb position changes how your hand functions.

There are different ways our thumbs and fingers work together depending on the grip we are trying to produce. That isn’t my opinion - there is a huge amount of research into hand function, grip patterns, thumb mechanics and how we hold and manipulate objects.

When we hold the reins, we need enough stability to maintain them while still allowing the fingers to detect changes in tension and make small, controlled adjustments. Where the rein sits beneath the thumb changes how the thumb interacts with it, the grip we create and how the rest of the hand and wrist work.

Simply being told “thumbs on top” doesn’t actually tell us very much about any of that. Your thumb can technically be “on top” in several very different positions, creating very different grips.

And that is exactly why I created the Insight Gloves.

The markings give you a quick, easy visual reference so you can actually see where your thumb, fingers and wrist are positioned, recognise when they change and correct them yourself - rather than relying on a vague instruction about where your hands should be.

You might have held your reins the same way for 20 years. You might think analysing thumb position is far too detailed. You might feel that you already have good contact.

But none of that changes how the human hand works. And your horse may have a different opinion about how good that contact feels.

Want to understand why the fingers, thumb, wrist, elbow and shoulder matter, and how they work together when we use the reins? Sign up for the Riding Ready Reins Course.

🤩It’s surprisingly difficult to know what your position looks like - or what you’re doing differently from one side to t...
16/09/2026

🤩It’s surprisingly difficult to know what your position looks like - or what you’re doing differently from one side to the other - just from feel alone.

At Blenheim Horse Trials, I’ll be offering FREE rider position checks on the SymmFit by Pegasus Physio stand.

Come and sit in the saddle, have your position assessed and find out what might be influencing your alignment - it only takes a few minutes.

And you’ll be doing it in something rather special 🩷 I’ll have my beautiful customised pink Frank Baines saddle on the stand. So as well as having your position checked, you can come and see the saddle up close, sit in it and experience a Frank Baines saddle for yourself.

A big thank you to Frank Baines Saddlery for supporting the rider position checks and helping me bring them to Blenheim.

No booking needed - just come and find us!

📍 Stand A131


How straight do you sit in the saddle? Come in and find out!

12/09/2026

🤝 Riding requires stability in some parts of the body to allow freedom of movement in others. With the reins, we want enough stability at the wrist to give the fingers the freedom and control to detect and respond, while movement can occur through the elbow and shoulder.

But can you actually do that?

Understanding what you need to do is one thing. Having the body awareness and physical ability to actually do it is how we create long-term change.

This is exactly what we explore all three things in my Rider Physio sessions, and in much more detail in the Riding Ready Reins Course, where we break down how the fingers, thumb, wrist, elbow and shoulder work together to create independent hands.

Want to understand your hands rather than just keep being told where to put them? Book a Rider Physio session or join the Riding Ready Reins Course.

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