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Lisa Todd Coaching, Barguse Riding Centre, Lockengate (2026)

02/11/2026

“Why do I always ride better at the end of the lesson?”

A rider asked me that today.

By the end of the session she was looser, more balanced, the horse was going better and everything felt easier.

So I asked her:

“What changed?”

She knew she felt looser.

But that was only one clue.

Because riding well isn’t just about eventually finding the right feeling.

It’s about getting better at understanding how you got there.

I often think of it like solving a puzzle.

Something isn’t working.

You feel stiff.

The horse isn’t going forward.

You can’t find the same position you had last week.

But “I’m stiff” doesn’t really tell us very much.

Where are you stiff?

What changes when you move differently?

What does the horse do when your body changes?

For some riders, the hardest bit is simply feeling what their body is doing.

For others, they can feel it perfectly well but changing the pattern is much harder.

And sometimes there’s another layer again.

You can consciously feel safe…

but your body still reacts as if it needs to protect you.

That might show up as bracing, holding, over-controlling or simply feeling completely discombobulated because something about the situation is unfamiliar.

And that can be incredibly frustrating.

“I know I’m safe, so why is my body doing this?”

Because your conscious thoughts and your protective responses don’t always update at exactly the same speed.

That doesn’t mean the puzzle is impossible.

It just means there may be more than one piece to find.

This is why I’m not particularly worried if something isn’t right at the beginning of a session.

What matters far more is:

Can you notice it?
Can you start finding the clues?
Can you change something?
Can you recognise what helped when it starts to work?

Because good performance isn’t about producing your best riding from minute one.

It’s about becoming better at finding your way there.

And the more you understand the route, the easier it becomes to find again.

31/10/2026

Maybe your confidence hasn’t gone.

Maybe it only works in one set of conditions.

You’re fine in one arena.

With one horse.

On one familiar route.

In one type of lesson.

Then something changes…

and suddenly you feel like you’ve lost it.

That can be really confusing, especially if you know you’re capable.

But confidence is often much more specific than we think.

Sometimes the skill simply hasn’t transferred yet.

You’ve learned to cope in one environment, but your brain and body haven’t yet learned:

“I can do this here too.”

That’s one of the things I find interesting in my current TRT work with horses as well.

If a horse only learns that one particular banner, corner or object is safe, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve learned how to cope when the next unfamiliar thing appears.

We can do exactly the same as riders.

We get comfortable with one set of circumstances and then assume something has gone wrong when those circumstances change.

But sometimes there’s another layer.

👉You can have the skill.

👉You can understand what to do.

👉You can have done it before.

👉And still find that something in the background keeps interfering.

That might be something directly related to riding.

Or it might not be.

It might be fear of getting hurt.

Pressure to get things right.

A need to stay in control.

Something that happened previously.

Or simply something else going on in life that changes how you respond when you’re under pressure.

And quite often, you don’t know which bit it is until you start looking properly.

That’s why I’m less interested in:

“Why am I not confident?”

and more interested in:

“Where does it change?”

What is different about the situation where you struggle?

What happens in your body?

What are you expecting?

What feels different about the consequences if it goes wrong?

Because sometimes confidence hasn’t disappeared.

Sometimes it hasn’t transferred yet.

And sometimes something else is sitting quietly in the background stopping it from doing so.

And that’s exactly the sort of thing I work on with riders.

Not just “confidence” in the abstract, but the point where things change - what sits underneath it, what keeps the pattern going, and what needs to shift so you can actually use the skills you already have in more situations.

If you recognise yourself in this, you can message me here.

Or, if you’d rather use a form, you can use the Mindset for Performance enquiry form on my page.
https://lisatoddcoaching.com/mindset-for-performance-page

You don’t need to know exactly what’s causing it before you get in touch.

That’s the bit we work out together.

28/10/2026

You can know exactly what to do with a spooky horse and still struggle to do it in the moment.

That’s one of the things I’m finding really interesting in the current part of my TRT Advanced Trainer’s course.

There are specific ways I can help a horse when it gets worried.

I can change the positioning.

Redirect rather than hold.

Help the horse reorganise itself and refocus.

But there’s a catch.

The rider has to be in the right enough state to do that.

Because if the horse jumps sideways and the rider immediately holds their breath, grips, shortens the reins and starts anticipating the next reaction...

then even if they know what they should do, their body may be doing something completely different.

And that matters.

Because the horse may have reacted to the original trigger for a second or two...

but if the rider then stays tight, holds, watches the scary thing and rides as though another reaction is definitely coming, the horse is now getting a whole new set of signals that say:

“Something is still wrong.”

So the rider can unintentionally keep the reaction going longer than it needed to.

That doesn’t mean the rider caused the original spook.

It means what happens afterwards can either help the horse come back down or keep the whole system activated.

This is where the horse training and the mindset work overlap so much for me.

With the horse, we’re not trying to make sure nothing ever scares it.

We’re teaching it how to recover from the reaction.

With the rider, it’s much the same.

You may still get the adrenaline.

You may still have that split-second “oh God” moment.

The important bit is whether you can notice what has happened in your own body quickly enough to change it.

Because only then can you give the horse the clear information it needs.

That might mean softening a hand that has started holding.

Breathing out.

Changing your posture.

Getting your attention off the trigger.

Or using the positioning you’ve trained rather than simply trying to stop the horse reacting.

And I think this is the bit riders often don’t realise:

the spook may be over, but your response can keep the horse in it.

Knowing what to do with the horse is only half of it.

You don’t have to be perfectly calm.

But you do need enough awareness of your own state to change what you’re doing and use the tools you already have.

That is a skill in itself.

26/10/2026

One of the things I’m really enjoying in the current part of my TRT Advanced Trainer’s course is how closely some of the horse work mirrors what I do with riders through mindset coaching.

Because neither horse nor rider gets to control everything around them.

You can’t guarantee there won’t be a flapping banner.

A horse calling from another field.

A noisy warm-up.

A change in weather.

Or something appearing in the corner that apparently wasn’t there yesterday and is clearly planning murder. 😂

The aim isn’t to make the environment perfectly safe or predictable.

It’s to develop the ability to notice what has changed, regulate, refocus and come back to the job.

For the horse, that means learning not to stay stuck in the reaction.

For the rider, it’s much the same.

You may still feel nervous.

You may still get a surge of adrenaline.

You may still react when something unexpected happens.

The useful skill is being able to recognise:

“Something has changed in me.”

And then know what to do next.

Because resilience isn’t about never reacting.

It’s about getting better at recovering when you do.

25/10/2026

What’s the one thing that creates the most stress for you when you ride?

Not necessarily the biggest thing.

Just the bit where you notice yourself changing.

Maybe it’s mounting up.

Hacking alone or ... in company.

Cantering in an open space.

A particular dressage movement.

Jumping.

Warm-up arenas.

Riding a fresher horse.

Or even something that seems completely ridiculous when you say it out loud. 😂

Sometimes it’s not the whole ride that feels difficult.

It’s one very specific moment, situation or feeling.

So I’m curious:

What’s yours?

22/10/2026

Sometimes your head has moved on before your body has.

I worked with a rider recently who’d been told she needed to relax her arms.

She could see they were stiff.

She tried pushing them forward.

She tried consciously softening them.

It didn’t really change anything.

Because the arms weren’t actually the problem.

She’d previously had a fall where she broke a rib and punctured a lung.

She had recovered.

She was back riding.

Consciously, she knew she was okay.

But her body had learned something during that experience:

protect this area. Hold. Brace. Don’t move too much.

And bodies are very good at keeping hold of patterns that once had a useful job.

The interesting bit is that your body and brain are constantly feeding information backwards and forwards.

You can consciously think:

“I’m fine.”

But if your body is still braced, restricted or protecting, your brain is also receiving information that says:

“Something here still needs looking after.”

That can then show up in the riding as stiffness, fixed hands, restricted movement, gripping or over-control.

Which is why telling someone to “just relax” often doesn’t get very far.

And why working harder on the visible bit may not help either.

Your body doesn’t operate as a collection of separate pieces.

Your pelvis, spine, ribcage, shoulders and arms all have to move together.

So instead of working on her arms, we worked on the pattern underneath them.

We used a somatic exercise to change how her brain was interpreting and organising what she was feeling through her body.

And then something lovely happened.

Her body started moving.

The horse walked forward more freely.

And her arms softened.

Without us really working on her arms at all.

That’s the bit I think is useful for riders to understand.

If you keep being told to relax a certain part of your body and it simply won’t change, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not trying hard enough.

It may be worth asking:

What is the rest of my body doing?

What am I protecting or holding?

Did this pattern start after something happened?

Because sometimes the visible stiffness is only the symptom.

The real work is helping the whole system realise it no longer needs to organise itself in quite the same way.

And when that changes, the riding can change very quickly too.

21/10/2026

She's finally done it!! 🎉🐴

I know just how much hard work has gone into this, not to mention the frustration, the technical challenges and the inevitable teething problems along the way!

But my mate and fellow mindset coach, Cassy Gadsby , has finally got her Plait Like a Pro website and online course up and running, and it's brilliant!!

Cass is an absolute genius when it comes to plaiting horses, and she's now put all that knowledge and experience into 16 step-by-step video lessons, helping others learn how to achieve those beautifully turned-out manes and tails.

Whether you're a complete beginner or already know your way around a plait but want to improve your technique, there's something for you.

And with lifetime access to the lessons, you can keep going back to practise and perfect your skills.

With next year's show season still a little way off, now is the perfect time to get practising, rather than leaving it until the morning of your first competition!

I'm genuinely delighted for Cass. I know how much this project has meant to her, and it's fantastic to see it finally come together.

Do take a look and give her some support. She really deserves it! ❤️

👉 https://www.plaitlikeapro.co.uk

20/10/2026

There’s a cost to staying on the fence.

Not just financially.

Although keeping a horse you’re hardly riding is certainly not cheap.

The bigger cost is time.

Another winter.

Another spring.

Another year of thinking:

“I’ll start when…”

“When the weather improves.”

“When the horse settles.”

“When work calms down.”

“When I feel more confident.”

“When I’ve had another lesson.”

And some of those reasons are completely valid.

Of course the horse needs checking if something feels wrong.

Of course teeth, back, saddle, soundness and management matter.

But if those things have been checked, and the reason changes while the result stays the same -

you’re still not doing the thing you want to do -

then eventually it’s worth looking at the part that’s easier to avoid.

Your own response.

Because I’ve now seen both sides of this.

Riders who stayed on the fence and are still having much the same conversation months later.

And riders who decided to work on it.

They’re still with the horse they thought they might have to sell.

They’re enjoying riding again.

They’re going to fun rides and clinics.

They’re getting back into the competition arena.

They’re making plans instead of finding reasons to put them off.

That doesn’t happen because somebody tells them to “be more confident”.

It happens because we work out what is actually keeping the pattern in place and start changing it.

And that is really what these sessions are for.

Not to give you a nice chat about confidence.

To help you get back to actually using the horse, the skills and the opportunities you already have.

So maybe the question isn’t:

“Do I need mindset coaching?”

Maybe it’s:

“How much longer do I want this to stay the same?”

If you’re reading this thinking “this is probably me”, you don’t need to know exactly what you need or write me your life story.

Just send me a message with the word READY.

I’ll come back to you and we can work out whether I’m the right person to help.

No pressure. No obligation. Just a conversation about what’s happening and where you’d actually like to get to.

18/10/2026

Sometimes the easiest coaching solution isn’t the best one.

I had a really good example of this in one of my junior lessons.

One rider was on a pony that she was having to work far too hard to keep going.

The obvious fix would have been:
Put her on a sharper pony.

And yes, the pony would probably have gone more easily.

But that wouldn’t necessarily have helped the rider.

Because if I put her on something much sharper, she can become worried, tense and defensive.

So instead of solving one problem, I could quite easily create another.

The real question was:
Why wasn’t this pony going for her?

Part of it was her position.
Part of it was that she tends to ride with quite low energy, so although she was using her leg, the rest of her body wasn’t necessarily saying the same thing.

That’s not mystical.

It’s things like how upright you are, how much tension you’re holding, how clearly you ask, how quickly you release, how much movement there is through your body, and whether you’re riding with intent or hesitation.

So instead of changing the pony, we worked on changing what she was doing.

And when that changed, the pony changed too.

No endless kicking.
No working twice as hard.
The pony simply went more freely.

Later in the lesson I swapped the riders around.

The other rider has naturally more energy and immediately got more forward movement - but her position was getting in the way.

So again, the answer wasn’t just more.

It was better use of what was already there.

And I think this is one of the harder parts of coaching.

Sometimes the quickest fix is to change the horse.

But the better question is:
What does this rider actually need to learn?

Because if I only ever solve the problem by putting them on a horse that compensates for it, they haven’t really developed.

They’ve just changed horses.

The aim is to help the rider become more adaptable, so they can influence more than one type of horse without overworking, getting tense or becoming defensive.

Sometimes a different horse is absolutely the right answer.

But sometimes the most useful thing a coach can do is resist the obvious fix long enough to work out what actually needs changing.

15/10/2026

Sometimes progress feels wrong before it feels right.

One of the strangest things about changing your riding is that a better position can feel completely wrong.

And there’s a reason for that.

Your brain is constantly using proprioception - your sense of where your body is in space - together with a learned body schema, basically its internal map of where “you” normally are and how you normally move.

That map is built from repetition.

So if you usually sit slightly behind the movement, that becomes familiar.
If you usually carry quite a lot of tension, that becomes familiar.
If your pelvis doesn’t move very much, that becomes familiar too.

Then a coach asks you to change something.
You move a little closer to vertical.
You soften.
You allow more movement.

And your brain goes:
That feels enormous.

The feeling is real.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean the change is enormous.
It means the new movement is different from the map your brain is used to.

I had this with one of my adult riders recently.
The horse she’d ridden previously had been really hard work for her.
This time, completely different.

So I asked:
“What have you changed?”

She said she’d realised that what felt like a huge change in her body was barely visible from the ground.

So instead of immediately backing off because it felt “too much”, she kept exploring until something actually changed.

Then she checked in the mirror.
What felt huge…
wasn’t.
And the horse went differently.

This is why mirrors, video and feedback from the ground are so useful.
They give you an external reference while your internal reference is still calibrated to the old pattern.

And it’s also why, when a coach asks you to change something and it feels bizarre, it can be worth resisting the urge to immediately retreat back to familiar.

Pause.
Check.
Notice what the horse does.

Use the mirror.
Ask for feedback.

Because unfamiliar doesn’t automatically mean wrong.

Sometimes your brain simply hasn’t updated the map yet.

And that’s part of progressing as a rider too: being willing to spend a little time in the unfamiliar while your body learns a new normal.

Lisa Todd Coaching

02/11/2026

31/10/2026

28/10/2026

26/10/2026

25/10/2026

22/10/2026

21/10/2026

20/10/2026

18/10/2026

15/10/2026

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