Strong enough to be quiet
The Onya Equi Method - strength and conditioning for riders
Strength that supports not blocks.
Mobility you can actually use.
A nervous system that produces timing instead of tension.
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Tailored programmes with support ranging from light touch to complete performance level
The Onya Equi method prepares the body to access the mobility and movement required for riding. To be able to maintain them under load, pressure, balance, asymmetry and bigger movements. Riding is a skill learned on the horse but if you can't do these movements off the horse, you can't improve when riding. We aim to give you more opportunity to get the most out of your riding and practicing that skill to your full potential.
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This is not about adding strength for its own sake, but being strong in a way you can ride quietly and effectively for you and your horse.
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Riding is physical and has many repetitive movements. Over time the niggles creep in and the body stops giving you the position you know. This is the work that gives it back, the strength to find a position and hold it with a horse moving underneath you.
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It is as much nervous system as muscle. Brace and hold your breath and the body guards, so the aids get forced. Teach it to feel safe and you ride with timing instead of tension.
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Programmes are built around a horse owner's life. Short sessions, most can be done at the yard or at home, structured so you always know what to do. The best programme is the one that gets done.
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The Onya Equi coaching philosophy
To build strength and conditioning around the rider, their horse and the real demands of their discipline. To develop secure, durable and quietly effective riders, by training the body that carries them so it serves the riding rather than interfering with it.
horse first
Keep the horse first. The rider is the one being coached, but the work is always for the partnership, and a stronger, quieter rider is a better partner for the horse.
ethics
Coach experienced riders as the capable adults they are. The precise work, the honest reason for it, then it is theirs to apply. Nothing is oversold, and what is promising but unproven is named as such.
longevity
Build riders who last. Strength and mobility that hold under fatigue, speed and pressure, so riding stays secure and sustainable for years, not just for the next event.
Training supports riding
Treat riding as the athletic, repetitive skill it is. Off-horse work that makes correct riding physically sustainable, without ever standing in for the riding itself.
about
If your body no longer does what you ask of it when you ride, I understand that from the inside. I competed as a graded para rider, on an established schoolmaster and on a horse I bred and produced myself, while I was working back from surgery following L5/S1 spinal injury, a left leg with permanent nerve damage, weakness, crookedness down one side and years of chronic back pain. Strength and conditioning is what put me back together. It is not just theory I read in a course, it is what I lived, and it is why I trust it for you. The horsemanship came first. Forty years riding, twenty-five running a full livery yard and a stud of my own, coaching hundreds of grass routes to competitive riders in one to one lessons, dressage, showjumping and clinics for British Eventing. So I know horse people in my bones. Riding was my job. I rode proffessionally, bringing on and competing horses, my own and other people's, in both showjumping and dressage. In jumping I brought on young horses, produced my own to 1.35, county level and small grands prix and derbies, and spent time at the sharp end as a groom rider for a world number two. On the flat I competed at Prix St Georges on a Grand Prix schoolmaster and produced my own horses to Advanced Medium. My grounding is classical, and that is where my horse-first way of working comes from. Years of regular training with John Lassetter, who trained at the Spanish Riding School, riding with Charles de Kunffy and observing clinics with other masters such as Arthur Kottas and Stephan Clarke. The thread through all of it is the one that runs through my coaching: the horse comes first, and a quieter, stronger rider is a better partner for the horse. Then the other half of what I do. I am a Level 4 strength and conditioning coach, a personal trainer, a performance nutritionist, and a Team GB age-group endurance athlete across long-course triathlon and SUP racing. My specialism is the rider's body under load and nervous-system-led performance: training the body that carries the horse so it serves the riding rather than getting in the way. So I know what your body is doing when you ride, I am reading it as a coach and a competitor who has seen it thousands of times and had to rebuild the very same things in her own body. I am not guessing. I know the body you are bringing to this, and I know what to do with it. Sonya Brotherton Former professional showjumping and dressage rider · graded para rider · 25 years livery and stud management BHS Stage 4 Senior Coach and Stable Manager (formerly BHS II) · UKCC Level 3 Showjumping Coach Level 4 Strength & Conditioning Coach (Olympic lifting) · Certified Level 3 Personal Trainer · Performance Nutritionist · Trained Life Coach Team GB Age Group endurance athlete, long-course triathlon and SUP racing Specialist in rider biomechanics, myofascial movement and nervous-system-led performance