UNLOCKING YOUR HORSE’S HIDDEN POTENTIAL WITH SIMON COCOZZA
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Simon Cocozza is an internationally respected trainer, author of Core Conditioning for Horses, and a FEI-level coach with a background in advanced equestrian instruction and equine biomechanics. His revolutionary system – Core Conditioning for Horses – focuses on developing strength, balance and longevity through gymnastic groundwork and intelligent schooling.
Whether your horse struggles with topline, kissing spine or overall suppleness, Simon’s method helps unlock performance and comfort at every level.
His upcoming clinic in South Africa provides a rare opportunity to train with someone who understands how to build horses from the inside out. If you’re serious about long-term soundness, real progress and ethical training, you can’t afford to miss this.
We caught up with Simon to discuss how a better understanding of the spinal column can revolutionise our training AND our relationship with our horses.
Join Simon’s clinic in Johannesburg from the 15th to the 21st of June 2025.
HQ: It’s a pleasure to meet you, and we’re incredibly excited about your upcoming clinic in South Africa. Can you tell us a bit about your journey for readers who don’t know you?
Simon: I qualified as an instructor and trained over the years under several Grand Prix riders from Holland and Germany. When I started out on my own, I would buy horses from those countries and bring them home. But I quickly found that many of them were, shall we say, a bit idiosyncratic.
Despite following traditional training methods, I struggled to get past certain issues in my pursuit of Olympic-level performance. Eventually, I began having these horses X-rayed—and that’s when I discovered the real problem. Many of them had bone-on-bone contact in their backs. No athlete can perform under those conditions. What’s peculiar about horses is that they compensate incredibly well and don’t complain until they simply can’t cope anymore.
In my lectures, I reference a study by Dr Matilda Holmer from the Munich Veterinary University. She examined 300 sporthorses, not because they had known back issues, but simply using the standard sales X-rays. I believe most of them were Warmbloods. She found that 91% had bone-on-bone contact at at least one point in the spine, and 51% had multiple affected sites. Interestingly, the 9% who didn’t show any issues were all unbacked horses. That’s the reality of the data.
From this and my own experience, I came to the conclusion that the very act of sitting on a horse compromises spinal function, and without a functioning back, you have nothing to work with.
In practice, I now see this as a spectrum. Every horse I work with is, to some extent, self-limiting. They’re subconsciously aware that certain movements might cause discomfort in their back, so they hold back. As a result, we’re often seeing only a fraction of what they’re capable of, because some of the vertebral joints aren’t moving properly.
That was my wake-up call. I started looking more closely at my own horses—who had cost a fortune but weren’t delivering the results. I realised the issue was in the back. I began isolating that area in my training and eventually developed a system that focuses on creating good posture under saddle and proper function through the spine during riding.
The results were astonishing. Within weeks, horses that had been static or difficult for years—progressing slowly, if at all—suddenly showed dramatic improvement.
I’ve refined the system to the point where I can often get a noticeable result in just one session. I think that’s why it’s become so popular. I’ve been to countless clinics with top experts, and while they often give good advice, I’d leave thinking, ‘Did that really move the needle?’ With this system, riders see a real, practical difference—immediately.
“Kissing spine is just the end of the road in training a horse from front to back without taking care of the middle.” – Simon Cocozza
HQ: So for you, the key focus is the horse’s spinal column?
Simon: Absolutely. The biggest obstacle in training isn’t a lack of education or even the horse’s physical ability—it’s the spinal column. When you address that, everything else improves. And it doesn’t just improve—it improves dramatically and quickly. The results can be quite addictive!
With horses, you have this long, horizontal spine that has to carry a human being right in the middle of the unsupported thoracic region. That area is already under a lot of strain—it carries the gut, the organs, and everything else that moves around during motion. There’s a natural oscillation, and when you add the weight of a rider on top, it often exceeds the capacity of the spine’s support mechanisms. That’s when problems start.
What I do in my core conditioning programme is first remove any existing issues—compensations, historical injuries, or blockages—and then I focus on strengthening the horse’s core. I aim to build it up to around 150% of its natural capacity, just as you might upgrade a car’s suspension if you plan to do more than just drive to the shops. It’s the same principle.
If you expect a horse to carry a rider and perform at its best, he needs a strong, well-developed core. That strength supports the spinal column, helps maintain correct alignment, and allows it to move freely and confidently—as it was designed to. Horses aren’t born athletes. We create them. And that takes careful, focused development of the core to allow them to work with us effectively.
HQ: How would you describe your Core Conditioning system?
Simon: At its core, my system is about addressing and correcting misalignments in the horse’s spinal column. When a horse experiences that kind of misalignment, he naturally tries to protect himself by creating tension in specific muscle groups. As a result, some parts of the body become underused, while others are overused.
This isn’t something limited to novice or lower-level horses—you see it even in dressage champions at the very top of the sport. Often, they have a rigid, fixed back paired with exaggerated limb movement. Unfortunately, this overextension of the limbs is visually appealing and is often rewarded in the ring today. But if you study the overall distribution of movement and force throughout the horse’s body, you’ll spot the tension and the blocked, sensitive areas that come with it.
It’s not just about the horse, either. The rider is part of the same system. When a horse has this kind of tension in its back, the rider often compensates without even realising—by leaning behind the vertical or riding off the mouth in that exaggerated show style. It’s an attempt to manage the horse’s rigidity, but it ends up making the problem worse. The rider essentially becomes a pivot point in the compressed topline, amplifying the issue.
So, when I start working with a horse, I use very little or no impulsion both on the ground and under saddle. The goal is to stretch and release the tension, re-establishing range of motion in areas that have shut down. From there, I focus on lifting the back to where it should be and eliminating that pivot effect entirely. When you remove the tension, everything changes. The rider can sit to the gaits naturally, without needing to rely on the reins for balance. The entire picture becomes far more harmonious.
HQ: Does your method require a lot of horsemanship to help horses release the tension they’re carrying?
Simon: Surprisingly, no—not as much as you might think. The system is designed in a way that works with the horse’s natural instincts. The movements themselves feel good to the horse, so the process becomes self-reinforcing. Once you remove impulsion and allow the horse to stretch gently, they start to feel relief. That feeling becomes the incentive.
You can’t tell a horse how to change its posture. But what you can do is create the right circumstances for the horse to make a postural adjustment on its own. In that moment of change, the horse experiences a sense of physical ease, and that positive sensation encourages them to repeat it. Once they realise it feels better, they begin to seek out those positions naturally.
The whole thing starts to snowball. The horse essentially begins to ‘self-sort’ because the new way of carrying themselves is inherently more comfortable. The key is to make it all make sense to the horse—set up the right environment, let them make the discovery, and then build on that breakthrough.
Once the horse is in a better posture, the rider’s job becomes easier too. Their reflexes, position, and the way they apply and coordinate the aids all become clearer and more effective. Everything starts to improve—rider and horse moving forward together in a positive cycle instead of a negative one.
HQ: Do you work mainly with dressage horses, or do you work across disciplines?
Simon: Dressage is probably the discipline where people care most about the kind of detail I focus on—but the principles apply to every horse. When you’re improving biomechanics, you’re essentially improving athleticism. Any horse, regardless of discipline, will perform better and stay sounder longer if he’s moving correctly through the spinal column with strength and freedom of movement.
I actually really enjoy working with jumpers too—I used to jump professionally myself. I can often make a noticeable difference in a showjumper in just a couple of weeks. If you get the horse straighter and teach him to stretch properly, the rider can approach the fence without the horse becoming crooked or triangulating on the turn. That alignment makes a huge difference.
When the horse comes into the fence straight and balanced—and knows how to stretch and organise his body—he can bascule more effectively. You get that beautiful arc over the fence, and the horse is able to concertina its front and hind legs properly, which means fewer rails down and better overall performance.
HQ: Do you work with any other sectors of the equine industry?
Simon: The one industry that really needs this work and has been exciting to work with is the racing industry. I used to breed flat racers in France, and I would watch the foals cantering behind their mothers even before weaning—already showing asymmetries, like triangulating and swinging their quarters to one side. It’s a natural behaviour, much like you see in dogs.
As part of my own research into how the system works, I applied my programme to these youngsters for just a couple of weeks. At that stage, they have very little strength and no real compensation patterns, so it’s the perfect time to intervene. We could abolish asymmetries early on. I’d then send them off to the trainer as yearlings, and these horses ran sound, stayed injury-free, and performed exceptionally well. They earned me a fortune!
HQ: What makes this work so important?
Simon: Horses don’t complain—not really. But they are suffering to do our sport. They’re in pain every single day, trying to please their riders, and it’s entirely solvable. We’re not talking about huge changes—we just need to adapt our systems to give them a better experience.
Millions of horses are being ridden hard every day and living in a state of silent discomfort. That’s unacceptable. This work exists to change that.
HQ: What can riders expect at the clinic in South Africa?
Simon: They’ll feel the difference. Things they’ve struggled with for years often become dramatically easier within two weeks. The system allows the horse to rebalance, and as a result, everything starts to fall into place.
Even if your jumper is already at 1.50m, or your dressage horse is in the Big Tour, you can still make meaningful improvements. By identifying and addressing weak areas in the spine, you unlock better performance, longevity, and comfort. For ambitious riders, this can mean winning more. For others, it’s about simply helping their horse feel better. Either way, it matters.
HQ: And will there be another book?
Simon: Yes. I want to adapt our training system to focus more on prevention. If we can catch these issues early, we can avoid them altogether. Radiography, nuclear scintigraphy, and MRI are showing us more than ever before about what’s really going on inside the horse—and how valuable it is to train differently.
HQ: Thank you so much for your time. We can’t wait to see you at the clinic in June!