Donna Snyder-Smith has spent over 40 years teaching the equestrian arts to students on both the East and West Coast. She specializes in rider biomechanics, a system that teaches riders how to move their body in a fluid, tension-free manner. A rider’s body tension and damaging physical strain is reduced while comfort is increased. This also means the rider’s body language (the signals or aids delivered to the horse through the pressure applied by a rider’s seat, legs and hands) can be more clearly felt and understood by the horse. Improving a rider’s biomechanics improves the performance of the horse as well. “It’s kind of a ‘two-for-one’ system,” Donna quips as she smiles.



Donna is a national clinician, lecturer and the author of three books and the biomechanics DVD, The Art of Mounted Body Language. In 1991 the American Riding Instructors Association recognized her outstanding teaching abilities and awarded her their prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Donna’s current client list stretches across the country and includes winning national and international competitors in disciplines as diverse as dressage and endurance riding.
As a body specialist, Donna occasionally works with other equestrian professionals, helping them catch and erase body patterns that can quickly become negative habits with the many hours most trainers spend riding green, crooked, spoiled and difficult horses. When not busy with clinics, Donna coaches a handful of mature, fun loving, local amateur-owner women who haul in to her at the beautiful Shiloh West facility in the East Bay Area’s Castro Valley. “I love my ladies; being their cheerleader, helping them accomplish their goals and explore the performance variety in the horse world,” she exclaims.
Donna cautions all to be careful when choosing equestrian professionals. “Be knowledgeable about our industry’s lack of consistent standards,” she advises. “With no mandatory state or national licensing of trainers or instructors it is very difficult for the beginner, novice and amateur to exercise the smart consumer practices that help ensure the health and welfare of themselves, their children and their horses.” Her second book, The All Around Horse and Rider, has been a sleeper so far, and the quality control information available in the evaluation quizzes in Chapter 7 (When To Ask For Help and How and Where To Find It) is valuable to anyone who wants to protect themselves and their horses from common industry mistakes and mishaps that can and do end in serious injury and loss.

Passion For Teaching
Donna has an all-around equestrian education that includes time in Germany studying dressage as well as hunting and hunt seat training in Virginia. As a junior she occasionally rode with the same hunt club as Jackie Kennedy. “But no, never at the same time,” she says with a chuckle. Showing jumpers in California, she watched and learned from legends like Jimmy Williams and Gene Lewis. After four years on the jumper circuit, she wanted to expand her skills and decided to challenge herself by switching to training and showing event horses. In that discipline, she worked with such greats as Jack LeGoff, Neil Ayre, Denny Emerson and Don Sachey, among others.
“To stay fresh, I also rode the occasional endurance ride,” Donna notes. She chose the grueling Tevis Cup as her first endurance ride, and completed it, on a jumper, no less. That was in 1966 and, as a busy trainer, six years went by before she rode in another endurance competition. When she did, she chose another unconventional mount, this time a Quarter Horse, and finished the 1972 Castle Rock 50, one of the state’s toughest endurance rides, in ninth place. She also took the Best Condition award among the top 10 finishers, the rest of whom were all mounted on Arabians, she recollects. “There was a lot of grumbling around ride camp about a Quarter Horse beating out nine Arabians for the Best Condition award,” Donna recalls with a mischievous smile.
Donna explains that she’s always been out to prove that a good rider and a well trained horse can master most performance skills and often give some serious competition to the top riders and horses in any given discipline. “Training, riding and showing has been both a lot of hard work and fun, but teaching has always been my true passion,” Donna concludes. “I’ve studied and worked just as hard on my teaching skills as I did on my riding skills over the years.” The desire to be the best she could be as an instructor led her to work with greats like Sally Swift (recently inducted into USDF’s Hall of Fame for her ground breaking work in achieving effective equitation with less physical effort and body strain), and Kyra Kyrklund’s coach Anders Lindgren, a noted dressage trainer.
These days Donna tags herself as a performance coach whose specialty is rider biomechanics, and an industry consultant. She couldn’t be happier. “I love to watch the horses and riders under my guidance progress and succeed, it is my ultimate high!”
For more information on Donna Snyder-Smith and Equestrian Biomechanics, visit her web site www.donnasnydersmith.com or contact her at 510-487-9001, or via e-mail at rightrider@sbcglobal.net.