BIO

My horse story started on the beach in Scarborough where I fell in love with a donkey. That led to much nagging at parents till they finally caved in some years later when at the age of 10 I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have my own pony. From then on horses have been my world, progressing through pony club, show jumping, and eventing till the late 1980s when I rode a Spanish horse while visiting Andalucia and fell in love all over again. I was lucky to be offered a job by the owner of that horse, Miguel Barrionuevo of Pura Passion so chose to stay in Spain and immersed myself in the wonderful world of classical dressage.  Some years later I was able to buy my own place where I started off just working with horses, specializing in starting youngsters. I was convinced that only by riding at least 8 horses a day, could I ever hope to be anything like as good as I wanted to be.  I soon realized that, for the horses' sake, the humans should be educated alongside. Luckily I discovered that I really enjoyed teaching and found, to my delight, in that process, a whole new way of learning. This led to running residential courses and only taking in horses whose owners were willing to come and be involved in the work.

Over the last 25 years I have worked with students from all over the world on topics ranging from improving their dressage tests, facing fears, personal development, feel, building a stronger foundation of horsemanship, the common denominator being the desire for a more authentic connection. Through all this, and my own explorations into bio-energetics, yoga, meditation, dance, and martial arts, I have developed  some effective techniques which help humans find a harmonious connection with horses.  I am always working to improve myself so discovering Tom Dorrance, Bill Dorrance, Ray Hunt, and Buck Brannaman’s pure horsemanship through Feel, was wonderful and deeply inspiring as well as amazing I had never heard of Tom Dorrance or Ray Hunt! Unbelievable! I was lucky enough to ride at a Buck Brannaman clinic a few years ago and he is even more lovely in reality. It is such a shame these talented horsemen's work is not applied in all equestrian disciplines, after all good horsemanship is just good horsemanship. Whatever tack you use or don’t use, whatever your choice of clothing or name you give to what you do... for the horse it is all the same.  Horses work on feel and for me, this quote from the legendary Ray Hunt says it all.

“The human has to learn to feel where the horse is at, then feel of him, then feel for him so that you can feel together“

Without this basic principle, nothing else makes sense. This is what I work on each day with my horses, always grateful for the opportunity to practice. We have much to learn from our horses, to spend time in their company, in integrity and totality is an honor.