Home Study

It occurs to me that everyone who wants to have anything to do with these most wondrous animals needs to be made aware of the core subject: the innate behaviour of horses. Only then might they understand the individual when they meet them. Calling upon this basic knowledge of innate behaviour and then utilising it to inform an appropriate environment and training methods, having welfare as a top priority, can enable co-habitation, which will be beneficial to both parties.

There is no getting away from the fact that horses and ponies survive in a man's world and we need them more than they need us. It is such a privilege that they do seem to enjoy some of what we ask of them, but it is monstrous the way in which many of them are treated by humans, some of them supposedly experienced and good horsemen.

"Having seen Sue at ‘work’ helping my boy successfully overcome his very entrenched problems with loading, her intuitive sensitive approach and depth of understanding opened my eyes to the possibilities of working with horses in an entirely different way to that which I had learnt over many years.  It was a horse-centred approach that wasn't focused solely on the outcome but instead how to achieve it in a way where the horse was comfortable, learnt from the training and in this case was always able to load thereafter.  Anyone with a horse that vehemently dislikes loading will know of and have experienced the many commonly used methods to get a horse into a trailer or box, none of which recognise the underlying problem the horse has and how to address it.  (And this just doesn't apply to loading.)

This was the revelation of working with Sue and with that seed planted, it didn't take me very long to realise that I needed to address this complete lack of knowledge not just to make myself a better horse person but also to improve the relationship I have with my horse.