Hi!!
I've just wrote something of an introduction in my
diary post but I'll repeat it here since I have found this place... albeit a bit late!
Now this may surprise you, but I have only worked with horses for 12 months... yes 12 months! Six of which were very intense for me and the other six were very relaxed and mainly spent researching, learning from others and simply watching horses.
Last year I mounted a horse for the first time in my 20 years of life, I was in the middle of France on a 1800 mile trek for charity from the Camargue in Southern France to London, England! No lessons, no experience just told to hold on and the horse would follow the others... and it did! More information about the project can be found at the
White Horses Project website. On that trek across France I met some worlderful and not so wonderful horse trainers, learning an awful lot about a subject which I had no interest in just weeks earlier. Within six weeks me and a friend were appointed official trainers of the ten horses (even though we had a "qualified thearapist" onboard) and were tasked with preparing them to work with severly disabled kids as the horses would be donated to disabled riding centers in France and England. (We haven't recieved a single complaint about the horses!)
Having no formal training with horses or previous experience, the two of us could not understand why horses were treated so badly in so called "training sessions." This lead us to asking about natural/gentle techniques and so our learning began! My friend went off to learn from Monty Roberts and is currently having a TV documentary developed about his story... average kid, no experience with horses, volunteered for a charity trek, succeeded and went away to train as a horse whisperer!
The horse I have choosen to work with is a
Zafran mare (Zeta of Wilki) who is seven years of age on June 27th 2009! (So not quite there yet!) She was backed and desensitized by my friend I spoke of earlier. No other training has been done (we produce happy horses, not regular income!) so I have a blank canvas to work with.
My diary will chart my progress and I may introduce a second member of the herd in the near future