MY HORSEMANSHIP JOURNEY
I have been passionate about horses all my life. For many years as a young girl I would help out at my local livery and riding schools learning basic horse handling/keeping skills. As a young lady, in London, I spent most of my wages on riding lessons where I was taught dressage and jumping at my local riding school.
Since owning my own horses I thought hard about how I would like to be around them and how I would like to train them. I decided that Natural Horsemanship was the positive and progressive way forward, not only for my horses and their confidence, but for me and my confidence too.
My horsemanship journey has had many influences but I have found that I progressed my personal journey mostly through studying my own and client horses and adjusting what I do and the way I do it over time. The results nowadays are more grounded in finding lightness, harmony and an all important connection with each horse.
I have owned a few horses with my husband here in Perthshire Scotland, and they ranged from a 15hh gypsy cob , two TB x’s, a Friesian x, an 18.2hh pure Shire and a ex-broodmare Shire. I have brought all of these horses up to a safe, confident level of horsemanship, some backed and started and some re-started. The two TB x’s were up to a high standard of horsemanship and did a lot of work in large fields at liberty, ridden dressage moves and jumping.
I took up Horse Agility in 2011 and was the first winner of the OLHA tests in Feb 2011 and also the first to score a 100% score with my TB x Highland Solly.
OLHA is online Horse Agility where you set the course at home, video yourself with your horse and send it via email and get judged and scored accordingly. Solly and I, and sometimes Stormy too, had a lot of fun doing these monthly tests, it gave us a focus and purpose to our ongoing horsemanship training.
I studied horsemanship on a full time basis since 2000 and have instructed clients and their horses around Scotland on a one-to-one basis and in agility clinics for 21 years but I am now retired from travelling and giving face to face lessons BUT I am happy to continue to do email or messenger/zoom video consultations and to judge video’s of my two HorseSavvy assessments for a small fee for those seeking help with their horsemanship journey’s. See my Consultation page for more info on this service.
Shelley x
My Horsemanship studies include:
TOCES Level 5 Certificate in Equine Behavioural Science
City & Guilds Certificate of Theory behind Natural Horsemanship
Horsemanship Certificates Levels 1, 2 & 3 – Online and Ridden (+ Level 4 in liberty)