Based near Stow in the Scottish Borders, I teach riders on their own horses or ponies.

I work with all levels of riders from happy hackers and beginners to much more experienced competition riders.

I care about the people I help and enjoy seeing and hearing about their progress. My approach to training treats each horse as an individual and employs straightforward changes to the aids and dynamic rider position which helps the rider work with the horse rather than against it.

My background

Horses have been a part of my life since a very early age and I have experience of riding a large variety of ponies of horses. We have owned horses that have had challenging pasts and I believe that a trainer needs to get to the root cause of difficult behaviours. There are always reasons why horses are not working with the rider.

I learned to ride at Fulmer School of Equitation in Edinburgh in the 60s and 70s. The owner, Robert Hall, a world-recognised and respected trainer, had trained at the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna, at the time when its Director was the legendary Colonel Alois Podhajsky.

Robert Hall was the British Olympic Eventing team’s dressage trainer for Stockholm 1956 and  Rome 1960. He then trained the British Olympic Dressage team for Tokyo 1964 and Mexico 1968. I was very lucky to have been in the right place at the right time.

Through Robert’s teaching, explanations and ideas, I learned to respect and understand the horse and to have the horse’s welfare uppermost in my mind.

The moment when my eyes were opened

I fell hook, line and sinker in love with classical riding one day when, aged 12, Robert invited me to have a lesson on Pepper, his classically schooled competition dressage horse that was trained to Grand Prix level. I was able to feel how beautifully and lightly schooled he was!

I knew then that I wanted one day to own and ride horses that were as willing and beautifully trained as Pepper.

Showing

My husband and I currently own a sensible number of just 4 homebred horses: 2 Arabian stallions, an Arabian mare and a warmblood mare.

Over the years we have bought in and bred a number of good Riding Horses, Hunters and pure bred Arabians and showed them both in-hand and under saddle at County level.

I was invited to join the judging panel of Arab Horse Society (UK), and have been invite to judge both breeding and ridden classes at a number of shows around the UK, which I greatly enjoy.

My Training

I have a degree in Biology and Psychology, and, in 2004, I went back to University to study Equine Science full-time, graduating with a Masters Degree in Equine Science from the University of Edinburgh Veterinary School.

My drive to understand horses and to train them using tried and tested classical methods and very importantly without the use of fear, force or domination is a passion that still burns strongly.

In addition to continually reading to improve my knowledge about subjects such as horse behaviour and biomechanics, I have been inspired by and have studied many Classical trainers such as Xenophon, Paul Belasik, Philippe Karl, Alois Podhajsky, Nuno Oliveira and Sylvia Loch, to name a few.

A good trainer will never stop learning and I aim to keep learning.