The silver sands of Kent

[glenatron]

This is Steve Halfpenny:

He says things like "When you talk about natural horsemanship I don't really like that term because it's all just horsemanship really- the only thing that is different about our approach is that we are working with the horses' nature."

He does things like this:

Actually, mostly he doesn't do things like that, but he is happy to let horses get as exciteable as they want while they work out what he is asking them to do- something that usually takes a remarkably short time.

Steve, who is based in Australia, is one of the best horse trainers in the world and so although we could only manage to get to two days of his four-day clinic in Kent it was well worth it. Being able to see how he approaches working with horses was an absolute inspiration from my point of view and I'm sure that Lou and Joe, who were actually participating in the lessons, got even more out of it.

So much of what he was talking about was to do with feel and with ways of working that are harder to explain than to do and that I have only seen done that I shan't bore you with my attempts to convey what he was teaching but suffice it to say that it was amazing to watch and I am very much inspired.


Everything is connected and I think that timing may be at the heart of all of it.