Sara and her journey with horses

I have been horse mad from a fairly young age but didn’t start riding until I was 10 years old, I just jumped on my friends pony and I just learned to stay on after hitting the deck a few times, when I was 12 I did my first pony club camp, I then went on to do fun rides, hunters trials, team chasing and show jumping all low level, in the summer I would spend my days out riding with a pack lunch and some food for the horses, later on in life I began lessons, I’ve had some great trainers that helped me develop my skills riding and in 2010 I started eventing BE90, I absolutely loved eventing, the excitement of tack cleaning, getting the horses plaited/ gleaming but in 2011 I fell off my event horse and broke my ankle, he had bronked in training and I fell awkwardly, this was the real start of my journey, I had realised afterwards that my horse was giving me signs that something wasn’t right at our last event but I hadn’t recognised them, from this day forward I started listening, he had surgery as his back was fused in places, he had severe Kissing Spine, he must have been in so much pain for such a long time but still continued to do everything I asked of him, after the surgery I rehabbed him using the technique suggested by my the vet and after that I started tuning in and he told me a lot, he didn’t like certain saddles, surfaces or being touched in certain places but I listened, the more I listened the more he told me and this is why I think I seem to get horses that are misunderstood, I don’t believe that horses are naughty as such, they can be mischievous but their intention is never to harm us, they need a way to communicate with us and someone to listen to them.  

Between 2012-2013 I completed my BHS 1 & 2 and the preliminary teaching test, I started teaching but I was finding most of the horses I was teaching had some kind of physical issue, they either needed a physio or a saddler but the owners didn’t always want to listen and I soon realised that teaching wasn’t making me happy, I just wanted to help horses, It seemed I was able to see things that other people couldn’t see, my intuition was screaming at me and I soon gave up.

I then found Straightness Training back in 2013 and became a mastery student shortly after, this helped me with those horses that did have issues as it seemed the main cause of this was imbalance, that can be physically or emotionally and like us horses store trauma in the body so with the help of some amazing horse communicators, healers and body workers I have managed to tackle the issue of the stored trauma in the body and also going back to basics by using Straightness Training, alongside this I also trained in Emmett Therapy (a trigger point therapy)

In 2017 I managed to buy my own land and set up my first track system, we only had 5.5 acres but it was enough for my 3 -5 horses, we had a hard-core track on about half an acre for the winter and 4-acre grass track for the summer, they both worked well and I could see how well this benefitted all my horses, my TB used to lose weight in the winter being in a stable and ever since he has been kept on a track he overall health has improved 100%, this is why I made the decision to set up a commercial track livery and rehab for horses so I could help as many horses as possible.

I wanted to gain more experience with horse’s hooves before the track opened so in March 2023 I attended a trimming course with Hoofing Marvellous at the famous Gawsworth Track Livery to develop my skills and knowledge, I have followed Bethan and this particular Track Livery for a few years now and was excited when she was setting up the new all surface track at the end of 2021 as I knew I wanted something similar, keeping it simple but effective, at the end of last year I purchased Amy’s Dell’s book from Abbotts View Track Livery, this was so helpful in the planning of New Moon and although I had done lots of research into tracks and track livery I picked up some very useful tips and ideas.