Our Story - From the Beginning

Twenty-odd years. That’s a long time for horses to be absent from your life. And, if I’m honest, I never really thought they would come back.

I lost my last horse when I was around 22. I’d lost ponies and horses before, but this one hit differently. He had been loaned out while I tried to untangle my rather messy young-adult life, and then, somehow, he was sold behind my back. I tried to trace him but never did - The last lead I had was a lady who thought she had bought him, but by then she had already had him put to sleep.

I was devastated.

For him, most of all. What had happened to him? Had he been treated well? Had he had a good life? And, perhaps rather selfishly, I was devastated for me too. I was sad. I was angry. And underneath it all, I was wracked with guilt. I felt that I had somehow allowed it to happen. That I had failed him. If he had suffered at all, then as far as I was concerned, some part of that was my fault.

So I walked away from horses. I divorced myself from that whole part of my life so completely that when I eventually met my husband, he had absolutely no idea how much horses had once meant to me. And boy, was he was in for a surprise!

Finding the door back in

Life does funny things! A few years ago, I spotted an advert for part-time work on a western ranch. I ignored it - Who was I to be around horses again? Was I even capable of being a trustworthy horsewoman anymore? Then I saw the advert again. And something in me thought: Maybe this is here for a reason. So I enquired, and that was really the beginning.

Not long afterwards, a friend offered me her daughter's young mare on loan. She had been backed, then more or less turned away, and was spending her days doing very little. I agreed to take her.

I already knew there was another way of being with horses. Something that felt very different from how I had grown up with them, and this was my opportunity to explore it properly.

What did it mean to have a relationship with a horse?

Could I learn to understand them rather than simply train them?

Could we become partners?

And, perhaps somewhere deep down, could I make amends for what I had carried with me for all those years?

Flika was fantastic. I took my time. We got to know one another on the ground before I ever climbed on. We had fun. We learned together. And then, before long, one pony became two.

At this point, my poor husband was beginning to realise he had been thoroughly horse-catfished!

Roo

In November 2024, I bought Roo.

He was a tiny traditional Gypsy Cob colt, just 19 months old.

I was drawn to his advert almost immediately. I wanted a youngster of my own—someone I could work with almost from scratch. Based on the advert, he had the potential to grow into a small ridden pony for me, or perhaps one day an amazing child's pony.

I drove a box to Bristol to see him, and in a pub car park, beside a busy road, in the pouring rain, I watched this tiny, bedraggled pony come up the road to meet me. He was scrawny, and he was scared. And, without really thinking about it, I told them to put him on the box and paid for him.

It didn't take long for the extent of his problems to become apparent. A roach back. Poor condition. Significant hoof problems. A huge worm burden in his past….For nearly a year, I seemed to live on iodine and nappy poultices, and it wasn't until his third winter with me that we finally managed to keep condition on him consistently. Our vet speculated that the worm burden he had suffered as a weanling or yearling may have caused lasting gut damage.

Roo taught me a lot about patience.

But there was another pony waiting in the wings….

Maggie

While I was building my relationship with Flika, I had asked about buying her. Somewhere inside me was still that fear that, at any moment, someone might take a horse I loved away from me.

But Flika's family loved her deeply too, and they weren't ready to let her go. So we carried on as we were.

Then three ponies arrived at the yard on sale livery. I was offered first refusal on the mares  - one of them a traditional Gypsy Cob who was advertised at around 13.1hh—the same height as Flika.

When she arrived, Maggie was barely scraping 12.1hh! At only five feet myself, that wasn't going to be a deal-breaker. I was lucky enough to spend several days with her before deciding whether to buy her.

She had an old injury to her right eye. When the vet examined her later, she believed it was likely the result of an old trauma, possibly caused by a thorn, and that Maggie was probably almost completely blind in that eye. She hated having people in her stable. You couldn't go near her legs. Picking up her feet was out of the question. And, as I discovered later, riding out alone wasn't exactly on her list of favourite things either.

Most people would probably have walked away. I wondered what would happen to a pony like Maggie, so I decided I could give her somewhere safe to land.

And just like that, pony number two arrived, and my husband was now fully aware of what he had got himself into.

Maggie made me work for her trust. But this time, I was approaching things differently.

I developed a specific cue to tell her when I was going to work on her blind side. Slowly, patiently, she learned that I wasn't going to surprise her.

She learned to trust me with her legs. I learned to listen.

I also learned that the two days before she came into season were generally not the days to ask Maggie to come in, socialise or do anything particularly demanding. And I was okay with that - As a woman, I understood hormonal fluctuations.

We eventually rode out alone in the forest. I discovered that she was wonderfully responsive, bitless. I began to understand how she carried herself and what made sense to her.

I made it my mission to know Maggie. That knowledge became almost instinctive. When I decided to try for a foal from her, the vet team called in a panic because they needed to know when to bring her in for monitoring and insemination.

Based on her previous cycle, they expected her to be ready on Wednesday. I told them Friday. They insisted I bring her in anyway. On Friday, she was ready. I will never forget the vet looking at me in amazement. "How did you know exactly where she was in her cycle?"

I knew Maggie.

Unfortunately, Maggie never took. And it became clear that the whole process was incredibly stressful for her. I wasn't prepared to keep putting her through that for something that had always been intended as a one-off. So I let it go.

Sometimes stewardship means knowing when to stop.

And then there was Apollo

The third pony who arrived at the yard was a little rising three-year-old gelding.

I had no intention of taking on another pony. I had Maggie, and I had Roo, and that was quite enough.

But I had heard his story.

He had been wild off Bodmin Moor. He had eventually learned to trust his new family, then had been sent away for twelve weeks to be backed. He came home unbacked.

I was curious and offered to spend a week with him—working on the ground and in the round pen, watching him in the field, and trying to understand why nobody had really managed to do much with him.

That week changed everything.

I did very little at first - I watched him; I watched how he moved through the herd; Where he stood; Who he approached; What happened when pressure was applied. Out in the field, he always kept himself on the edge of the group. It wasn't because he was low-ranking - quite the opposite! He was perfectly capable of moving another pony out of his space—and he would happily pick a fight with something considerably larger than himself if he felt it necessary.

But he didn't seem to want the herd. He wanted connection on his own terms.

On the ground, I found a sweet, intelligent little pony who desperately wanted to try, but didn't really trust humans. My message to his owner was simple - He was smart and willing, but he needed the right home. I speculated that he might even be happier as a one-person pony, provided that person could understand him, give him companionship and mental stimulation, and become his trusted herd.

Then things began to fall apart at that yard - perhaps ironically, learning to listen to horses opened my eyes to just how many things in the equestrian world I could no longer accept.

I moved Roo and Maggie to a farm closer to home, and Apollo came too. His owner had been unable to find the right buyer, and because she lived out of area, he could come to us, live like a pony, and I would take responsibility for his physical and mental wellbeing.

I told myself that was all it was - Until I realised it wasn't!

The more time I spent with Apollo, the more I realised that something was happening between us. We had a bond, and when Maggie eventually went to become a first-lead-rein pony for a young girl locally, I took the plunge and bought Apollo (with my husbands’ blessing – he too, had a soft spot for this characterful pony!)

I promised him a forever home, and so began my journey with Apollo - Bob on his passport - The scruffy little pony from Bodmin Moor who had very little trust in humans.

My Friend Bob

It still amazes me how much personality can be wrapped up in a particular breed—or, perhaps more accurately, in an individual horse shaped by their experiences.

Apollo's previous owner always said that people described him as a Heinz 57. He certainly looked native, and so eventually I had his genetics tested, and he came back as a Dales cross.

It made perfect sense! He is incredibly special.

Apollo is a one-person pony, although over time he has learned to trust other people too. He is highly confident, socially independent and wonderfully opinionated. He values our time together. He is also, quite possibly, the only pony I know who leaves the yard faster than he comes back.

He loves liberty work, trick training, agility and working-equitation-style exercises. He is endlessly curious. That said, he does not make things easy! When I ask Apollo for something, I have to get it right. He notices; He questions; He makes me think. And that is precisely why I love working with him.

He keeps me curious and honest, and he has taught me that partnership isn't about having a horse that simply does what you ask. It is about learning how to ask, noticing the smallest changes, and about understanding the individual in front of you rather than applying a formula.

It is about giving another being enough safety and agency that they can choose to meet you.

And, perhaps most importantly, it is about recognising that being trusted by a horse is a privilege.

From the Ground Up

We are still very early in our story - There is so much I don't know, and so much more I want to learn. And this year, things have changed for us again, but that is a story for another day.

For now, I am simply grateful.

Grateful for the scruffy little pony from Bodmin Moor who somehow found his way into my life.

Grateful for everything the horses before him taught me.

And grateful for the opportunity to spend time with another being on such an intimate level—to learn his language, understand his boundaries, celebrate his quirks and discover what we might become together.

I used to think that losing my horse all those years ago had closed the door on that part of my life. Perhaps it didn't. Perhaps the door simply needed to stay closed until I was ready to come back through it differently. Not as the horsewoman I had once been. But as the person I had become.

And that, really, is where From the Ground Up begins.