Our Story

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At Little Blue Equine we primarily compete at dressage but do also do a bit of showing too. I have been riding my whole life and have always been blessed to have ponies to learn on and from. 

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I got my first pony at 7 years old, Romeo (we did not name him!), who we still have now, he is about 30 years old! He was a 'mother child dream' - more like nightmare. Romeo was a 14hh NF x TB and he was unstoppable, bucked and was terribly bargy but I loved him. We were never going to sell him so we bought Patch - an in between until I was a better rider and able to handle Romey. Patch was actually perfect, 13hh, could jump like a stag, a dream to load, ride and play with. Patch's one and only issue - she hated being led on a head collar, understandably due to the fact that as a 2 year old she had a head collar left on until her skin grew over it and it had to be cut off. As Patch hated being caught and I was only 8 years old at this point, I taught myself how to vault on. When she ran off, I ran along side her, hop, skip and a jump and I was on - as soon as I was on her back, a rope around her neck controlled her perfectly. Patch is also still with us and was my saviour having had to learn how to stick on the hard way on cheeky ponies up until this point. 

By the age of 10 I was ready to revisit Romeo and his antics - I couldn't force him to stop, though people did try, - I wish I'd had all of the knowledge then that I have now. Romeo was in a Pelham with rounding's (why, oh why?!) and we eventually bonded, mainly through near death experiences such as dragging me through a hedge, cantering off and bucking every time he got excited, often with his head between his knees. Romeo taught me you cannot make a horse do anything, to stick on like I had super glue on my seat and that often doing the opposite of what you think you should do actually works. Romeo always wanted to go faster, so I stopped trying to make him slow down, I didn't pull, I relaxed and asked him rather than trying to tell him - it worked! This is what I now understand as 'horses go into pressure' - oh the wisdom that comes with age. Nobody else other than one instructor ever managed to ride him other than me - nobody could stop him, control him or understand him except Joanne Billington and I. Jo was brilliant and still teaches at Larton Riding School - thank you Jo, we are both forever grateful. We then got Romeo into a snaffle bit and even did some showing and dressage, I still sometimes hop on bareback and go for a wander, he is a total gem. 

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At 12 we bought piper, a TB x cob filly at 5 months old who has been a horse of a lifetime. Pip is now 15 years old and has competed elementary, trained medium and won at Stoneleigh Park Trailblazers Championships. I know her inside out - big shout out to Patch for raising her to be so fabulous. The clan grew from there, my next horse was Tamara who changed and shaped my training methods more than any horse that had come before her. 

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I bought Tamara unseen, just via videos, photos  and a 2 stage vetting, I was 18 years old - there was just something about her. She is Trakenher x warmblood and is 'spirited' as Trakenehers are described to be! Tam was beautiful, she travelled well and was bought for just £475 - I know right. Tamara was 15 months old and after a few days it became apparent she did not enjoy being around people - in fact she was quite aggressive and very defensive when people went near her. Tamara was so aggressive you could not walk across the field without either Piper to protect you or some way to defend yourself - not because I would ever condone hurting her but she would attack you. Something was just all wrong, horses run, she was a young horse who had clearly already been put into situations where she felt she had to defend herself. We rang her previous owners who after many, many phone calls said she had been weaned at a racing yard and wintered in a barn with other foals and yearlings. Some owners fed their youngsters but Tamara's owners hadn't - buckets just got chucked in the barn and they fought it out basically, less buckets than there were horses, so that's where the food obsession came from - lack of food! They also said they couldn't understand her behaviour as the worst thing she had ever done with them was nip at toggles on coats and zips and that they'd fixed it. How, you ask? One person held her on a head collar over the stable door and the other person stood the other side and waited for her to fiddle with a bridle hung up, or a coat, and when she did, they smacked her, in the face, with a crop. Translation - they held her down so she couldn't reach them, and hit her in the face when she nibbled something that had been left in her reach on purpose so they could 'teach her'. Cracking idea. What actually happened was they mader feel vulnerable, trapped inside a stable and made her head shy and taught her to bite.  At the time I was being taught by a fabulous instructor who shall remain nameless. This lady helped me get a rug on Tamara, brush her - to an extent. Sadly, one day when I raised my hand to my head to take my hat off, Tamara flinched and pulled a face (she was head shy after all), this lady hit her across the face. Tamara jumped back and then pulled another face, this lady thumped her under her belly, Tamara ran to the back of the stable. I could see that her relationship with people and all of my hard work had just gone back about 100 steps. She was aggressive because she was actually just very scared and defending herself. That was the last time we had this lady to our yard, after almost 7 years of training with her. She lost her temper and I just couldn't have her back. This lady said we should have Tamara shot - maybe she had just reached a problem she couldn't solve.

I looked around, and found someone who recommended Paddy Gracey, an Intelligent Horsemanship Recommended Associate. Paddy came out to us and I told him I had been handling Tamara, via Piper. I could get her head collar on, rug on and touch her, if I was with Piper. Paddy agreed this was a good idea, Tamara didn't trust people but she trusted horses. I would say Paddy was magical, but that would be selling him short, he was just so good at reading them, listening and understanding horses. What he did with her in that session gave me hope that we could do it. Three months later she went to Paddy for 2 weeks and came back a different horse. Paddy taught me to listen to what she had been trying to say the whole time. I couldn't go into it here as it would take too long but he saved us both. From there, each step seemed clearer, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you can get there. Don't get me wrong, I cried, and cried, and threw stuff (outside of her training sessions of course!), and blamed myself for feeling like I was failing her when she didn't understand, but you just have to keep moving forward. The most memorable thought I have of her progress is thinking I would never be able to be in the stable with her, alone, and change her rug. The day I did that I felt on top of the World.  Tamara amazed me, and so I decided to ditch the idea of going to university to study Geography and applied for a BSc Equine Science degree at Reaseheath College instead! 

So, that is why I train the way I do, because of Tamara. I am training to be a Kelly Marks Recommended Trainer and use the same methods now with all of my horses, and it has always worked thus far - not because it is 'the only way' but because there are no specific rules - just try to understand why they are doing something and generally you are already half way to fixing the issue. I am always learning and open to new ideas as they come along - we can certainly always, always improve on what we already know and do. I do sometimes also use food for training but not always. Of course with Tamara I couldn't as she was food obsessed and spent years having her feed tipped on the floor to remove that association of buckets with aggression and anxiety. Previously, food had always been my go to solution which certainly did not always work so I think it is good to think outside the box and not always rely on it. It is important to remember our knowledge is never finite, there is always more to learn and more than one solution to a problem you are facing.