Dear Franklin,

Just a quick note to express my thanks for a lovely day watching your clinic in Warwickshire.

Both my daughter and I really enjoyed watching your work and it was wonderful to get the chance to see the children working with the horses. I would love the autistic children that I work with to have the same opportunity one day.

My daughter Jessica had a fabulous time, I love to encourage her to see methods such as yours for working with horses instead of being encouraged to follow the standard practices used by the pony club and similar groups. I would love to be able to teach her to ride using a more gentle, equine friendly program, but will have to hunt down someone to help me do this.

I took a lot from the day in general and also on a personal level. The advice you gave me for improving my own confidence really helped. When I thought more about what you said, it really made me realise that it was not confidence in the horse that was lacking, but confidence in my own riding skills. Before the horse that I had the problems with, I owned a few other horses, including a three year old which I bought virtually unbacked and brought on to medium dressage level, one day eventing and showjumping in classes jumping 4ft plus. I have also exercised numerous difficult hunt horses for their owners. I have worked within the British Dressage team, training on the lunge without stirrups/reins on a 4 year old 17.3hh stallion. I worked for Richard Davison (British dressage team member) schooling and exercising his young horses and exercising his olympic horses. All in all I figured that I must be fairly capable if so many people had such confidence in me! It then clicked that as my old horse used to explode until he managed to get you off, I had started to bail out at the safest and earliest point, I think over a period of 7 years trying to work with him it has caused me to think that I will be unseated by any sudden movement, when in actual fact it was a choice response to fall off rather than him succeeding in injuring me!

I still battle with my own guilt for selling this horse. He is in a riding school where he is happy trailing around the arena, never being pushed to do anything he doesn't want to do. But I feel like I failed him. He no longer has the individual love and attention he would have from a private owner and doesn't get supplements he needs. He is a big, beautiful animal that is very talented and very affectionate to handle. When I come across a clinic such as yours I always feel sad I missed the opportunity for him to work with someone like you. But my friends and family are glad I no longer have a potentially dangerous ride, they insist that the 7 years of trying and countless different tactics and chances offered to him where more than he deserved. I still believe that he had huge issues that should have been resolved, I bought him as a four year old that had just come from Ireland. He passed vettings and was angelic to try out, but when I got him home he ditched me before I could get my feet in the stirrups! I tackled this behaviour for years and did get high points-winning dressage and showjumping competitions, managing to get him to not only hack out, but hack out alone as well as in company, jumping jumps of heights I would never have dreamt of ever attempting. He was very affectionate and loved your company in the stable/field more so than another horse. But he would get me off at least once a month especially if you missed a day riding him. He would rather reverse through barbed wire and cut himself to shreds, rear over backwards etc than go forwards on a hack. He would put his back up at any given moment and buck, rear, bronc, bolt, around arenas, through ditches, through/over fences until he got you off his back. No particular trigger needed to set him off. Saddle fitting was fun, even if an experienced saddle fitter spent an hour checking that a saddle fitted him perfectly, you didn't know if he'd accept it until you got up on him, then it was a matter of wait and see if he threw you. Needless to say I came off numerous times before we found a dressage saddle and a general purpose saddle HE liked.

On the positive side my new little mare is also beautiful, and incredibly sweet natured. She is just happy to be in my company and loves exploring the countryside with me. She is also exceptionally well behaved with Jessica. I am now slowly rebuilding my confidence in my riding skills. I know I more than capable of controlling my 15.1hh anglo arab that is safe as houses (incidentally, she is also now sound-no ringbone thankfully.). If she skips a few steps when horses gallop up, or does a tiny little fly buck in the winter before a gallop when she is excited, I know she is just happy and not intending to kill me!

Thank you for your help. If nothing else it has helped me get my head around my own little problems. It has also increased my desire to eventually provide children a way of learning to approach horses and learn to ride in a natural, kind program, and to give children such as those that I work with the chance to experience EFL.

I apologise for the length of my email, I hope it has not been too drawn out!

A huge thank you again, and I hope to meet you again in the future, hopefully with my mare this time.

Kind regards,
Holly