Every journey has a beginning.
This is ours.
THE MBH STORYFrom Dream to Purpose
Long before Mind Body Horsemanship existed, there was a little girl who was completely obsessed with horses and dreamed of one day having one of her own.
Not just any horse.
A white horse.
Some of my favourite childhood memories are of cold winter evenings spent lying in bed, watching the snow fall outside my bedroom window.
As the fields slowly disappeared beneath the snow, I'd imagine myself galloping through the quiet winter landscape on my white horse.
Bareback.
And without a bridle.
Just like in the movies I loved watching growing up — Spirit, The Black Stallion and Flicka — which first made me fall in love with the idea of sharing that kind of bond with a horse.
I remember wanting that moment so badly that it felt as though I was already living it.
Then, on my 23rd birthday, my childhood dream came true in the most unexpected way.
Even though I'd never shared it with anyone, I was gifted the very horse I'd always imagined
one day calling my own.
A nine-year-old Arabian-Lipizzan gelding named Vizir.
It felt almost impossible to believe that he was finally mine, and even today, I struggle to put
into words just how happy and grateful I was that day.
From the moment we brought him home, I couldn't seem to get enough of him.
To say I was obsessed with him would probably be an understatement.
Every day, I would find myself glued to the living room window overlooking his paddock, checking on him countless times throughout the day.
Not because I was worried about him, but because seeing the horse I'd dreamed about standing just outside my window felt completely unreal.
Nothing made me happier than knowing I could simply walk outside and spend time with him whenever I wanted.
Some days, I would go and sit on the floor beside him, reading my book while he ate his hay.
On other days, I would lose track of time sitting in the pasture with my camera, taking photos of him as he peacefully grazed before suddenly galloping across the field.
And on many summer mornings, I would wake up before sunrise so we could head out for a ride together before the heat of the day set in.
Before long, days like these became our new normal.
I genuinely believed this was how our story would continue and that life with Vizir would always stay this carefree and simple.
But it didn't.
Somewhere along the way, the relationship I believed we were building began to change.
Little by little, the excitement and joy that had once defined our time together began to fade.
And instead of looking forward to every ride, every training session and every moment we shared, I slowly began dreading even the simplest parts of our routine.
Leading him from his paddock to the pasture became exhausting.
One moment he would calmly walk beside me, and the next he would suddenly jump sideways and try to pull away, reacting to something I couldn't even see.
His sensitive nature and fiery temperament kept him constantly on high alert, turning ordinary moments into unpredictable and emotionally exhausting ones.
I never felt like I could truly relax because I was always waiting for his next spook.
But none of those moments were what hurt me the most.
Instead, it was the sinking feeling that he
simply didn't want anything to do with me.
Whenever I worked with him on the ground, it always felt as though his attention was somewhere else.
He would constantly look away, scan the environment and appear far more interested in everything happening around him than in connecting with me.
Over time, I began to feel as though I was always trying to pull him into a conversation he had
no interest in having.
As though I wanted to spend time with him far more than he wanted to spend time with me.
The harder I tried to get his attention, the more I began to feel like I was forcing the relationship.
That I was forcing him to be with me.
Forcing him to do what I wanted.
Forcing him into something he didn't want to be part of.
Yet all I needed to do was understandwhat he needed from me.
Unfortunately, the same challenges we struggled with on the ground eventually followed us
into the saddle.
If anything, riding only magnified the problems we were already facing.
His anxiety didn't disappear when I got on his back.
It became even more obvious and much more difficult to handle.
At the walk, he seemed calm and settled enough to keep his focus on me.
But the moment I asked him to trot, I could feel the tension building beneath me.
As we prepared to canter, he would often throw in a few bucks, followed by frantic head tossing and nervous snorting.
And that's when my heart would sink, knowing the part I feared most was about to begin.
By the time we reached the canter, he was no longer listening to anything I asked of him.
With every increase in speed, I could feel him slipping further into panic, while I felt myself slipping further into fear.
Once he became tense and nervous, it felt almost impossible to slow him down and get him
to relax again.
The feeling of losing control over him became harder and harder to cope with, leaving me with nothing but a growing sense of helplessness.
To be honest,
I started to fear him.
And once that fear entered the relationship, it slowly changed the way I felt about everything we did together.
I slowly began to lose the confidence, excitement and joy I once felt around my horse.
Instead of looking forward to spending time with him, I started feeling a knot in my stomach every time I went to see him.
I began dreading the rides, avoiding training sessions and, at times, avoiding him altogether.
The horse I had dreamed about for so many years had become a source of frustration, stress and anxiety.
What made it even more difficult was that this horse meant everything to me.
He wasn't just a horse.He was my dream horse.My entire world revolved around him.
The thought of letting him go felt like giving up on the dream I'd had since I was a little girl.
And yet, there were moments when I seriously considered selling him.
Not because I didn't love him.
And not because I was giving up on him.
But because I felt lost and overwhelmed by the challenges I didn't know how to deal with.
One of the hardest things I ever had to admit to myself was that I no longer felt safe around him, I no longer enjoyed our time together, and I no longer looked forward to riding him.
I remember asking myself a question I never imagined I would have to ask:
If I don't feel safe, relaxed or happy with
my horse, then why am I doing this?
The truth is, the fear didn't start with Vizir.
Long before he came into my life, I had already experienced my fair share of falls.
During my teenage years at the riding school, I'd been bucked off, fallen off and hit the ground more times than I could count.
Back then, I'd been taught that falling off a horse was simply part of learning how to ride.
Most of the time, I got back on and kept riding as if nothing had happened.
But then, there was one fall that was different.
One I still haven't forgotten to this day.
During one of my riding lessons, the horse I was riding suddenly went from a calm trot to a full gallop within seconds.
As he kept picking up speed with every lap around the arena, I desperately tried to regain control, doing everything I'd been told to do in that situation.
Turning him onto a small circle.
Bringing his head towards the arena fence.
Leaning back, sitting as deep as I could in the saddle.
Hoping that something, anything,
would finally get him to stop.
But in the middle of all that panic, everything I tried to do seemed completely pointless.
His neck had stiffened, his mouth was completely unresponsive, and his whole body felt like one solid block of tension.
Sitting on a horse that wasn't listening, wasn't responding and showed no signs of slowing down was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.
And when the fear of staying on a horse I no longer had control over became greater than the fear of hitting the ground, panic took over.
Without thinking, I threw myself off and crashed into the wooden arena fence.
After that, there's not much I remember.
Everything was a blur.
That accident left me with several injuries, some of which still mark my body to this day, a few trips to the hospital, and months away from riding.
Thankfully, none of them were serious, and over time, my body healed.
But the fear of gallopingstayed with me for years.
And whenever Vizir became tense under saddle, especially in canter, it took me right back to that moment.
His tension and nervousness brought to the surface fears I didn't even realise I had been carrying for years.
The fear of realising I was no longer in control.
The fear of not being able to stop the horse beneath me.
And the fear of another fall and the consequences that came with it.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether Vizir came into my life for exactly that reason.
Not only to help me face those fears, but to show me that there was a different way forward.
That's when I realised I didn't want tokeep going down the same path.
I didn't want to keep relying on luck and trusting that nothing would go wrong.
I didn't want to spend the rest of my life riding horses and hoping I wouldn't fall off.
And I didn't want fear to take away the love and the joy I had always felt around horses.
The challenges I was facing with Vizir, and the fact that his behaviour was putting both of us at risk, made me question everything I'd been taught about horses.
I refused to believe that fear and anxiety were
simply part of owning and riding horses.
And I didn't want to believe that dreading a ride, avoiding your horse or constantly worrying about what might go wrong was something you simply had to live with.
So, instead of accepting that this was simply who my horse was, I made a decision.
I set out on a journey to understand why horses become tense, nervous and reactive, and what causes them to reach a point where fear takes over and control is lost.
More than anything, I was determined to figure out how to prevent those behaviours from developing in the first place.
What started as a search for answers about my own horse eventually became something much bigger.
Somewhere along that journey, I realised something that completely changed the way I looked at horses.
For years, I had been trying to change Vizir's behaviour.
But little by little, I began to realise that it wasn't his behaviour that needed to change first.
It was me.
Not because I wasn't trying hard enough.
And not because I didn't love him or care about him enough.
But because every challenge he presented was showing me who I needed to become.
Vizir didn't create the fear.He exposed it.
And in doing so, he helped me change the way I communicate, the way I manage my emotions, and the way I understand the relationship between horse and human.
Looking back now, I realise that little girl got exactly what she wished for.
She got her white horse.
But what she never could have imagined was that the woman she would one day become wouldn't simply get the horse of her dreams.
She would meet the horse who would become her greatest teacher.
Because the horse I'd spent my entire childhood dreaming about didn't come into my life to give me the relationship I had always imagined.
He came into my life to help me become
the kind of person who could create it.
That realisation changed the course ofmy life with horses forever.
It became the foundation of the Mind Body Horsemanship philosophy and continues to shape every horse I meet, every challenge I face and every relationship I help build today.
I am no longer convinced that our horses come into our lives by accident.
I believe they come into our lives to help us become the person we're meant to become.
For them, and perhaps for ourselves too.
Since then, I've dedicated my life to helping horse owners who find themselves where I once was — feeling afraid, frustrated, discouraged or simply unsure how to move forward.
I know what it's like when the relationship with your horse isn't what you hoped it would be.
And I also know what it feels like when seeing your horse fills you with excitement instead of worry, and riding becomes something you genuinely look forward to again.
After all, that's why most of us
fell in love with horses in the first place.
And perhaps that's the greatest lesson Vizir ever taught me:
The horse you've always dreamed of having isn't found through another training method,
a new piece of equipment or the promise of a quick fix.
He's discovered through the person you're willing to become along the way.
If any part of this story feels familiar, I hope it reminds you of one thing.
You don't need a different horse to build the relationship you've always wanted.
Sometimes, all you need is adifferent way of understandingthe horse already standing beside you.
And if I can help you discover that understanding a little sooner than
I did, I'd love to be part of your journey.
