You must build every horse's confidence, every step of the way.

All around the world, people gain great pleasure from riding and handling their horses. It’s a wonderful feeling when your horse learns to co-operate and try his hardest for you.

Do you think your horse enjoys it When you tie him up to fight Do you really think he’s happy As he pulls with all his might

Horses have been part of my life since the day I was born. My father and grandfather worked with cattle and horses all their lives and I, in turn, grew up working with cattle and horses.

Here are some old wives’ tales from the horse world. I’ve heard them over and over, all my life.

No matter how old your horse is, take him a treat each day and rub his head. If you do this, he’ll soon look forward to seeing you. Start each lesson by going to your horse and showing him it’s easy

My wife Christine often speaks of the time she worked at a local dinner/horse show. One of the ponies was taught to “count” by pawing the ground.

Here, in no particular order, are a few home truths about horses:

Following are some of the remarks people invariably make when they watch me work start a horse under saddle.

Your attitude and how you think about horses, is the most important part of horse training. Your ability to handle horses isn’t worth a dime if your underlying thinking is flawed.

I’ve seen many of the big name trainers working with horses and I don’t agree with much of what they do or what they say. I don’t agree with harassing horses with ropes and flags or letting horses...

I’ve known Neil since he was twenty and shared his love of horses for all those years. While I rode my nicely trained (by Neil) horse five or six days each week, Neil rode at least eight or...

Every horse person puts human values onto horses in some way, shape or form. We think some horses are better than others and some are prettier than others.

Horsemanship is a word that’s heard a lot these days. It conjures images of immaculate horses competing at the highest level and of ‘important’ horse trainers with cowboy boots, lassoes...

My wife Christine has been a music teacher ever since she left school. She’s taught hundreds of people to play piano, keyboard, piano accordion and organ.

When I handle their horses, people often say “It’s ok for you, you have a special gift.” This isn’t true. I wasn’t born with any gift for handling horses.

People often say “but my horse doesn’t like having his head rubbed”. I know this is true in many cases. No horse likes having his head rubbed when he’s first handled.

Many horse people like to think they are at one with nature. They feel it’s perfectly natural to chase a horse in a round yard. They have a warm fuzzy feeling about being a member of the horse herd.

Many horse trainers make lots of money selling all sorts of gadgets and widgets. You can buy ‘special’ lasso ropes to catch your horse and ‘special’ halters to make him ‘respect’ you. T

Whenever you work with a horse, you must try to see everything from his point of view. Forget about the human point of view. You must concentrate on what works best for your horse.

The biggest problem to overcome in horse training is human behaviour. Humans come up with all sorts of theories and methods, then try to make every horse fit their set lessons.

Media ColumnistSydney RARELY can a happy, bubbly, colourful story have so suddenly and decisively metamorphosed into a tragedy as did at last Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.

Melbourne Cup 2014: Not fascinated by being whipped into a total frenzy

Our feedback is both heartwarming and encouraging. I'd like to share this letter that arrived in the mail today.

Everyone looks for a magic fix to ‘cure’ their horse problems. Plenty of people will sell you a ‘magic’ halter, stick, lead rope, bit or some other contraption. None of them will really help.

Here’s a quote from a scientific magazine. Although it’s written for social psychologists, it also applies to the horse world. “Social psychologists, of all academics, should be particularly alert...