I want to thank Echo for being my student and my teacher, I could not have wished for a better first.

- Nikki 

I signed up for a Sean Coleman clinic at Wilder Ways because my friend was going, I didn’t really have any expectations, it just felt like an interesting thing to do.  It turned out to be a brilliant experience.   Wilder Ways, if you’ve never been there, is a magical place.  Tucked away in Kintyre, it feels like a world of it’s own.  Nikki and Cara were very welcoming, wise and dryly funny.  And the food is completely ace, which is an underrated but essential part of a great horsey weekend.
 
I love to ride, but I work, and I’ve got three children, so I tend to get to the field, saddle up and go, I’ve never had, or made, time for non ridden work.  So learning how much you can teach your horse on the ground, and how much that can benefit your relationship with him, was a real eye-opener.  In the morning Sean would do a big theory session before we’d head down to the arena.  The first day was all ground work, lots of flags, which me and my horse Mac had never used before.  The second day we did some ground and some ridden work.  It was all good.

Sean has an ability to size up a horse, and communicate with it, that is fascinating to watch.  Mac really benefited.  At the beginning of the weekend Sean asked us all what we wanted to work on.  Mac is what we politely call a reluctant loader (he has also on occasions in this context been called a wee shite).  It’s something we really struggle with.  Sean trained him, teaching Mac that he had to work when he was away from the trailer, firm but very calm. In about 90 minutes he had my horse - who previously thought trailers were the terrifying work of the devil - popping in to relax.  When Mac  self loaded, Sean unclipped him and Mac stayed in the trailer for 10 minutes before wandering out.  Now Sean had been working Mac  hard, and there had been moments where it seemed a bit much, and I had to sit on my hands not to step in and say take it easy.  But astonishingly when Mac came out of that trailer, he didn’t walk over to me, or the other horses, he walked over to Sean, as if to say hi boss, what are we doing next?  My horse recognised someone who really knew what they were doing and appreciated it as much as I did.
 
The loading looms large for me, because it was transformational.  Since that weekend I have a horse who loads.  He quite often takes longer than I’d like, but I can now get him places in a trailer without worrying.  

- Clara Glynn   
 

Have a detailed look at our feature on pages 54-55 in the the June edition of Farming & Country Magazine here - Farming and Country (colstonmedia.co.uk)