Brook Cottage Farm Stay and Equestrian

17/11/2025

Take away messages:

After a lesson, clinic or workshop - participants are often asked what they took away from their learning.

I am going to flip this today and give you what I took away. There is often an assumption that the students do all the learning…… 🤔

❌ this is not so 😳

Here is why:

Everyone has a different story 📚
This shapes who we are and how we navigate our lives 🧭

Never ASSUME anything - listen to the people, honour their story: it’s amazing how resilient we all are!

Process, patience and commitment will allow you to achieve amazing things 😎

Horse will give you back so much more than we give them, if only we take the time (slow down to go fast… )

You might be further along your journey than you think 🤔

Trust is earned not demanded: and this is not only for the horse - choose people and processes that build trust, not ones promising “quick fixes”, trust takes time ⏳

Give yourself a break - you are doing the best you can with what you know 🙏

The biggest one for me:
Listen, communicate and trust your training - sometimes you need to take a deep breath and a little step outside your comfort zone, there may be amazing things waiting there for you 🤩

Did I already know these things? Yes and no….

“walking the talk” is different from just “talking it”. I am constantly amazed at what people can achieve, sometimes when things get tough, we need reminding.

Thanks to the amazing people I get to spend time with who are always showing me the good parts of humanity.

Not all learning is about the horses 🤞

(but they are FUN right 😆)

so LOVELY 😉

15/11/2025

Beautiful day shared with some lovely horses and riders 🙂

How horses learn, being clear about our basics and how we can use these to explore more safety and relaxation as well as the fun stuff 🥳

Fun with liberty: fine tuning some established behaviours and learning some new ones.

Remember , its meant to be FUN!

Awesome way to spend the day, thank you ladies 🙏

12/11/2025

Training is about effective communication - how well can you communicate with your horse?

Here I am working on a specific task where I am asking the horse to place each of her feet in a particular spot. We did ok, still lots to work on 🙂

When you are training your horse for a particular task 🧐 - being specific is important.

Did your message land as you intended?

Did the horse execute what you asked?

If not - what can you change?

Training clear basics for your horse allows you to try more complex behaviours 🤓 🐴

These principles also apply to our human to human communication…… 🤔

Be specific!

05/11/2025

2 day intensive clinic

Brook Cottage had the privilege of hosting 2 enthusiastic riders at a 2 day intensive clinic. How horses learn, building clear foundations both in-hand and under saddle as well as mindset, horse health and mental well-being alongside fun, lots of laughter and good food (and a few social drinks 🥂). Thanks to both ladies for their open minded approach to learning and embracing new information.

If you would like to supercharge your learning, fill in some blanks in your training or work on some specific horse behaviours, then email me at [email protected] for more information.

These two day clinics are personalised to your individual needs: ensuring you receive individual coaching by limiting numbers to a maximum of 3 riders, no need to take notes as these are provided along with video tutorials to support your ongoing learning!

Immerse yourself in a total horse centred experience: private facility including indoor arena alongside beautiful farm trails, obstacles and large open spaces. Accommodation is available in our farm stay cottage or camp right along side your horse.

😇🐴

29/10/2025

Bit of fun today 🥳

Found some signals that my horse responded to that I previously trained in hand, that apparently work under saddle. 🧐

This was a clear sign to me that aids from in hand work transfer to under saddle.

My horse was very clear in her understanding - the neck strap was on but i didnt really need it!

How often do we “shout” at our horses when we can “whisper”? 😵‍💫

They never stop teaching us 🙏

Love this horse ❤️

19/10/2025

SPARC Cowboy Dressage gathering 2025

A huge thank you to all the organisers of the gathering this weekend, a huge undertaking executed extremely well!

I was fortunate to complete this weekend alongside a lovely, supportive group of people - it was so good to see everyone helping each other out, kindness in action!

A huge thanks to my friend and super strapper for the weekend, Karina Harback - how lucky was I!

My horse was so good, with a limited preparation and a lot going on including a sick rider, she really carried me through. It’s a big two days with travel, being away from home and our wild weather, I am so grateful for her patience as I muddle my way through at times.

I am very passionate about the training and I feel this didn’t let us down, lots to work on and improve but that’s the journey 🙏

We were awarded the Hi Point Open buckle AND the Hi Point Soft Feel buckle (sponsored by Cowboy Dresdage World Tasmania).

I am super proud of my horse and being awarded the soft feel buckle was particularly satisfying as it’s what I think we all aspire to - I watched some really lovely combinations over the weekend that I felt were soft feel in action, so to be included in that group was amazing.

Thanks to judge Anne Melinger for her kind words to all competitors.

Beautiful bunch of people 😇

13/10/2025

Training out on a hack

27/09/2025

Wow! The highs and lows of weather, footy and horses….

Terrible weather for horses today but super impressed with the horses and riders at BEC all coping amazing well in less than ideal conditions.

Thought I would share a fun photo of the day to show the lighter side 😇

Sad day for Geelong fans but well done to the Lions. (Sad for my husband who is a big Geelong fan, and on his birthday… ☹️)

Not all behaviours are positive and sometimes our horses throw us a curve ball - this is a great reminder to get the basics right, test under pressure, check and recheck! Horses can be very humbling .

I am so grateful for the amazing, kind group of people I get to work with, you know who you are.

22/09/2025

Basics done well = calm, relaxed pony - easy steering and speed control!

This pony didn’t always lead like this - but it’s really an easy fix, just takes some time and commitment to install some clear, predictable signals. What you see here is is light, obedient and calm…… AND in self carriage.

Great training. Love this pony - he is an awesome student and a better teacher!

His handler has done an amazing job listening to his needs and working WITH him. Monty has some interesting opinions that needed to be considered and has thrived as a consequence.

😎

18/09/2025

Are you dealing with some challenges right now with your horse? 😩 Has it all become a bit hard 🤔

Did you forget how to have fun with your horse? 🤪

Training doesnt always have to be hard or super serious - dont forget to have fun along the way!

Here’s to the ball 🥎 ✅

15/09/2025

What does success look like to you?

I am currently working with some amazing people who are really smashing their goals and achieving personal success - things that are important to them! 🥇

I asked some of these people to think about what their “big picture” goals were and how they might build on what they do now, to achieve them. 🤔

This is very individual for each person but can help to make choices along the way that may feel a little uncomfortable - we all know that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is totally flawed 😩

Small changes can equal big results and the long journey begins with a single step, then another, then another….. 👣

you don’t need to climb the whole mountain today - just take the first step 🌄

Shared with permission - a snippet of some small goals (and maybe some big ones…) achieved ✅ see the captions. Thanks for allowing me to share 🙏

21/08/2025