I would like to introduce you all to my new friend Woody. I found him, or rather I think, he found me, two weeks ago at a Monty Roberts demonstration.......

I have never been to one of Monty's demo's before, and had been looking forward to it for weeks. Me and my friend got there in plenty of time to get a good seat and settled ourselves down ready for a good night. Kelly Marks introduced Monty who then came out and started telling us about the first horse he was going to be working with.......a grey, 10 year old ex-racehorse, called Woody, who had a severe bucking problem.

Once in the roundpen, Monty started to do a bit of join-up with Woody, who responded pretty well, though he made it clear that his manners could perhaps be improved a little. His story started to unfold, and it turned out that Woody's owner had bought him about 4 months ago, and had a lot of trouble with him bucking - and even when she had called out professional riders to help, Woody had just bucked and bucked until he got them off. She was now so concerned, as obviously he had become quite dangerous, that she felt her only option was to have him put to sleep - something that was booked in for the following week. I do not think at this point, Woody quite realised the seriousness of the situation, as when Monty put a saddle on him, he gave the most amazing display of bucking. Round and round he went, going up vertically and then exploding. If it wasn't such an awful situation it would have been an impressive sight.

As soon as I heard what was destined for Woody my brain started working over-time, as in my line of work, I am of the belief that when a horse misbehaves, 99.9% of the time it is because they are trying to tell us something - and that is usually that they are hurting somewhere. Having watched Woody in the roundpen I had an idea of where his sore spots might be, and with the hope that I could help him, I decided I had to intervene!

Though I can help Woody with his physical problems, it was pretty obvious that he had some major psychological issues too, and I knew that I needed the skills and expertise of one man - Dan Wilson, who is a Practical Horsemanship trainer and young horse started based in St Neot, near Liskeard in Cornwall. Dan has trained with Monty and now works as one of his riders, travelling all over the World, as well as taking horses at his own yard for breaking and training. I highly recommend Dan to any one who is having problems with their horse, or just needs someone to get it started. If you would like more info about his work please have a look at the Positive Horsemanship website -

www.practicalhorsemanship.co.uk

Anyway, on with story......I knew Dan and I would need to work together with Woody to help him, so in the interval I tracked him down and luckily he had been thinking the same thing, so the decision was quickly made to buy Woody. A good friend of Dan's, Erica Hoskin, who breeds horses, had also been touched by Woody's plight and so the three of us decided we would split the cost of him and buy him together. It was all then sorted very quickly and Woody went home to Dan's yard to get settled in.

There has been quite a lot of interest about Woody as so many people saw him at the demo, so I am going to try to keep you all as updated with his progress. So far he is doing really well. I have found there are quite a few physical problems, which I am treating and he is responding very well. He is an absolute gentleman and a pleasure to be around. He loves his treatments and falls asleep pretty much as soon as you start! He is starting to feel his feet a bit more now, always a sign they are feeling a bit better! So Dan will be starting to work him soon, now we have dealt with some of the 'pain' issues.

I am so pleased that we found Woody that night, and that he has been given another chance. I have totally fallen in love with him and cannot wait to see how he progresses. I will keep you all posted!