About Me

I was born in Moscow, Russia and moved to Australia in 1991. I've loved and ridden horses for most of my life.

When I was a child of 7, I fell in love with a book called "The Three Musketeers" and I vowed that I will learn how to do three things, which, as I figured, any Musketeer must know how to do: speak French, fence, and ride horses.

I am now 29 years old and though I know only a few words in French and have never fenced, it has now been two decades since I have first experienced the stomach-churning excitement of being on a horse. My involvement with horses has continued ever since.

I have to thank my Mum, who pulled off a magic trick of sorts in managing to get me into a pony-club in the primary equestrian centre in Moscow. Moscow is a huge metropolis full of high-rise buildings, roads and concrete, from the city center to the outlying suburbs. Horse riding for a city kid in Soviet Union was unheard of. And yet, Mum happened to be at the right place at the right time when the Olympic equestrian centre in Moscow started an experimental pony club.

Let me explain a little, what this "experimental" pony club was like. First of all, there were about 8 Shetland ponies ridden in a lesson by a bunch of kids, being taught by a single instructor who was not used to teaching kids at all. Secondly - due to "safety directions", we were not given stirrups on the saddles. Thirdly - the ponies were not old school-masters, but green creatures, who understood within the first 10 seconds of their little rider scrambling on top of them that they could do whatever they wanted. Believe me when I say that these ponies fit the Shetland Pony Cliché to a tee: they were extremely smart, willful, and always happy to dump their kids and go at a mad gallop around the arena, playing “chasey” with anyone trying to catch them, and exciting all the other ponies, encouraging them to also dump their riders! And last - but not least - these Shetlands were purchased to be a part of a breeding program, and half of them were still stallions. Untrained green Shetland stallions in the hands of clueless 8 year old riders! Need I mention that most lessons were an exercise in keeping the always-threatening chaos at bay?

I loved the first year I spent there. The gnawing nervousness I felt before the start of each lesson, fell away when I mounted, and, since I was confident, the ponies responded to me better than to the less confident kids. But in the second year - the fear of falling and of hurting myself caught up with me and it all went down hill. The more nervous I grew, the more often I got tossed, and the more scared I got. The teacher gave up on me and I was not signed up for the third year.

This would've been the end of my horse-riding ambitions, but my family emigrated to Perth, Australia when I was 11 and, to help me combat depression and nostalgia for my Russian home, my Mum again found a pony-club for me. My passion for horses was alive and well, but so was the fear! This time, as I mounted a horse (not a pony) for the first time in my life, I was determined to not be afraid - ever again! Instead, I am sorry to say, I was very rough on the horses I rode, compensating for my fear with aggression.

Soon after, a friend of my parents took me to her family's farm in the south of WA, where I met a man whom I have to thank for truly getting me over my fears of riding. Paul owned a number of horses on his vast property and he let me ride almost as much as I wished, and took me out on trail rides through the beautiful karri forests. His school of riding was tough. His horses were hard to control, and his gallops down winding forest trails left me gasping from fear as much as for air, but it, surprisingly, made me a better rider. I knew then that I could stay on and survive.

My parents divorced in 1999 and my Mum and I moved to Melbourne, where I started going to a horse trail-riding establishment - Uncle Nev's Upper Plenty Trail Rides (http://www.unclenevs.com.au/). I became a regular there - always asking for the most excited-looking horses, as if daring myself to not be afraid. Soon after, I started working there on the weekends, helping saddle the 100+ horses, taking tourists out on the trail-rides, washing horses down afterwards. During my years there I rode all sorts of horses - Standardbreds, Off-The-Track TBs, Arabs. Some, that I now know, that I had no business riding – they and I had so little education!

I now knew that I could sit to a buck, survive a full rear, stop a runaway, and not kill other riders in the process. Doesn't mean I was a good rider though! And I certainly was not a sensitive rider. I was just trail-rider - feet forward, one hand on the reins, yeee-hawing away!

It was at Uncle Nev's Upper Plenty Trail Rides that I met a two-and-half year old little Standardbred named Bozo. He was all legs - like a foal. He was uncoordinated and unbalanced. He tripped and fell. And he followed me around. You could say that he followed me home.

He became my first horse and I made all of the mistakes one makes with their first horse with him. He was soft and sensitive and confident as a youngster, but he became a hard-of-mouth shying adult. In the end I knew that, though he came up to me every time I went into the paddock to catch him, he hated having me ride him. I was also no longer confident in my ability to control him as he became so insensitive to the snaffle I used!

I was considering finding a harsher bit, when it hit me: I was thinking of using a contraption that was going to hurt his mouth even more, just because I could not find a way to communicate with him! It was cruel and ludicrous. That's when I turned to Pat Parelli's Natural Horsemanship system for answers. I took Bozo to a 3-day clinic where I was convinced that in order to achieve true communication and partnership with Bozo I had to throw out everything I thought I knew about handling horses and start again by following Parelli's well-presented (and marketed) system.

It went well at first - I thought I saw understanding in Bozo. He licked his lips and blinked and followed me around the round pen. But a year later we hit a stone wall and started going backwards. The Parelli pamphlets, magasines and videos were not providing the answers - he became more and more desensitized to my ques on the ground. In the end, he stopped approaching me when I walked into the paddock. He walked away. My baby was telling me in no uncertain terms that he wanted nothing to do with me.

Not only was I feeling heartbroken and like a failure, I felt like I betrayed Bozo in my promise to give him a good life. I left him alone for half a year - didn't do anything with him but the bare essentials of holding him for hoof trimming - and just hung out with him in the paddock. Eventually he started approaching me again, but there was no real connection between us.

I took him to another Parelli clinic in March 2005 and there, under the sensitive guidance of Christine Corbidge, we again made progress. It was the first time that I started to get an inkling of actually "listening" to my horse and seeing where he is at emotionally, instead of blithely following a set of exercises, expecting the same response from him again and again, as if he was a machine! And Bozo responded to this change in me.

For the first time in 3 years since I last rode him at Uncle Nev's, Bozo and I cantered. It was just in a round yard, but it was a soft responsive canter of a kind I have not felt with him since the days of our first rides.

It was also our last. On the last night of the clinic, Bozo managed to escape from his yard at the equestrian center where the clinic was held. Instead of hanging around other horses (and his paddock-mate who was in the yard next to him!), Bozo went exploring. He found a hole in the fence surrounding the property, wandered out onto the highway and was hit by a truck.

He lived through it, was found the next day, and taken to an equine hospital. The prognosis was surprisingly good - there were many hematomas, and a large chunk missing out of his shoulder, but, unbelievably, there were no broken bones, no torn ligaments, and he was bright and alert. But 9 days after he was brought to the hospital - and a day after he was discharged from the intensive care “ward” to go into the "general" paddock at the hospital - he died. Probably from a dislodged blood clot.

It was March 24, 2005 - Easter Thursday. For some reason the fact that it was Easter Thursday sticks more in my mind than the actual date. I grieve for him still, and for my unfulfilled promise to him.

At this time I also had another horse - one that was given to me by a friend of mine as he no longer had the time to ride her. My original intention was to sell her on as I thought that I did not have time for two horses.

Becky is a thoroughbred who wears her heart on her sleeve and who displays no patience with people who do not take her feelings into account. When she came to me she bucked, spun, and reared and I just left her in the paddock, not really having the will to even try to ride her, while I was going through all the troubles with Bozo.

If it wasn't for Becky's presence after Bozo's death, I probably would've ended my involvement with horses then. But I was responsible for Becky, and I knew that I could not sell her in good faith as she was almost unridable. Even if someone took her, I knew enough of natural horsemanship by then to know that she would hate every second of being ridden by someone without sensitivity to her mental state. Not that I was sensitive to it myself, by any means. By that stage, my confidence in handling a horse was shattered and it was translating into everything I was doing with Becky, turning her into as much of a nervous wreck as I was.

A friend of mine – who has been with me through all my problems with Bozo, and through his death - told me of a trainer - Ross Jacobs - who practiced "good horsemanship". Ross refused to give labels to what he does, believing that the systematic approaches such as what Parelli, and a host of other well-marketed "natural" horsemen offered, hid the dangers of a quick-fix solution: it put the methods before the horse’s state of mind and hence, ultimately, failed. Instead, what he and his wife Michele attempted to teach, was the "feel" of the horse's mind: where his worries lay, where his attention pointed. The application of various techniques was secondary to this understanding.

A year or so after Bozo's death, I took Becky to a clinic run by Ross, Michele, and their business partner Marina Morton. (http://www.goodhorsemanship.com.au). And there began the latest phase of my journey to become a better horsewoman and rider.

I think I will always wish that it was Bozo, not Becky, with whom I travel, but, in all honestly, I cannot wish for a better partner in this than my Becky. She is clever and confident and brave. She has a huge heart and gives all she has in response to my clumsy requests. She is not ever afraid to tell me loud and clear when I missed seeing something in her attitude that I should've responded to. It is something I am very grateful to her for, as it doesn't let me get too far down the wrong path before she brings me to a stop (usually with a buck or four to make her point!)

Also, I could not continue this journey, and could have no hope of beating my fears of failing (as I feel I did with Bozo), without my riding teacher Marina Morton. She is as good at teaching me how to "read" Becky, as she is in teaching me how to ride. Thank you, Marina!