About Us

“Most people deal with the mental and physical fitness of a horse, but they forget it has emotions and neglect its emotional well-being. A horse is naturally claustrophobic and is naturally an escape-aholic. When a horse gets frightened its natural instinct is to run. It needs to help overcome its fears, and reassurance that you are not going to hurt it. It needs leadership but also mutual respect.” — Chris Brisbane.

For almost twenty years, on and off, Chris worked as a “cowboy”, ranchman and horse whisperer in Australia, returning to his native Shropshire in 1997. Until his 30s he had been a farmer in the Corvedale until a holiday in Australia changed the course of his life. A friend who owned a 25,000 acre ranch asked him if he would like a job driving cattle. Chris grabbed the opportunity to see another land and another way of living.

Chris was given an early introduction to the ways of the horse whisperer after being given a mount trained by a US horse whisperer working in Australia. “It was fantastic. After riding it for 15 minutes I forgot it didn't have a bridle on, it was that responsive.” Chris had found his vocation.

He began to study the methods of horse whisperers such as Pat Pirelli, John Lyons, Ray Hunt and Buck Branaman, and attended their clinics. What he learned was an ancient technique of working with horses.

Now based at a farm in Rushbury, near Church Stretton, he offers his services for clients throughout the U.K. “A horse is like a blackboard and you can rub out all the bad bits. With an old horse it just takes longer. If you get a problem with a horse you have got to try to help it overcome those bad habits, which have been caused by other people. In this country we have a military tradition of dealing with a horse which involves pain. But pain gets in the way of training a horse. Using pain, a horse will only do so much for you.”

“If you ask a horse to do something for you and it does it then it needs to be rewarded with comfort. It also needs constant reassurance. It needs to know it can trust you, that you are friendly. You both need to know where the other stands. The idea is to get the horse to trust you whatever you ask of it.”

“Before you can do anything with a horse you need its respect. You cannot demand its respect. Earning respect is not using a device to tie it down or make it a slave. Doing that it will expect to feel pain when something goes wrong. If the horse gets frightened it will just want to go. The more you behave like a predator the more it will get afraid. Horses need leadership. They are natural followers. This is not being a boss or a master. It's merely talking to the horse like its own mother would.”

Fifty percent of Chris's time is spent working with the horse on the ground. Through repetition of exercises on the ground the horse can learn to overcome things which it is afraid of, before it is mounted.

Part of his work involves re-educating the rider, teaching him or her “natural horsemanship.” He has found that a horse will always go to the level of the person riding it. “Put a bad rider on a good horse, and the standards drop.”

Chris can even help people who may never have ridden horses before discover a new way of living. Ray Lewis from Oldbury received serious damage to his spine some years ago after an industrial accident. Together with Chris he was able to use the Western Riding technique, a method that suits Ray's needs far more than the traditional European style of riding, to become mobile again. They've been riding together for over a year now and Ray is up to spending several hours in the saddle at a time, rediscovering the joys of the open spaces of the countryside.

Chris also deals with cruelty cases as well as problem horses. He has rescued animals with severe phobia of human-contact brought on by neglect. He was once asked to tackle a horse brought into an animal rescue centre in Kidderminster. Its halter had grown into its nose, it hated human contact and no-one would go near it. “I worked with that horse from 10am and by 2.30pm I could pick all its feet up. I was leading it and I could rasp its feet.”

The horse on the title page, by the way, is a four-year old mare named Gwen who was unbroken when she came to Chris. “At the start she was bucking and rearing. She was just behaving like a horse which had never been ridden. A horse sees us as a predator and because we're predators we grab their heads with a halter. We hang on around the neck or grab the reins. That's what the wolves would do with them in the wild.” Gradually Chris got Gwen used to a rope, wearing a rope halter, being led on a long rope and being touched with the rope. Bit by bit, and through constant reassurance, she began to trust and learn. Now. without being led on a rope, she follows Chris around. If he stops or starts walking backwards, she does the same. She gives him respect, and respect is important for the safety of the horse and the rider.

©Chris Brisbane