I, like many people, started as a horse mad child doing anything to be at the local riding school, anything to earn that one ride. Once I left school I worked for an event rider, then studied horses at college and gained my BHS stages I II and III. I also gained a BSc in Equine Studies.

Through this time I became nervous about jumping but also of riding. I could not always see why the horse bucked, stopped or over jumped. Because of this, I could not predict when the horse would do this again. I was nervous because I could not read a horse.

I went to work for a lady who introduced me to groundwork, apart from lunging and long reining, a completely new concept for me.

To begin with, I did feel as though I had taken a step back, asking my horse to back up and go sideways on the ground instead of working on my half pass. After a while I realized that I was working on half pass.

I have spent many weeks training in the USA (including classes with both Pat and Linda Parelli as well as other Parelli professionals) and am constantly undertaking further training. I lived and worked closely with 2 top Parelli professionals, on and off for 10 years. I am the longest standing Parelli Professional in the country.

From being able to read the horse I now confidently compete in affiliated horse trials, dressage and start young horses.

Performance is one of my passions – how to have a great foundation for the competition horse. Two of my horses are currently affiliated, regularly competing and winning points at novice, elementary and medium with aspirations of advanced medium dressage.

Everyone had a dream when they first got into horses. Often they take the shape of the films we saw as a child – The Black Stallion or National Velvet, or books like Black Beauty or the Jill series, provoke us to want an infallible relationship with our horse. These vary from high-level competition to safely owning or riding down the road. For a variety of reasons, we are rarely living this dream. Parelli has enabled me to achieve my goals – some which I did not even know I had!

My passion is to help people and horses have a solid foundation, a must for a great partnership as well as for performance. I look forward to helping horse lovers who want to live their dream.

For more information visit www.thehorseplace.net

I really love the way Alison teaches, she knows exactly when to push me a bit harder and when to leave me to lick and chew and her insight is always spot on, she’s really helped me to develop my relationship and my horsemanship.

Jackie Evans

Alison has a fantastic knack of making learning a really positive experience, whatever horsenality I’m playing with. Her lessons are creative, fun and always accelerate my knowledge more than I could imagine.

Nell Cruse

Ali you have the much envied ability of knowing just when to push to get me to work that little bit harder, and yes sometimes a lot harder but in doing so I achieve so so much more. I just love coming up for lessons and the more tired I am at the end the happier I seem to be, I love the work even when things take time but the end result is one happy horse and one very happy me.  Thank you, to you and all the team.

Carol Webb