Taz is owned by the lovely Cathy Smith. After being used as a demo horse at an Intelligent Horsemanship clinic, a lot of issues were revealed and Cathy learnt ET in order to help Taz become much more comfortable in his body.
Cathy Smith: “Where it all began… On a ranch holiday in Spain in 2007 where I was introduced to Monty Roberts and Natural Horsemanship, immediately I came home and found myself booked on a course with Kelly Marks with my lovely horse Taz. During our week’s course, Taz was chosen for the ET demo horse. I was surprised at how much discomfort Taz showed us during the demonstration, nipping at the practitioner. I had to find out more and so the next step was the ET course for beginners.
After that, to be honest it was a few clumsy ET sessions, however, I went onto complete my horse assessments and strange things were occurring! My first WOW moment was working on Ajax, a 37 year old Shetland, that had pulled through bouts of strangles, laminitis, colic and had cushings. I performed the lightest of ET moves and watched for feedback, apart from being sleepy, there were no other reactions - until about 2 hours later when dear Ajax was seen trotting of his own accord, and later that evening he cantered in for his dinner. This, I can tell you, was extremely unusual! ET was behind it - he went on for another 14 months and became an ET addict as did I! I went on to became a Equine Touch Practitioner.
There were more amazing moments and still are all years later, our ET moves have been a gift to me and the horses that I have worked with, they have provided me with confidence around most horses, a better relationship with my own horse, a reason to observe, I have learnt the power of ‘feeling' when working with horses and I have learnt so much about all the factors that influence them. And probably, most importantly, are the people that I have engaged with over the years that I have learnt from and continue to do so. Thank you to the whole Equine Touch family!”
The beautiful Taz!