ETF Coaches

Click here to: See our Network of Equine Touch Coaches at a Glance

The ETF Foundation Coach

It is 25 years since Jock Ruddock evolved the Equine Touch from VHT. In 2022, ETF in the UK & Ireland introduced a new level of teaching to be known as ‘ETF Foundation Coaches’. Our first team of Coaches completed the ETF training 2022 with the second team qualifying in May 2023 - all fully licensed to teach Equine Touch Foundation Part One and Foundation Part Two. Along with the Instructor team, Coaches will increase the availability of courses up and down the country with the focus on encouraging horse owners everywhere to learn this technique to help their own horses.

Meet the Coaches

ENGLAND

Amanda Cunliffe

Course Venue: Grittenham, Wiltshire
I have been lucky enough to be around horses most of my life and a horse owner for over forty years.

I was fortunate to have very good teachers who believed in putting the horse first and the importance of basic training.

When children came along I was able to start them on my old pony and help at Pony Club where I ran the boys’ triathlon teams.

I used to be sent "difficult" horses to sort out, re-train.  The horses were fine, just no-one had listened to them until all communication had broken down.

I have studied with many people but it was only finding Equine Touch that I knew this was what I  had been looking for.  I believe passionately that all horse owners have it within them to learn Equine Touch and improve their relationship with their horse.  It is only by looking and listening to our horses that through the unique systematic hands-on bodywork that is Equine Touch that we are able to give them the help and support they need.  The bond between horse and human is deepened and physical and emotional healing occurs.

07774 165949 acequinetouch@gmail.com

Suz Crichton-Stuart

Course venue: Clyro, Herefordshire

Equine Touch has been the foundation  of my career as an Equine Bodyworker. I first discovered it back in 2007, aged 22 whilst on an Intelligent Horsemanship course at Hartsop Farm. I was training to become a behaviourist, but once I’d felt the powerful difference even a short ET session made to my own sore back, I was hooked. I hosted my own Level 1 and had the privilege of training many times with both Jock and Ivana.

The more Equine Touch I learned the more I was able to help my Teacher Horse, the horse that comes into your life to change your path. A peach fuzz ball of an Icelandic named Ori who opened my eyes to the physical and emotional issues horse face with so little empathy or understanding from much of the equestrian community. My time with him has led me to be a strong advocate for the horse with a passion for educating people to help their horses. The opportunity to teach the Equine Touch Foundation course is thrilling as I know so many horses will benefit from this gift their humans can regularly give them at home. Even now as I also train to be an Equine Osteopath, E.T. is the cornerstone of every session I do with a horse. Its profundity and gentleness opening doors to deep levels of restoration and improved health.

07817 885489 suz@aholisticsolution.co.uk

Sandy Nicholson-Smith

Course venue: Suffolk / Essex

I have been in love with horses from as long as I can remember. My earliest memory was gazing into the eyes of a pony giving rides at a village fete. I was hooked!

My long career with horses began when I left school to work in a yard as a ‘working pupil’, then going on to work in different stables to further my education and encountering many horses and a vast amount of experience along the way, including competing in various disciplines, (particularly showjumping as my wonderful horse at the time had a talent for it) and being coached by some well-known and well-respected coaches.

I made the decision to become a riding instructor, teaching in riding schools, variouslocal Pony Clubs (Assistant Chief Instructor in one) and have taught many, many individuals, some of childhood to adulthood and who I still teach years later. It is so worthwhile and rewarding when you guide and help riders to understand their horses, particularly those with behavioural problems, and then witness that wonderful moment when horse and rider are together in harmony.

When teaching I would all too often see horses who were struggling with lameness, stiffness, and one-sidedness. I wanted to help these horses so that they could more easily achieve what was being asked of them, so I trawled books and internet to find a bodywork that ‘spoke’ to me.

That’s when I came across Equine Touch. It ticked all the boxes, so I signed up for the Level 1 course to ‘try it out’. I wasn’t disappointed. I was amazed at the horses reactions to this gentle, yet obviously powerful and effective bodywork. I couldn’t sign up for Level 2 quick enough. In 2010 I qualified as an Equine Touch Practitioner and had the privilege of being trained by Jock and Ivana, the founders, during this time.

I have seen this wonderful bodywork make so much difference to many horses lives, including my own horse who has a deformed fore foot. This affects her weight transfer and loading and therefore she constantly struggles with body imbalances, which I am able to help her with through regular Equine Touch sessions.

I decided I would become a VHT Practitioner (VHT is the human version of Equine Touch) as I found that I was correcting and balancing horses, however in some cases the rider also needed to be adjusted and addressed to give their horses the best chance of being able to perform to the best of their ability.

I’m so happy to be one of the Equine Touch Foundation Coaches, which means I can teach other horse owners the privilege giving the gift of Equine Touch to their own horses.

07810473442, sandy.nicholson@gmail.com  

Northern Ireland

Christine Casey

Course Venue: Newtownards

I first encountered Equine Touch In 2007, at a demonstration hosted by the British Horse Society. I had never really thought of how we influence our horses' health and well being, by the systems that we use to house, feed, work and manage all their other needs. Equine Touch was presented first and foremost as an holistic approach to maintain and improve function by influencing soft tissue, in a systematic and non invasive manner. But the more that I learned as I worked through both practical and theory based modules, the more I became aware of how all these pieces of the jigsaw came together to create positive changes.

I qualified as a practitioner in 2018, and as a foundation level coach in 2022.

I am also an equine coach, holding a Horse Sport Ireland level 2 coaching qualification. I find that the knowledge that I have gained about equine biomechanics through Equine Touch has been a significant help when working with horse and rider combinations. It helps me to better pin point issues, and to look at ways to improve these. This may be exercises under saddle and/or ground work, and it may also indicate that another professional input is needed, eg vet, saddle, farrier or dentist. And there is rarely one solution to any issue!

Having now qualified as an ET foundation coach, I look forward to opportunities to pass some of this knowledge on, through delivery of the ET foundation course, to those interested in looking for more ways to look after their own and friends' horses, and to those thinking about the practitioner route, and who just want to test the waters before formally committing.

Please feel free to contact me for more information.
07968 342928 c4seychris@aol.com

Scotland

Audrey Anderson

Course Venue: Perth
Being brought up on a Dairy farm in Fife, my early years were with livestock it started as soon as I could stand on an upside down milk crate, to help my Gran in the parlour while milking the cows, various tasks followed,  feeding calves, rearing pigs, driving tractors, working collie dogs certainly an education was definitely to be had, working from dawn till dusk but loving every moment of it...... as a child being gifted a pony from the family was where it all began, wee Bobby was my first pony, definitely a teacher as everything I learnt was from those early years spending hours together on our land and hills, jumping ditches, fallen logs, timing, balance, respect, those times I will never forget. As they say "you can take the girl out of the farm but you'll never take the farm out of the girl...... I've always had horses in my life, if I wasn't working with my own I was helping out friends with problem horses ........ it was one day in  November snow was falling on the hill on our way home to Perth (Scotland) after picking up an 18 month old friesian colt, heading back home fom Inverness, which was 14 years ago....... willam rotated upside down in the trailer, nothing obvious was showing to begin with then his OSH (Off Side Hind) seemed to slowly start to contract then become fixed over his sacrum, still to this day ive no idea now he did it,  probably we will never know. Two months on, not really knowing which way to turn, certainly I was given options but nothing that I bought into..... an article in the Sunday Post which my husband had read it spoke about The Equine Touch in essence myofacial releasing bodywork ...... we had never heard of it and that was when everything changed for us all. After becoming an Equine Touch  practitioner in 2013, your never through learning, so now adding  Equine Touch coaching qualification in 2023,  I can now offer The Equine Touch Foundation course for equine owners, equally this is the Practitioners foundation level......  then you can progress to the next level if you so wish.

07795 074975 audreyequinetouch@gmail.com