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Carol Brett
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As a trainer and with plenty of experience as a Dressage Judge, Carol Brett is well respected for her ability to help riders and instructors at all levels from Novice to Grand Prix standard. She is widely recognised in the UK for her work with young riders and trained members of the Gold Medal winning team in the 1991 European Pony Three Day Event Championships. She is a Pony Club A test examiner.
The emphasis of her training is on bringing horse and rider into harmony by working with the horse's natural instincts and movement, as well as increasing the rider’s awareness of his or her influence on the horse.
“I like to emphasise the importance of both horse and rider working as a partnership which can only stem from respecting and understanding the horse’s need to move in balance” says Carol.
Carol’s system of working gives a young horse the best possible start for whatever equestrian discipline he is destined for, and also gives older horses, who often have very established incorrect ways of going, the opportunity to discover a more balanced and elastic way of moving.
Carol is also a founder member of the BALANCE organisation, which is committed to helping people and horses. The founders of BALANCE brought their considerable experience to bear on researching the impact of saddle fit on equine movement. This research led to the development of a range of saddles and other products which seek to allow horses to move as naturally as possible whilst ridden. The BALANCE organisation aims to help as many horses and people as possible by making their saddles and training methods available internationally. Once Carol recognised the negative impact that many saddles have on the horses’ ability to move in an engaged and efficient way, she realised that her judging days were coming to an end. The marks and comments that she would have to make on dressage score sheets to accurately and honestly describe the bio-mechanically stressed movement she was seeing would probably have labelled her as eccentric and out of step with mainstream beliefs. She therefore took the decision to retire from judging.
Carol is now promoting and expanding the work of BALANCE around the word, by holding BALANCE Saddle System Lecture/Demos, Saddle Clinics and Riding Clinics in many different venues every year. Her knowledge of how horses (and humans) need to use their bodies in order to be efficient and comfortable, combine with a real talent for making this information accessible. She is able to do this because of her unique teaching style, which breaks information down into ‘easy to understand’ bites, without distorting the overall picture. This means that she is being increasingly called upon to do seminars and presentations for professionals (veterinarians, therapists, hoof care practitioners, farriers and trainers) who all have an influence on the health, soundness and performance of horses.
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