William Micklem's Page

It is so easy at times to lose control slightly and ask too much of your horse...or possibly worst, to intentionally ask too much in a deliberate and continual way in the belief that 'stretching' the horse in this way will yield greater progress. Education is the key, but to develop the experience, feel, and… Continue

“You can spit in their ear to get them to canter,” a former coach of mine, Robert Hall, used to say, when emphasising how easy it is to train a horse if you use any aid consistently. In a demonstration I will often demonstrate this point by doing something silly, like pulling the hairs behind the sa… Continue

This is my ten year old son on his 24 year old 11.2 pony - both of whom need to be carefully minded. They are jumping a fairly substantial fence. Quite a challenge and quite a risk many would say, but the two of them can do this time and time again with little risk. In fact… Continue

I remember the occasion well. It was the Fourburrow Pony Club camp in Cornwall, in the south west of England. I was 12 and a typical thin gangly kid. As you can see in the photograph above I was six foot tall on stick legs and all curled up on a 14.2 pony....my brilliant mare Charlie's Aunt. So what d… Continue

I see no difficulty in bringing together good dressage, jump and cross country training. Indeed I believe it produces a better, more efficient and humane training programme....a point also made by Dressage legend Reiner Klimke who also evented and show jumped to a high level as a young man. I believe the dressage helps the jumping which in turn helps the dressage. It is all about having the flexibility to choose from the fullest range of exercises to benefit each rider and horse combination.

So… Continue