Cheryl Holland was brought up with horses and ponies “way up North” and one of her earliest memories is of riding a small  pony  around a homemade, cross country course in the back garden.

Cheryl Holland with Zizou.

Years of pony club and show riding followed then Cheryl was given the opportunity to learn from Northland horseman Taukiri TeWhata, who had worked with top horse trainers in the USA.

He had adapted their methods to suit his lifetime of horse handling experience and developed a horse handling style of his own.

It was after Cheryl saw the dramatic improvement in a ‘problem’ horse nine years ago, that she decided to learn Taukiri’s techniques herself. Today, she is available to assist Franklin horse and pony owners with general handling and problem areas.

Cheryl finds training owners as rewarding as training their horses and ponies. One of her specialities is float training – loading and unloading which she says is an important aspect of  modern horse and pony education.

“It is well worth investing in good horse training right from the start so that quiet, calm, safe loading is established rather than allowing problem behaviours to become set and difficult to undo.”

Cheryl has her own purpose-built training float, which has an extra high roofline and is light and airy. The centre partition is fully removable and the short ramp is carpeted for a quiet, non-slip finish.            

Her own sport horse Zizou had two basic handling lessons with Cheryl to establish trust and basic leading. Having run free on the hills, he had never set eyes on a float before.

First Cheryl ensured he saw his paddock mate loading; she then allowed him to inspect the float in his own time; he then joined his paddock mate in loading onto the float. This helped to achieve a successful first solo loading, with Zizou standing relaxed on the float. He then calmly stepped off again.