At Claire Hart Equine we always take the individual approach to breaking and schooling the babies. It is no secret that one of Claire’s favourite parts of the job is working with the youngsters, especially the ones we see through pre-training and on to the racecourse. All horses learn differently so our goal is for the horse to learn its own pace. We use the Monty Roberts approach but have developed our own unique programme over the years using other methods alongside. Claire firmly believes that a horse must be relaxed, independent and forward-going. We use long-reining and once confident in the pen and school we venture out round the farm and woods.

We introduce the jockey and horse very early on, in the stable standing on a block, using lots of repetitive techniques. Once backed we ride them indoors in the yard, then slowly introducing the routes that they have long-reined, building all the time on confidence and trust. This contentedness and independence is instilled in the horse for whatever its future holds. Claire and Gareth have a lot of patience and skill in this particular area and they both love the challenge of working out each individual personality and needs for learning.

We have the ideal facilities here for sales preparation as per requirements. For example, preparing yearlings for sale requires a finely balanced programme of exercise, training, nutrition and special care, maintaining a smooth growth curve and without asking the horse to do too much too soon. The goal is for every horse to be confident and looking their optimum show best when they get to the sales.