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| Horse sense |
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| Thursday, 12 June 2008 | |
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Jacqueline Dean meets Jo Bond, the only horse whisperer in SW France. As traditional career paths go Jo Bond has done a spectacular U-turn. From being a high- flying investment banker in the City of London, she has turned her back on the lucrative world of corporate finance to set up a small business in South West France with the first love of her life – horses. For 34-year-old Jo has established herself as a horse whisperer, a pioneering concept in France, unlike in the UK where it has been going strong for 15 years.  Her motives for this dramatic life change are unusually altruistic. “Investment banking was amazing. Everyone was young, it was fast-paced, glamorous and exciting. But it was not what I wanted to do. I didn’t want it to be about money any more. I wanted to do something where I was really making a difference to the world – that at the end of the day I’d done some good.” Oxford graduate Jo was eminently practical in how she set about doing her small bit to change the world. She and husband Andy bought a wreck of a house next door to her parents near Agen, in Tarn et Garonne, but continued working in London, to pay for the restoration. Her mum’s untimely death brought them to live in France earlier than planned, but now her horse whispering business is up and running, with stables, paddocks, an arena and a round pen on the property.  Horses have always been central to Jo’s life, even to the extent of choosing them before boys as a teenager. “I didn’t come from a horsey family. As a child in Lancashire I was quiet and shy, more happy round animals than people. I was always begging my dad for a pony but he always said no. Then when I was 14, I brought a boy home. I got a pony within a week. I dropped the boy instantly for the pony!” Jo says horse whispering is not so much burbling sweet nothings into the ear of a recalcitrant horse, in the way Robert Redford did in film, but about communicating with the animal using body language. “You don’t need to speak. You need to look at a horse to understand him. If you put a saddle on his back and his ears go back, or he tenses up, or the whites of his eyes show, then something is wrong: perhaps the saddle is hurting his back. Being aware of the body movements and interpreting them and understanding them is how to get the best out of him.” The young trainer wholeheartedly embraces the methods used by Monty Roberts, the famous American horse whisperer. Central to these is the concept of using no force. Unlike more traditional methods of horse whispering, which tend to be confrontational, Jo emphasises the importance of creating a calm environment. Building trust and respect are the central planks for turning an animal with behavioural problems into a happy and co-operative horse which will fulfil its potential.  There is a gender issue here: “Women tend to be better at getting trust because they are softer and gentler; men tend to get respect easier because they are bigger and more assertive. The key is to find the middle ground. I work with a horse first then I transfer my knowledge to the owner. I ensure the owner can do the same.” Jo says France is years behind the UK in the acceptance of Monty Roberts’ “no force” techniques, also those used by the well-known English practitioner, Kelly Marks.  “It’s all very new here. Some people say this is fascinating, just what we’ve been waiting for. To others, it’s a load of rubbish and when it is seen to work, they say it is just a fluke. You also get people who have been using traditional methods and are frightened because they perceive a threat to their livelihood.” Jo has just returned from a course at Monty Roberts’ ranch in California where she took a completely wild mustang from an “incredibly dangerous” animal never touched by human hand to a horse which was easy to handle. “Working with those animals completely took my breath away.”
Jo Bond : www.bondwithyourhorse.com
Monty Roberts will be near Montauban
on June 18 For tickets |
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