Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2010 | Page 114

country life

Island Life - August/September 2010

Supernanny
Kelly puts
her success
down to
hard work
rather than
just magic!

“It’s like Supernanny for horses!”
explains Kelly Marks, during a break in
her masterclass. “It’s not the horses, it’s
the parents!”
Slight and bubbly, she cuts an
unexpected figure in the large arena at
Brickfield’s Horse Country where she
is conducting her class in ‘intelligent
horsemanship’.
“Sometimes people say things about
their horse which is, well, mad! They
say he’s deliberately making a fool of
me; he’s not frightened, he just wants
to fight. And you watch the horse and
he’s terrified. He thinks if he goes near
that gate, say, he’s going to die.”
Kelly’s reputation in the equestrian
world is immense: she is the disciple
of Monty Roberts, the man known as
the original ‘horse whisperer’ and her
methods of dealing with troublesome
horses are becoming legendary. Yet
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she has no truck with the idea that
she pedals ideas that are fluffy and
‘alternative’.
“It’s not magical, it’s a lot of hard
work,” she grins, slightly exasperated.
“The ‘Horse Whisperer’ thing caught
the public imagination because of the
movie, said to be based on Monty.
But really it’s about thinking from the
horse’s point of view, and in doing that,
looking at ourselves and our behaviour.
It’s about us keeping calm.”
The ‘case’ she is dealing with today,
in front of an agog audience, is a horse
which physically collapses if it puts
its feet on the horsebox ramp. Four
ramps have been destroyed by this
large animal, and Kelly has started the
slow process of re-education by trying
to encourage the horse to walk over a
wooden board on the ground.
“Normally, if an animal has a little bit

of fear, it’s a 10-minute job,” says Kelly.
“But this horse is petrified.” She has
to be conscious, in a set-up like this,
that the audience has come partly to
be entertained. So while she takes the
horse over the board and back, round
again and again, her assistant Sarah
is dealing with another horse which is
terrified of being approached. She is
using a long pole on which is attached
a feather duster, and is repeatedly
moving the duster through a 90-degree
angle towards and away from the
horse. When the horse tolerates the
duster a little bit closer, he is rewarded
by having it taken away. And 20
minutes later, the duster is rubbing
the horse, which is rather enjoying the
sensation.
“Somewhere between fear and
overcoming fear is curiosity,” Kelly
explains. “They don’t want to look at

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