Michelle O’Neill
Training
Michelle has been involved with horses her whole life. Growing up on the family farm there has been an endless supply of ponies and horses. Michelle commenced her riding career doing stock work with her father, Michael, before commencing Pony Club at Adaminaby and then Cooma. Whilst at Pony Club, Michelle participated in everything from sporting to jumping, tent pegging to showing. From these experiences, she developed a strong interest in dressage. After several years of dressage competition, Michelle changed tack and started rodeoing, specialising in barrel racing and steer undecorating.
It was the love of the calm temperament of the Quarter Horse, and her interest in breeding true all round competitors, that lead to start breeding her own horses to compete on. Michelle has been known to compete beyond the rodeo arena in such things as camp drafting, western pleasure, reining and showing at halter. An experienced educator; Michelle teaches clinics both across the country and at her home. Michelle writes a training article for each addition of the Australian Performance Horse Magazine. She previously had her own Question and Answer column in the very popular HorseWyse Magazine called “Ask Michelle” which helped people with their horse problems. She is the co-producer of DVD ‘Can I Have A Pony’, which was produced by Cherry Tree Equine and Horsewyse Magazine. Michelle was been a presenter at Equitana since 2012; first with the Equitana HorseWyse Kids Interactive in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and then in 2014, 2016 and 2018 as a presenter in her own right. She has presented topics as ‘Finding Your Ideal Equine Partner’ and ‘Happy Trails’.
Michelle has a strong reputation for instilling confidence in all her students. Her clinics cover her three basic principles; Consistency, Control and Confidence. She does this using both ground and ridden work; the same principles that have enabled her to train many horses for herself and others
Visit Michelle O’Neill at the following sessions
Details
Thursday November 10th
11:30 am to 12:15 pm
Redbuck Arena (Demo Arena 3)
Finding the perfect equine partner
It doesn’t matter you are looking to buy your first horse or your fiftieth, the basic principles are the same, but it is easy to forget them when dealing with the emotions attached to looking for your new equine partner.
Looking for the perfect equine partner should not be a stressful experience, it should in fact be fun! If you follow some basic principles, and make sure that you stick to them, you can take much of the stress out of buying a horse. It is worth taking the time to be well prepared to save the heartache and cost of trying to fix a problem later that could have been avoided.
Details
Friday November 11th
5:00 pm to 5:45 pm
Schockemohle Sports Demonstration Arena
Taking it to the trail
Trail riding is where we take our horses training and test it, often unintentionally, when things we can’t control happen without warning. To avoid unexpected situations becoming out of control disasters, prior preparation is important!
With so many horse and rider combinations living very ‘urbanised’ lives, they have little chance to become used too many of the things on the trail that can happen. But this need not be the case. Using simple props and training tools, people can practice at home handling the potential dangers they may face. Good horsemanship and good training are the basics of this preparation.
