Michelle O’Neill
Training & Horsemanship
Michelle has been involved with horses her whole life. Michelle commenced her riding career doing stock work on the family farm before joining 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 her 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 across the country and at her home under her business Cherry Tree Equine. She has a strong reputation for instilling confidence in all her students. She does this using both ground and ridden work; the same principles that have enabled her to train many horses for herself and others.
In 2023 Michelle launched Cherry Tree Virtual; a complete training program for horse people that shows real horses and real horse problems. There is no smoke or mirrors; just honest horsemanship with real solutions that anyone can achieve.
Michelle writes a training article for each edition of the Australian Performance Horse Magazine. She previously had her own Question and Answer column in HorseWyse Magazine.
She is the co-producer of DVD “Please…Can I Have A Pony”, which was co-produced with Horsewyse Magazine.