Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Saving the Thoroughbred: Suzi Pritchard-Jones on Racehorse Welfare & Their Role in Equine-Assisted Work | EP 39

Transcript

Saving the Thoroughbred: Suzi Pritchard-Jones on Racehorse Welfare & Their Role in Equine-Assisted Work | EP 39 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
• 0:05
  author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
• 0:12
  thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really helps us get this work done.
• 0:24
  As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
• 0:27
  And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
• 0:31
  equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
• 0:35
  If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
• 0:40
  com.
• 0:41
  So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
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  Okay, I have got Susie Pritchard Jones.
• 0:53
  I've reeled her in from the thoroughbred industry.
• 0:56
  This is interesting today.
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  There is a conversation going on within therapeutic riding about
• 1:03
  off the track thoroughbreds and whether or not they can or should
• 1:08
  do our kind of equine assisted work.
• 1:12
  And it's interesting, people have very, very strong feelings about this.
• 1:16
  Often negatively, and this has often surprised me, but that's because
• 1:19
  I grew up with thoroughbreds.
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  I, that was the only horse I knew.
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  As a teenager warm bloods just weren't even a thing in England at that time.
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  They crept in later.
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  We had something called the Hunter Improvement Society, which turned into the
• 1:33
  British warm blood, but we were years off.
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  Of course, we had hunters and cross breads and cobs and things like that, but
• 1:40
  thoroughbreds were what most of us cut our teeth on, and we absolutely realized
• 1:44
  that we could repurpose, particularly the steeple chasers quite easily to do various
• 1:50
  types of job within the eventing, jumping sort of a world and obviously hunting.
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  And although you did get the odd one that was a bit of a nutter actually
• 1:59
  the vast majority of them, were really, really good once they knew the job.
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  So it's clear from me talking that I'm on Team Thoroughbred.
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  But it's understandable for people who don't really know them and are nervous
• 2:11
  of them why they might be skeptical.
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  And of course we also know that there can be a big difference between a
• 2:17
  flat racer very, very hot, perhaps not terribly strong in the back, et cetera, et
• 2:21
  cetera, and a a big solid steeple chaser.
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  But that said, there's a lot more to it because we know that the industry the
• 2:29
  thoroughbred industry is not a popular one even within the the, the horse world.
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  And we know that our therapy work is getting more and more attention and
• 2:42
  whether or not we think thoroughbreds should or shouldn't be used in what we
• 2:46
  do and whether or not we think the racing industry should or shouldn't exist.
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  The fact is that both.
• 2:52
  Do exist.
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  And I think that if we don't explore this and explore this in some
• 2:57
  depth, then we are not doing due diligence within our own practice.
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  So anyway, Susie Pritchard Jones is a breeder of racehorses.
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  She's also someone who cares very much about the thoroughbred
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  horse as well as humans.
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  And she divides her time between Ireland and Florida, although she
• 3:19
  breeds her race horses in the uk.
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  And she is well versed in this industry and she had the, the good graces to come
• 3:28
  and attend our Horse Boy Tribe Day, which we had in Ireland this year, in 2025.
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  And educate us a little bit about what the possibilities might be.
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  Between the work we do and the thoroughbred industry.
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  So without further ado, I've rambled as I always do.
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  Susie, welcome on the show.
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  Thanks for coming on.
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  Why on earth do you even give a flying beep about the work we do and because
• 3:56
  we know what we all thoroughbred.
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  People are just all in it for the money, aren't you?
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  And yeah, why, why this curiosity around thoroughbreds
• 4:04
  and the work of healing humans.
• 4:07
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, Ruit, thank you firstly for having me on the show.
• 4:11
  I mean, I'm hugely honored and I, when you asked me, I said this
• 4:15
  is gonna be a really short one, Rupert, it'll be about two minutes.
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  'cause I dunno,
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  Rupert Isaacson: we all golf down the pub then
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: well out of me.
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  But I grew up in the.
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  I grew up on a step farm in Ireland.
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  My father bred horses and sold them and raced them.
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  And I grew up with a Harry Shetland pony and then a Welsh cob and I hunted show,
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  jumped cross country, loved to go fast.
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  And then I started show jumping some three quarter bread.
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  So they were three quarters thoroughbred and probably the other part would
• 4:51
  be Kamara or Irish draft horses.
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  And then I got sucked into riding out thoroughbreds, which is great
• 5:00
  fun because you get to go fast.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Just quickly, not everyone knows what riding out means.
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  Can you just explain the terminology
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: you go to?
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  Every morning trainers take the sets of.
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  Thoroughbreds to the gallops and they have exercise riders, right?
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  So I got to be an exercise rider,
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  Rupert Isaacson: short stirrups, bum in the air, like a jockey.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: All of the above
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  Rupert Isaacson: going nuts on a young thoroughbred
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: going on for dear life.
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  Yeah.
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  I actually was looking at a short video this morning that had been made
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  in Australia and they were talking about, you know, how it was so wrong
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  and they used to domineer horses and make the horses do what they want.
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  And there was one woman who was a breeder of horses.
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  She said she'd, she'd bred 80 folds and she made her voices
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  do what she wanted them to do.
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  And I thought.
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  Well, number one, I had a little hairy she and pony that landed
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  me down its neck first off.
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  And we Yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Good luck with making that thing do anything.
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  Yeah.
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  We
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: had an L stud brew and he said, hit her before
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  the fence, hit her over the fence and hit her when you land because
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  she didn't really want to jump.
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  And she put me off more times than, you know, probably had
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  hot dinners at that that age.
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  And then after that, when I had my Welsh cob, he used to
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  run off with me all the time.
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  Yeah.
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  And goes riding the race horses and very often it's on a wing in
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  a prayer and it's like a lot of trust and faith in each other.
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  And you just, you get to that point where they really want to go and you
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  are holding on as hard as you can till you reach that point where they
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  just take your breath and they relax.
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  But
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  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: You can't just, they take you to the edge sometimes and if
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  you can't just relax and sit there and not panic, they're gonna go with you.
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  So this idea of dominating horses it was something very foreign into me
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  because a I wouldn't say I had a huge amount of bottle anyway as in nerve.
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  So it was always a question of working with them.
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  Okay,
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  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So you don't wanna go there?
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  Well, how if we go over here and then we go around and we go
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  there and then everybody's happy.
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  So it was, it was that relationship that you developed with every No, I
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  Rupert Isaacson: would, I would agree.
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  I'm often perplexed myself when people talk about people forcing horses to do
• 7:32
  things because it, that it's actually not a terribly easy thing to do.
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  But I think maybe what they mean is just being a bit shitty to the horse, you know?
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  If the emotion coming towards the horse is always kind of negative and
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  kind, I want you to do this thing you don't really want to do, rather than
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  trying to show you how this might be something we want to do together.
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  I suppose that you do get that type of personality type in the
• 8:03
  horse world is in anywhere, right?
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  People that really want to control.
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  But I would agree with you.
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  I wouldn't say that that is in the old days, I'm now old.
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  I wouldn't say that was really the norm, even though it's, there's a mythology now.
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  I agree that it was the norm, but I, I, I agree with you.
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  I don't really think it ever was.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I think if you grew up hunting like we did Rupert your
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  horses, your ponies, they loved it.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, my Welsh cob yeah, as, as somebody tried to jump a fence in front
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  of him, they could fall into the ditch.
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  Didn't matter.
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  He, he didn't even give me a chance to look at it.
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  He
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  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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  He was going,
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: he was gone.
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  But if nobody tried that fence, he wouldn't go.
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  That hella high water wouldn't get him over it.
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  So.
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  Yeah, no,
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  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
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  It was, I think the thing with the hunting world too, again, whatever
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  you think morally about hunting, 'cause you can also go drag hunting.
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  You don't have to go, you know, real hunting.
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  But when you go out in a group like that across country, the horses
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  are in their big social herd.
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  They're loving it.
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  They're clearly loving it.
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  I agree.
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  It, it's, it, it's so much about the need to stay alive too.
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  If you are the monkey sitting up there, you don't want to go against your horse.
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  And I think we all learn that quite.
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  Quickly,
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  you know?
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  So yeah.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And that kind of leads very nicely into why I think the
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  work that you are doing and so many other people are doing giving help through
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  horses, it brings us back to this age old relationship that we've had horses, we've
• 9:42
  walked beside horses for over 6,000 years, and were it not for the horse, it's been
• 9:47
  a partnership between horse and human.
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  Where it horse, we would not be where we are today.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Very true.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Course that help create civilization.
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  So we've always had this bond with horses up until the last 80 to a hundred years.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And we have lost that now and.
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  There's a marvelous connection that anybody who is around horses
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  has is, and we've all been really privileged to have them in our lives.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Because the therapists, they are natural therapists
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  and I see so many young teenagers that are going through hell and they're isolated.
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  And now with, since COVID and with the dependence on technology that we have,
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  we've got a whole generation that are very, very isolated from the humans.
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  And depression is a big thing.
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  Rupert Isaacson: I would agree.
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  Particularly interestingly among young men.
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  It used to be considered rather a female thing, that type of depression.
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  And, and it switched.
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  It seems almost now pro post COVID and we have a whole generation of boys
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  that won't come out of the basement.
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  And we call it the Lost Boys.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But I believe it doesn't have to be.
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  So, but nature and the mind are where we need to be concerned with this.
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  And what does a horse do of course, but connect us that way.
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  So I I'm absolutely with you on that and that I don't really see any coercion
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  and any thoroughbred that I ever met because they're bred to run runs joyfully.
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  I am absolutely of the opinion that you certainly don't need to coerce
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  or force a thoroughbred to run.
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  They will run because they like to run.
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  They do it in the field, they'll do it at any opportunity.
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  It's what they like to do.
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  I've got human friends that like to do that as well, by the way.
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  And they are built a bit different to me.
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  They're generally longer and stringier than I am.
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  And they love to run, you know?
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  So.
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  Okay, we can accept that there is a running gene in a horse and that if
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  you breed to that, you get horses that are very desirous of doing that.
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  Sure.
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  But why do you give, again, a flying bleep about the work that we do?
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Because I think everybody needs horses in their lives.
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  I think we've, we've always had them, and it's only, like I say, in the last
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  80 to a hundred years that we've access you see it in your work with autistic
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  children when parents will say, you know, the child smiled for the first
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  time in however long or maybe ever, but you see it in any kid that is not
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  afraid and wants to get on a pony.
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  You see that being from, from here to here.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 12:42
  Absolutely.
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: You're happy
• 12:44
  Rupert Isaacson: even so.
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  You're a thoroughbred chick and you haven't really touched our
• 12:50
  work until now, so something must have sparked your curiosity.
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  And just to play devil's advocate against myself, I also did not
• 13:02
  spend the first decades of my life wanting to do equine assisted work.
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  No thank you at all.
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  It only happened when my son, as we know, forced his own relationship with a horse.
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  Went from nonverbal to verbal and I realized I had to follow this
• 13:18
  and I had to follow it to the hilt.
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  But I absolutely do not hold it against people to not necessarily
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  be interested until a certain point, but I'm always interested in why
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  someone's interest gets sparked.
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  What's the catalyst?
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  And did you have some, any incidents when you were younger in, you know,
• 13:36
  as a teenager or in your earlier life or even later where psychologically
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  or emotionally there was some.
• 13:43
  Trigger point for you?
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  For example, for me in my personal life, take my son out of it.
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  When I was in my early adolescence, I was having a very, very tough time at school.
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  And I got to a point where I couldn't get outta bed and I was effectively
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  one of those lost boys for a little bit and it was horses that got me out.
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  So I knew from very early that I owed what passes as sanity for me to ponies.
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  So have there been any catalysts like that in your life?
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Sure I was I had a very lucky and privileged
• 14:18
  upbringing, but I was an only child and my pony was my salvation.
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  It was, you know, there were a lot of my parents were very
• 14:28
  Victorian and very strict, and I was, I didn't conform that easily.
• 14:35
  Rupert Isaacson: I can feel the pain.
• 14:38
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
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  I don't think, I didn't have a pair of jeans, denim jeans.
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  I was about 17.
• 14:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 14:45
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So I was, and I was always trying to
• 14:47
  buck for the establishment.
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  So it was and my, my pony was literally my sanity.
• 14:55
  Mm
• 14:56
  Rupert Isaacson: mm.
• 14:56
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So I really, you know, I've always loved, loved horses and
• 15:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 15:01
  A pony is by its very nature, both rock and roll and punk rock.
• 15:05
  Like, it's the soul of freedom and rebellion, isn't it?
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  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Because that's, that's who they are.
• 15:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 15:12
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: The tipping point as far as the therapeutic riding
• 15:15
  and EAS is concerned was there's an organization called IAR, the
• 15:21
  International Forum for the aftercare of race horses that was set up in 2016.
• 15:27
  They work mainly with regulatory bodies around the world as
• 15:32
  opposed to boots on the ground.
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  But they did make this marvelous video of there was a ride in Dovi in France
• 15:43
  and they had several therapeutic organizations there in attendance.
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  And one of them was Horseback uk and they had interviewed Jock Hutson and
• 15:55
  he said, we have mainly thorough roads.
• 15:58
  Rupert Isaacson: By the way, lads listening to this, our podcast with
• 16:01
  Emma Hutchinson from Horseback uk and Jay, her assistant and manager there.
• 16:07
  You must go and go back through Equine Assisted World and listen to that one
• 16:10
  because it's an amazing organization.
• 16:12
  Okay, sorry.
• 16:13
  Back to you.
• 16:14
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And the light bulb went off and I thought we've got the
• 16:19
  horse racing industry, which is the low hanging fruit on the equestrian tree as
• 16:26
  far as animal rights people are concerned.
• 16:33
  And we have two things in the thoroughbred industry that are the low
• 16:38
  hanging fruits and vulnerable areas, and one is breakdowns of race horses
• 16:43
  because that hits everybody on a visceral level and it's just the most
• 16:48
  horrible thing it you've ever witnessed that, and you don't have to do it.
• 16:51
  Unfortunately, it happens sometimes just as you get wrecks in Grand Prix racing
• 16:59
  or cycling or various other things.
• 17:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Athletic endeavor.
• 17:03
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 17:03
  Anything that's slightly on the, the edge of danger.
• 17:07
  And the other thing was what was happening with retired race horses,
• 17:12
  and most of them find second homes and second careers, but some of them don't.
• 17:19
  And that's a concern.
• 17:21
  And it's a, it's an area that is becoming under more and more scrutiny from the
• 17:27
  industry and the industry worldwide is trying to address that because you have
• 17:32
  to remember that we've had horse racing.
• 17:36
  Since the Greeks discovered one horse could run faster than the other.
• 17:39
  Rupert Isaacson: We've had it longer than that.
• 17:41
  We've had it, we've had it since the steps we've had it for since the Yeah.
• 17:45
  The to people 6,000 years ago, whenever first started to
• 17:49
  breed for the higher weather.
• 17:51
  In in,
• 17:52
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: yeah.
• 17:53
  Once the, once the human monkey figured out.
• 17:54
  But it could voices back and,
• 17:57
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 17:58
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Through the world.
• 17:59
  But the thoroughbred industry and thoroughbred racing has only been
• 18:03
  around since the 18th century.
• 18:06
  And the thoroughbred was bred by very skilled group of men in North Yorkshire in
• 18:12
  the late 17th century, early 18th century.
• 18:16
  And typically until the beginning, middle, probably middle part of the
• 18:22
  20th century, IT com pro, the racing world comprised of owner breeders.
• 18:28
  So when a horse retired from racing, they would go back to
• 18:32
  these larger states or farms.
• 18:34
  Well, that whole picture started to change mid 20th century.
• 18:38
  And you had people who did not have land coming in and buying race
• 18:42
  horses and now you have syndicate.
• 18:44
  And so the whole landscape has changed and the racing industry
• 18:47
  has been a bit on the back foot catching up with it at the beginning.
• 18:52
  So when I saw the Ifar video, I thought, well, this is a no-brainer.
• 18:58
  Why aren't we using thoroughbreds in this world?
• 19:04
  We have an industry that's a global industry, it has a global media network.
• 19:10
  We can get the word out about what is happening and we can get it.
• 19:16
  'cause we have a very diverse group of owners.
• 19:19
  We get that word out and then we get this thing going.
• 19:23
  And I'm at the point now where it's like, right lads, stop mucking around
• 19:28
  and let's, let's get this thing going because it has huge potential.
• 19:32
  So that was the sort of light bulb, was the iPhone video.
• 19:37
  Rupert Isaacson: So what's interesting to me about that is okay, so that video, I
• 19:40
  know of that video and the, the ride at Ville, let's say someone's listening, you
• 19:45
  know, who might not know what that meant.
• 19:47
  Ville, that area of France is of course where the D-Day landings
• 19:50
  happened in World War ii.
• 19:52
  And so these were groups of these were veteran groups who do work with
• 19:58
  equine assisted work and veterans having a really good idea, which was
• 20:02
  to go and do this ride on those beaches where the Normandy landings happened.
• 20:07
  And all those tens of thousands of, of young men got killed on both sides.
• 20:11
  As a way of.
• 20:13
  Bringing our attention not just to the sacrifice that was made back then.
• 20:17
  Otherwise we'd probably all speak be speaking German right now.
• 20:20
  Although actually I did just sit my B one German exam.
• 20:24
  And so now I, I do actually speak German, but hey but voluntarily
• 20:27
  not at the point of a gut.
• 20:29
  And also it drew attention to the work that is done for post-traumatic stress
• 20:35
  disorder because a lot of those men who survived World War II survived
• 20:40
  with what we then called shell shock.
• 20:41
  But we've come to call PTSD and it was difficult for them to reintegrate to
• 20:48
  civilian life, and not all of them did.
• 20:50
  And the sacrifice that is made on the battlefield sometimes goes on for decades.
• 20:58
  Thereafter.
• 20:59
  We, you referred to Horseback uk.
• 21:01
  You know, Jay, who runs the program there, who we did a podcast with a
• 21:04
  little while ago, he got his face blown off, you know, and in Afghanistan
• 21:09
  and you know, he said, that's a really interesting to lose your face.
• 21:12
  Your face is your identity, whether you like your face or you don't
• 21:15
  like your face, it's you, you know?
• 21:17
  And to not be you is a really, really, really strange thing.
• 21:21
  He said his leg getting blown off and that sort of thing.
• 21:23
  It's kind of a bit more like, eh, but the face, whoa.
• 21:26
  And even though reconstruction was done, you know, you can imagine the
• 21:30
  psychological effects and the horse of course as a wonderful thing with this.
• 21:34
  Now you mentioned Horseback UK also because they use a lot of thoroughbreds
• 21:38
  and in our own Horse Boy program particularly in California, interestingly
• 21:44
  enough with Square Peg Foundation, Joel Dunlap, who runs that, they're almost
• 21:48
  exclusively Thoroughbreds and it's quite a lot of our places in Ireland too.
• 21:52
  Laskin at Farm has quite a few with David Doyle and of course where we did our Tribe
• 21:57
  day at Stewart's Care in County Meat.
• 21:59
  There's a few thoroughbreds there, interestingly, in Ireland.
• 22:05
  There's quite often, even though it's like one of the homes of the thoroughbred,
• 22:08
  there's often a real pushback among an unexpectedly strong pushback among the
• 22:14
  therapeutic riding folk that Thoroughbreds should not really be used for this.
• 22:20
  Why do you think that is?
• 22:22
  And what do you say to that?
• 22:23
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I'm laughing because it's not just, it's not
• 22:27
  necessarily, thoroughbreds shouldn't be used for therapeutic work.
• 22:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 22:32
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: This is all based on a perception.
• 22:36
  Right.
• 22:36
  And, you know, I would say if you have 12 blonde hair, blue-eyed men going up
• 22:44
  in an elevator to the sixth floor, by the time they get to the first floor,
• 22:49
  they'll have sorted themselves into the, the ones that have bigger ears
• 22:53
  and the ones that have smaller ears.
• 22:55
  And, but it's a natural human instinct.
• 22:58
  We have to sift and sort.
• 23:01
  And nobody likes the racing world.
• 23:04
  In the equestrian world, everybody.
• 23:08
  I've got a good South American friend from Argentina, and you find,
• 23:13
  oh, we don't like the resilience or we don't like the bolivians.
• 23:16
  And it's the same in the equestrian world.
• 23:19
  It's, we don't like the thoroughbred people.
• 23:21
  The thoroughbred people are seen as elitist and we get all
• 23:28
  kinds of monkeys anonymous.
• 23:31
  And if you're riding a thoroughbred, and I, I, I'm sure you've probably
• 23:34
  found this through, but if you are riding a thoroughbred and you are
• 23:37
  out on the hunting field and somebody will go, oh, that's a thoroughbred.
• 23:43
  And they think they're flighty and they're scatty and they're going to kick
• 23:46
  and they're going to do all kinds of things, horses are what we make them.
• 23:52
  If we treat them with respect.
• 23:54
  And expect them to have manners, expect them to stand.
• 23:58
  There's no reason they can't stand.
• 24:01
  There's no reason they can't have manners.
• 24:03
  They will do whatever you want them to do, thorough, both really,
• 24:08
  really, really want to please.
• 24:10
  And they're not, some of them are high strung, but they're not all high
• 24:13
  strung and they're very sensitive.
• 24:17
  They're very reactive, they're incredibly intelligent, and they were
• 24:21
  bred, they're one of the few breeds that were really selectively bred
• 24:26
  for the best traits, including speed, but also for all the other traits
• 24:31
  because they were bred by these really, really smart men in the 17th century.
• 24:38
  Rupert Isaacson: What's interesting, like as you're talking to me
• 24:40
  about that, that that hunt field experience, because there's.
• 24:45
  A lot of times out of the hunt field, the thoroughbreds are flighty, but
• 24:48
  they're flighty, unfortunately because they're not set up for success, as
• 24:53
  you know, in the amateur racing world, which is point to pointing, you have
• 24:58
  to take the young thoroughbreds out and qualify them by hunting them a
• 25:02
  certain number of times with a hunt so that they can go and hunt race.
• 25:07
  And I've always thought that that was a tricky thing to do because people
• 25:12
  then take out 4-year-old thoroughbreds in the hunt field, which is a, you
• 25:15
  know, psychologically and emotionally, pretty highly charged environment.
• 25:20
  And then the thoroughbreds do leap all over the place because they're just
• 25:23
  young horses leaping all over the place.
• 25:25
  And yeah, people naturally give them a wide ber, but it's being
• 25:30
  done just so that they can go in a hunt race later rather than being.
• 25:35
  Correctly schooled so that they can just be calm on the hunt field.
• 25:38
  But as you said, I think that unfortunately that has
• 25:40
  added to the perception.
• 25:42
  But,
• 25:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: but in the United States
• 25:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 25:45
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: In Ireland they're all thoroughbreds on the hunt field.
• 25:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 25:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And I worked for Michael Dickinson was a very famous
• 25:54
  English steeplechase trainer who had the first five home in the Gold Cup.
• 25:58
  And he went to America and started training in America.
• 26:02
  We used to ring with three year olds out hunting on a Friday, and they loved it.
• 26:07
  Their little ears prick.
• 26:08
  They hear the hunting horn, they follow the hands.
• 26:11
  They're not flighted.
• 26:12
  They will do anything you wanted to do.
• 26:16
  And you've been to square peg and I've seen the videos of
• 26:20
  photographs of Joel's Absolutely.
• 26:23
  And their hands, you know.
• 26:26
  Yeah.
• 26:28
  You go into any, any racing yard you can.
• 26:31
  Put the 2-year-old child on some of those horses back.
• 26:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 26:35
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Just like,
• 26:36
  Rupert Isaacson: no, I'm with you.
• 26:37
  I'm with you.
• 26:38
  I'm just, I'm agreeing with, you know, sometimes the perception has
• 26:41
  come because people make some poor choices about, you know, where to put
• 26:46
  those young thoroughbreds and that doesn't really serve the purpose.
• 26:50
  But I agree with you that in my experience, once you show
• 26:54
  a thoroughbred the job, they are exceptionally intelligent.
• 26:58
  So they will adapt to that job very, very fast.
• 27:03
  And even if they have come in from, you know, thinking that the job is always to
• 27:08
  run once you show them there's a different job, they're actually very versatile.
• 27:13
  And they're like, well, okay, yeah, I'll do that job instead.
• 27:15
  And then I'll get my jollies out when I go running in the field
• 27:19
  with my friends, or when my trainer takes me out for a, a nice.
• 27:23
  You know, mood clearing Gallup.
• 27:26
  And then when I go back in the arena with my special needs
• 27:31
  therapeutic riders, I'm good.
• 27:33
  And, and I work with, as you know, largely lucit horses because I like
• 27:38
  'em and they're super adaptable and versatile and very good dressage horses
• 27:44
  and also very good jumpers actually.
• 27:46
  I like 'em and they can also be quite passionate.
• 27:51
  So I give 'em a lot of what I call crazy time.
• 27:52
  And I'm always telling people who have therapeutic practices of any kind.
• 27:57
  Remember that any horse that you have is bred to be an athlete.
• 28:01
  Whether they're a pulling athlete or a jumping athlete or a racing
• 28:04
  athlete, they're bred to move and it's a good idea to give them some playful
• 28:09
  movement in the course of their.
• 28:12
  Weak just for their mental health as, as much as anything else in the same
• 28:15
  way that children, one, one would do it.
• 28:16
  Where they don't have to be a thoroughbred to need that, or horses
• 28:19
  actually need that to some degree.
• 28:22
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, I think Rupert, what we, we haven't
• 28:24
  touched upon here is horsemanship.
• 28:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 28:27
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And you can have a bad lucer turner.
• 28:32
  Oh,
• 28:32
  Rupert Isaacson: yes.
• 28:34
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: A bad, you
• 28:36
  Rupert Isaacson: can make any horse bad, right?
• 28:37
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Horse bad.
• 28:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 28:39
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It's how you, I've
• 28:40
  Rupert Isaacson: been doing it all my life.
• 28:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It's how you, you interact with your horse.
• 28:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 28:47
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Any breed.
• 28:48
  It's what you expect from them.
• 28:51
  Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
• 28:51
  And
• 28:52
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: to give back to them.
• 28:53
  There are, yes, there are thoroughbreds, but they're mainly bad because
• 28:58
  people have made them that way.
• 28:59
  There are bad warm bloods.
• 29:01
  There are rot,
• 29:02
  Rupert Isaacson: there
• 29:03
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: are rotten IES out there, but
• 29:07
  Rupert Isaacson: hypnosis, yeah.
• 29:09
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Part of that is what we have made them.
• 29:11
  So
• 29:12
  Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
• 29:12
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I think the most important thing is having good horse
• 29:15
  people and, and horse men and, and women.
• 29:19
  You do have to know how to handle a thoroughbred.
• 29:21
  One of the, the most lovely things I learned at tribe Day in Cocoon
• 29:25
  in August this year with you was your crazy time for your horses.
• 29:31
  Where before you start working, then you let them out in the school
• 29:34
  and you build some jumps and they can jump and run around and Yeah.
• 29:37
  They want, any living creature is made up of energy.
• 29:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 29:43
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Unless you can express that energy, it gets bottled
• 29:47
  up and it becomes destructive.
• 29:49
  And you've got to do what you do.
• 29:52
  Have the crazy time.
• 29:53
  Have the, the downtime.
• 29:54
  Let them have fun.
• 29:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
• 29:57
  I think, I think horses.
• 29:59
  Just like people desperately need time to express themselves
• 30:03
  where they're not micromanaged.
• 30:05
  I think quite a lot of resentment builds up in humans when
• 30:08
  we micromanage each other.
• 30:09
  And the same thing with horses, and of course with horses now all horses are
• 30:14
  basically leisure horses these days.
• 30:16
  So there's a lot of expectation from the owner to perform.
• 30:21
  And this has created, I feel, sometimes an overly controlled environment,
• 30:25
  which horses end up resenting.
• 30:27
  And some of the explosions that we see now are not actually because the horses
• 30:33
  bred to run or anything is because they're just pissed off because they
• 30:37
  don't like a kid in school just constantly being in class rather than, you know,
• 30:43
  and, and now we know with schools we have less and less sport, less and less
• 30:46
  recess, less and less playtime, less and less break, more and more academics.
• 30:50
  It's not good, you know,
• 30:52
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: or more problems.
• 30:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, exactly.
• 30:54
  Exactly.
• 30:55
  And then even if they pass all their exams and they're just miserable,
• 30:57
  you know, so that we get the logic of and also yes, create the, you
• 31:02
  create the horse that you want.
• 31:03
  There's two stories that stand out for me in my life like that.
• 31:08
  Just to speak to your point there, it's a very good point when you
• 31:11
  said horses kind of will adopt the persona that you expect of them.
• 31:18
  You know how there's some people who like love to ride hot horses and
• 31:22
  be the person who, and somehow they always have a hot horse under them.
• 31:26
  But often when you pass that horse to somebody else, it's not so hot
• 31:30
  and it's like the horse just, no, I'm expected to be kind of hot.
• 31:33
  I used to, when I used to hunt as a teenager, I remember there was this
• 31:37
  boy, this man who was a fighter ace, he'd been shot down in the Battle
• 31:42
  of Britain and he'd lost his legs and he'd lost his legs quite high.
• 31:46
  So it wasn't like he had them, you know, to the knee or
• 31:48
  something with a prosthetic.
• 31:49
  His prosthetics went almost to his hip.
• 31:52
  And as you know, in that area of England where I used to hunt,
• 31:54
  which is lestershire, the, the fences, the jumps are, are big.
• 31:57
  So, and sometimes you get fields of up to 120 riders, you know, out.
• 32:03
  So there's a lot of pushing and jostling and people getting run away with.
• 32:06
  And I remember one woman turning to him once and saying, how come you
• 32:09
  never get run away with by horses?
• 32:11
  And quite a lot of his horses were thoroughbreds.
• 32:13
  And he said, Madam, because if they did, I wouldn't be able to stop them.
• 32:21
  That was such a telling, because for him it was life or death.
• 32:24
  And then another life or death thing was, one of the guys who first
• 32:27
  turned me onto in hand work was a French master called Bernard Saxe.
• 32:32
  He's still out there and he's really interesting 'cause he's in a wheelchair.
• 32:35
  He was a stunt man and he broke his back during a stunt.
• 32:39
  And he does his in-hand work with someone standing behind him in
• 32:42
  the chair and maneuvering him.
• 32:43
  And they have to like read his mind for where he wants to be.
• 32:48
  It's amazing to watch.
• 32:49
  And I was watching him do it in an aisle of lucit stallions and the
• 32:55
  stallions could get their heads over the stable doors and they couldn't
• 32:59
  quite get their teeth into the other, but they could certainly threaten to.
• 33:03
  And I was looking at this going on.
• 33:05
  I said, Bernard, what are you gonna do if one of this horse
• 33:08
  like reacts and jumps on you?
• 33:09
  He says, well then Rupert, I would die.
• 33:11
  But he said, what you'll find Rupert, is that in general there
• 33:16
  are exceptions, but in general the horses will take on the personality.
• 33:23
  Of the culture, of the stable that you create yourself.
• 33:27
  You are the lead horse.
• 33:30
  And in my case, I choose for that to be pretty chill
• 33:37
  because my life depends on it.
• 33:39
  But yes, there, there's a risk.
• 33:40
  So those, I I, I absolutely agree with you on that.
• 33:43
  One of the other things which I, I find intriguing though is the feeling
• 33:47
  I get is that you are getting into this work of advocacy for thoroughbreds
• 33:54
  in special needs work and, and healing work as much to save the
• 33:59
  thoroughbred itself as to help monkeys.
• 34:04
  And I rather like that.
• 34:06
  Because I feel that's a very honest place to come from.
• 34:09
  Could you elucidate a little bit?
• 34:10
  You, you said earlier that the racing industry is the low hanging fruit.
• 34:15
  Okay.
• 34:15
  For not only for the animal rights industry what is an industry,
• 34:18
  actually animal rights industry, but also because of its unpopularity
• 34:22
  within the equestrian world.
• 34:25
  And I'm sorry, but a lot of the racing people are their own worst enemies.
• 34:28
  They do come across as wan.
• 34:29
  'cause a lot of them, they just do.
• 34:30
  I'm, you know, they do.
• 34:31
  And, and they could amend their behavior and just be cooler and
• 34:36
  maybe they'll have to be later.
• 34:37
  But up until now, they have been a fairly elitist close bunch.
• 34:40
  When you meet them, they're not terribly welcoming compared, but that doesn't
• 34:44
  mean they're wrong or evil or anything.
• 34:46
  It just means that they're a bit autistic and tribal.
• 34:49
  However that, that, that is a many people's experience.
• 34:53
  Yeah.
• 34:53
  That doesn't come out of nowhere.
• 34:55
  Same with the hunting people.
• 34:56
  You know, hunting people have been their own worst enemies.
• 34:58
  I should know.
• 34:58
  I, I loved hunting and I could watch them.
• 35:01
  Or shooting their own foot off, you know, as I was a teenager, think
• 35:05
  someone's gonna ban you guys, you know, because you just don't come across well.
• 35:09
  They've learned to come across better subsequently for the most part.
• 35:12
  But I do think that the breed itself, the tradition and all of
• 35:18
  that is something worth preserving.
• 35:21
  I do.
• 35:22
  And I don't think there's anything wrong with having that as also one
• 35:27
  of the reasons that you're coming to this, because like I say, I
• 35:30
  didn't, I didn't get into equine assisted work because I wanted to.
• 35:34
  I got into it.
• 35:35
  'cause I had to.
• 35:36
  And then I decided, well, if I'm in, I might as well try to get good at it.
• 35:39
  So why do you feel the thoroughbred itself might be under threat?
• 35:46
  And what can we do to help with that?
• 35:51
  Because I could see with that then we could also start looking at breeding.
• 35:56
  As you said, for other qualities as well that are not just speed, so,
• 36:01
  so why do you feel the thoroughbred needs protecting at this point?
• 36:06
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I think it needs protecting from the racing industry.
• 36:10
  Okay.
• 36:11
  It's the racing industry that's under attack and when you have
• 36:17
  even be it just one horse that ends up in distress circumstances.
• 36:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:24
  One horse, too many no horses should fall through the net when
• 36:28
  they've retired from racing.
• 36:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 36:32
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And to me, equine assisted services seemed
• 36:38
  like a perfect symbiotic fit.
• 36:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 36:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I feel that it's a win-win situation for the equine assisted
• 36:47
  world and for the thoroughbred world.
• 36:49
  It's an opportunity for the thoroughbred world to give back to society in a very
• 36:54
  meaningful way and make a difference.
• 36:57
  And I think it's for the equine assisted world, it's a way of, as we said
• 37:02
  before, getting exposure and moving things along and getting equine therapy
• 37:08
  to a place where it's recognized by all governments around the world.
• 37:11
  And funded,
• 37:14
  Rupert Isaacson: funded is, is the key word there.
• 37:17
  The, the thoroughbred industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, but they
• 37:21
  are not known outside of certain programs for giving money to therapeutic programs.
• 37:31
  I said they're not known for it.
• 37:32
  I didn't say it doesn't happen.
• 37:34
  Right.
• 37:35
  And.
• 37:36
  How can we address that problem?
• 37:39
  Because right now it would offend anybody's sense of justice to see millions
• 37:44
  and millions of these horses being bred, tons of money being made on them, them
• 37:49
  being sort of discarded, and then when they come into their after lives, if,
• 37:54
  when they're lucky enough to do that, the people who take those on, whether
• 37:58
  it's for therapy or for repurposing them as leisure horses in some way
• 38:02
  or other, are not necessarily having any financial support to do that from
• 38:08
  the industry that has discarded them.
• 38:11
  Now, I know that's not the entirely accurate picture.
• 38:15
  Can you correct me where I'm wrong on that?
• 38:20
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, there's something drastically
• 38:21
  wrong with that picture.
• 38:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Good.
• 38:23
  I'm relieved
• 38:24
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: every level that you, you look at it.
• 38:27
  Okay.
• 38:28
  And a hundred percent right.
• 38:30
  As we referred to earlier, the landscape has changed.
• 38:34
  We've gone from owner breeders to individual owners and syndicates, and
• 38:39
  so the land is not there to put them on.
• 38:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 38:43
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: In the last 20 years, we've seen attempts by the thoroughbred
• 38:48
  industry to create organizations to filter horses coming from the racetrack to put
• 38:57
  them into competitive equestrian sports to put them into leisure and trail riding.
• 39:05
  We have some prison programs which are absolutely amazing.
• 39:08
  Run by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation in the States, they
• 39:12
  have eight as far as I know.
• 39:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Great.
• 39:14
  When the thoroughbreds retire, they get to go to jail.
• 39:16
  I'm just kidding.
• 39:17
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Oh no.
• 39:18
  Rupert This's the most amazing thing.
• 39:20
  We have one in Ireland at re was the first equine program in a prison
• 39:25
  in Europe, and now I think there are two, if not three in England.
• 39:28
  But if you, and are
• 39:29
  Rupert Isaacson: they using those, by the way, for therapy or are they
• 39:31
  repurposing them there to then be passed on into the leisure industry?
• 39:36
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Not, not necessarily repurposing them.
• 39:38
  What they're doing is they are creating, in most cases it's a six
• 39:42
  or 12 week course for the inmates.
• 39:46
  Okay.
• 39:46
  And they come and they just handle the horses, they lead them out,
• 39:50
  they pick their feet, they groom them if they need medical attention,
• 39:54
  wrapping bandages, things like that.
• 39:56
  They come out of it with a certificate.
• 39:59
  So it gives 'em a skillset.
• 40:01
  Okay.
• 40:02
  And that's where I wanted to talk to you further because I think
• 40:06
  we ought to have your wonderful
• 40:09
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm in,
• 40:10
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: in hand in, I'm
• 40:11
  Rupert Isaacson: in
• 40:12
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: all prisons.
• 40:13
  But that's something I'm advocating for at the moment.
• 40:15
  And if you think about the horses in prison, think about the prisoner
• 40:20
  who's emotionally shut down physically shut down in that he's devoid of one
• 40:27
  of your five senses, which is touch.
• 40:30
  And when you actually get to touch a horse, if you've been devoid of touch
• 40:36
  and you've deprived of it, that's huge.
• 40:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
• 40:41
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Physiological and emotional level that Yeah,
• 40:43
  Rupert Isaacson: well, oxytocin, absolutely serotonin.
• 40:45
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: That is huge.
• 40:47
  What they most people say, I've talked to a couple of people who've run the
• 40:52
  programs and I say, well, if, is there a word that you, one word to describe.
• 40:58
  And John Evans, who ran the Lowell Prison Program for 18 years, said, miraculous.
• 41:04
  No other word for it.
• 41:06
  The effect.
• 41:07
  Robert Hall Newcastle.
• 41:08
  Ray in Ireland said, empathy and hope.
• 41:14
  Business.
• 41:15
  Hope.
• 41:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Social functionality.
• 41:17
  Horses are also social animals.
• 41:19
  Right.
• 41:19
  They demonstrate to us what healthy socialization actually looks like.
• 41:25
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 41:25
  Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
• 41:28
  considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 41:32
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 41:37
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 41:43
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 41:49
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 41:52
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 41:55
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 41:59
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 42:04
  It works incredibly well.
• 42:06
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 42:08
  Check it out.
• 42:10
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 42:14
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 42:17
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 42:19
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 42:24
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 42:27
  when they're not with you.
• 42:29
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 42:33
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 42:35
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 42:39
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 42:44
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 42:47
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 42:52
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 42:56
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 42:59
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 43:03
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 43:07
  absolutely gives you this.
• 43:09
  Okay.
• 43:11
  How much does it cost to run that prison program per year?
• 43:16
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: That, I don't know.
• 43:18
  The, the TRF.
• 43:20
  Provide the horses the prison service provide ERF
• 43:23
  Rupert Isaacson: stands for
• 43:24
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Thorough Retirement Foundation in the state,
• 43:27
  Rupert Isaacson: which is run by,
• 43:28
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: which is run by the TRF, the Thoroughbred
• 43:31
  Retirement Foundation.
• 43:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 43:33
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: An organization foundation.
• 43:35
  And
• 43:35
  Rupert Isaacson: where do they get their money from?
• 43:36
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: They like everything they fundraise.
• 43:39
  Rupert Isaacson: So this is my point.
• 43:41
  So for example, we, we talked about one of our Good Horse Boy programs.
• 43:45
  It's in one of our best, it's, it's in California Square Peg Foundation.
• 43:50
  Joel, who runs it, came up through the racing industry, as you know, was
• 43:53
  a 16-year-old single mom of a special needs kid, making her living as an
• 44:00
  exercise rider in the very, very tough world of the American race tracks.
• 44:04
  And, you know, she's now graduated to having, you know,
• 44:07
  this incredible, organization.
• 44:09
  Everyone who's listening, if you dunno, square Peg Foundation, look
• 44:12
  it up now and check out what they do.
• 44:14
  'cause it's amazing.
• 44:15
  And she does get grants from the OTTB, the Off the Track
• 44:20
  Thoroughbred what's the B for?
• 44:22
  Oh, off track TB Thoroughbred Yeah.
• 44:24
  Association in the USA.
• 44:26
  And they do give to her relatively significantly in terms of the date, you
• 44:32
  know, the yearly budget that she has.
• 44:34
  But I'm looking how, I just Googled while you, you were chatting.
• 44:37
  So I wanted to say, what, how much does the racing industry generate?
• 44:41
  So the first thing that comes up in Google for now, it's 127 billion.
• 44:48
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, right.
• 44:48
  So
• 44:49
  Rupert Isaacson: if that, yeah.
• 44:49
  If that is indeed true.
• 44:51
  And, you know, who knows?
• 44:52
  Just 'cause Google says it's true, doesn't mean it's true.
• 44:54
  But let's say it's, you know, significant amount of dos.
• 44:59
  Well, I haven't seen any and when I've gone and done now
• 45:04
  that's not entirely true.
• 45:06
  But it can appear that way because my program, okay, it's not my program, but
• 45:12
  a program that I've trained over there in California, it is supported then Le Skin.
• 45:17
  It has definitely been supported by people within the racing industry.
• 45:21
  That's it.
• 45:22
  David Dole's amazing place in counting Limerick and so on and so on.
• 45:25
  So it's not true that there is no support and some of that support has been quite
• 45:30
  significant, but there isn't a sort of recognizable institutional thing yet.
• 45:36
  You know, where the racing industry somehow as a whole comes together and
• 45:40
  says, okay, out of this 127 billion or whatever it is, we are going to
• 45:47
  create a 5% budget or a 10% budget to look after to do the right thing.
• 45:55
  That has not yet.
• 45:58
  Leapt into the public consciousness.
• 46:00
  It is happening here and there for sure.
• 46:03
  And where it is we need to give credit where credit is due, and
• 46:06
  that's what I'm trying to do.
• 46:07
  But nonetheless, the perception is not that.
• 46:09
  And what can we do, you know, when there's that kind of money around, you
• 46:13
  know, it does just beg the question, why on earth aren't we seeing really
• 46:19
  significant, noticeable in the public consciousness kind of, support that way.
• 46:25
  And that could be, as you say, simply because it's taken
• 46:28
  a while just to catch up.
• 46:31
  But now that we are having this conversation, people like you within the
• 46:35
  industry are having this conversation with each other as well as with people like me.
• 46:40
  What do you think the plan for that is because of, you know, that that's,
• 46:43
  from an outsider's perspective, that's just the logical question to us.
• 46:46
  I got a lot of dos.
• 46:47
  Let's see it.
• 46:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I think there's, there's two sections to that question.
• 46:54
  The first is the aftercare situation, and we talked about changing landscape and the
• 47:01
  industry being somewhat on the back foot.
• 47:04
  so they're catch they're playing catch up.
• 47:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 47:09
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: What happened was you had some philanthropic individuals
• 47:14
  who looked at the situation, said, right, this is what we need to do,
• 47:19
  and they set up the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation one day.
• 47:23
  Then they set up the Thoroughbred Charities of America.
• 47:27
  Then Jack will set up Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.
• 47:31
  Those are the three biggies.
• 47:33
  And they give out, all three of them, give out two of them
• 47:38
  give out grants every year.
• 47:41
  The TAA accredit, different REHOMING facilities.
• 47:46
  So that's working.
• 47:47
  What, what went wrong there is, it wasn't one of our so-called institutions
• 47:54
  such as the Jockey Club that said, or a main body, like the Thoroughbred
• 47:58
  Owners and Breeders Association.
• 48:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 48:01
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Said, right, this is an issue.
• 48:04
  We need to take care of this.
• 48:06
  No, it was about five individuals who did this off their own
• 48:12
  backs and set organizations up.
• 48:15
  And then everybody else said, oh, well, you know, it's all taken care of.
• 48:19
  That's one aspect.
• 48:21
  So.
• 48:22
  What I'm trying to do now, because I, I have absolutely zero affiliation to
• 48:28
  anybody and I'm totally independent, is I go and shake the trees and say, you
• 48:35
  need to do this, you need to do that.
• 48:37
  One of the, the big issues I ran into was, yes, if we give money, where's
• 48:44
  it going to, where's the money going?
• 48:47
  Where's
• 48:47
  Rupert Isaacson: the accountability?
• 48:48
  Yeah.
• 48:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And it just struck me about when I was at Kentucky a couple of
• 48:53
  weeks ago and I went, that's what's wrong.
• 48:56
  We've got to build a structure first that's totally transparent so people
• 49:03
  can see where the money's going to.
• 49:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 49:07
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And it's got to be the jock.
• 49:09
  How
• 49:09
  Rupert Isaacson: do we do that?
• 49:10
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: The Jockey Club has to be the umbrella organization that
• 49:14
  receives the funds and distributes the
• 49:17
  Rupert Isaacson: fund.
• 49:18
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: You keep all the other layers in place.
• 49:22
  So that's the first part of your question.
• 49:25
  The second part of your question is more interesting.
• 49:28
  I've grown up in this industry.
• 49:32
  It was only when I saw the i a video.
• 49:35
  When was that?
• 49:36
  2019 perhaps that they made that they went to normal.
• 49:40
  Something
• 49:40
  Rupert Isaacson: like that.
• 49:41
  Yeah.
• 49:41
  Relatively recent.
• 49:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It was only then that this whole world of EAS came on my radar.
• 49:50
  I didn't know anything about what you were doing.
• 49:52
  I didn't know what anybody was doing.
• 49:54
  I knew about the RDA writing for the disabled.
• 49:57
  I used to in my twenties.
• 49:59
  I volunteered with that, so I knew about that.
• 50:02
  They don't know is, is the short answer.
• 50:08
  And when I took, I, I spent the last few years.
• 50:12
  Around doing a lot of research and finding out the different
• 50:15
  places that are providing EAS.
• 50:18
  And I talk to various people and I go, do you know soa?
• 50:22
  And they go, no.
• 50:24
  And I go, well, they're doing the same thing that you are doing.
• 50:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 50:28
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: You need to talk to soa.
• 50:30
  Who's that?
• 50:32
  And it's a bit like the thoroughbred aftercare field.
• 50:37
  A lot of these are sole practitioners.
• 50:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 50:41
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: They have this concept.
• 50:43
  They bring the concept to fruition that takes energy.
• 50:48
  Then they have to run it on a daily basis.
• 50:52
  Absolutely.
• 50:52
  That fundraise it because where's the money coming from?
• 50:55
  Because they've now about run outta of money.
• 50:59
  So that takes so much more energy and you come to them and say,
• 51:03
  you need to talk to so and so.
• 51:04
  They're just trying to keep their head above water.
• 51:07
  Yeah.
• 51:08
  And they don't have the energy.
• 51:10
  They may or may not have the skillset to take it to the next level.
• 51:14
  So you see that in the aftercare situation with all these, so
• 51:21
  people, individual people who are doing rescue, running rescue farms.
• 51:24
  And you see it in the equine assisted therapy world.
• 51:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 51:29
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It's generally, and the other problem
• 51:31
  is it's generally all women.
• 51:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 51:34
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: When you
• 51:35
  Rupert Isaacson: can, why is that a problem?
• 51:37
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Because you are going into an environment in, certainly in the
• 51:42
  racing world and in, for a large part in the corporate world that's male dominated.
• 51:49
  And somebody said to me during the summer that he'd mentioned the RDA
• 51:57
  writing for the disabled, and this colleague of his turned round and went.
• 52:02
  Ah, yeah.
• 52:05
  You mean women of a certain age leading the pony from the
• 52:08
  coffee shop to the hairdresser?
• 52:10
  Yes.
• 52:11
  And that's the thing, it's like you're a silly, sentimental woman.
• 52:14
  That's what women do, but we're businessmen, so you have to bring
• 52:20
  it into their world and say, Hey, you know, this is important stuff.
• 52:24
  We've got a mental health crisis in the western world.
• 52:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 52:29
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: The racing industry, you have a social license that you
• 52:33
  better buck up and pay attention.
• 52:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 52:35
  And you also, by the way, also have a bunch of lost boy sons.
• 52:40
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 52:40
  Grandsons
• 52:40
  Rupert Isaacson: and nephews who need this help.
• 52:45
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 52:45
  Rupert Isaacson: You know what's so interesting is that when I've
• 52:48
  been at shindigs of upper levels of the horse sport world could be,
• 52:54
  you know, not necessarily racing necessarily, but a lot of them, when
• 52:57
  you actually get talking to people.
• 52:59
  You find out that so many of them individually in their
• 53:01
  families have something going on.
• 53:03
  But they of course, are very private and they're, the old
• 53:09
  school was also not to complain.
• 53:11
  And the old old school was to put 'em way out of sight.
• 53:17
  And so given that the horse industry is an old, old school thing it's
• 53:24
  not surprising that the ethic of we don't really want to look at it and
• 53:28
  we don't really want to deal with it, is still to some degree there.
• 53:33
  But I do think that that tip, I think we've reached a tipping point.
• 53:36
  I think that that has tipped over now.
• 53:39
  And equally when you said, you know, the corporate world and the racing
• 53:43
  world is largely male, we also know that that is changing and changing
• 53:48
  quite rapidly actually, particularly on the business side of things that,
• 53:51
  that the corporate world is changing.
• 53:54
  From the bottom up, just because the sheer number of people going into the corporate
• 54:00
  world now is, is more female than male.
• 54:02
  At, at the younger, at the younger because they're the ones who
• 54:06
  are doing better at university.
• 54:08
  So, but we don't wanna hang around for that change.
• 54:11
  And it doesn't mean that just because the men at the top may eventually get replaced
• 54:15
  by women at the top, that they shouldn't do the right thing while they're there.
• 54:19
  So it is interesting to me, this thing that you say of, of when people present
• 54:24
  themselves as well, I'm a businessman.
• 54:26
  Why should I care about that?
• 54:29
  That, that's never made any sense to me.
• 54:30
  It was like, well, whether you're a businessman or a street sweeper or a
• 54:38
  priest or a, I don't know, whatever you are, you're a human being alive on
• 54:42
  planet earth, you'll be dead some, and,
• 54:45
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: it's this thing
• 54:45
  Rupert Isaacson: called the Golden Rule, right?
• 54:46
  Why not do some good if you can?
• 54:48
  Yeah,
• 54:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: no, I'm on my track.
• 54:50
  I have my title, my position.
• 54:53
  Yeah.
• 54:53
  I'm making money.
• 54:54
  This is, do you know what I'm worth?
• 54:57
  You know?
• 54:57
  Do you see?
• 54:58
  Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 54:58
  I think that's, these are my priorities.
• 55:01
  Don't have some woman come to me about, you know, ponies
• 55:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 55:05
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And mental health
• 55:07
  Rupert Isaacson: or some idiot hippie, you know, like me.
• 55:09
  Yeah.
• 55:10
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So there's that mentality, but life comes
• 55:14
  at us all and it doesn't care.
• 55:17
  You know, what you drive or who you are or, you know, yeah.
• 55:22
  We come to the, we come to the part.
• 55:24
  All of us at some point in life come to the part where we
• 55:26
  have to say, uncle, don't we?
• 55:28
  We sort of rot back on our hos.
• 55:30
  And Indeed and you, you get a quick life lesson and you've got
• 55:34
  to get your priorities suited.
• 55:35
  I think we just have a huge opportunity here with the right,
• 55:39
  Rupert Isaacson: so, so let's talk about what needs to happen on quote unquote your
• 55:43
  end, which is the industry end and what quote needs to happen on quote unquote
• 55:47
  our end, which is the practitioner side.
• 55:49
  So you mentioned, let's get start with your end first.
• 55:52
  So you mentioned the jockey club.
• 55:53
  Right.
• 55:54
  Who currently, to my knowledge, do not have some easy to find really big
• 56:01
  philanthropic thing for equine assisted work combined with thoroughbred aftercare.
• 56:07
  Unless I'm wrong and I could well be wrong.
• 56:09
  So what do we need to do for them to get them to buck up?
• 56:13
  That's the first thing.
• 56:14
  And then let's talk after that about what we need with people like me so that
• 56:18
  we can buck up to meet that challenge.
• 56:23
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It comes down to structure with it, I think.
• 56:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 56:27
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: When I first started to look at the equine assisted world.
• 56:31
  It was just so overwhelmingly fragmented.
• 56:36
  I couldn't make any sense outta it.
• 56:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 56:39
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It needs structure and what I see today is
• 56:46
  that Horse Boy is an organization that has created a community.
• 56:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 56:54
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: You have three distinct modules.
• 56:56
  You have the Horse Boy module, you have the movement method, and you have kin, and
• 57:03
  you have certification in all of those.
• 57:07
  I think Hos Boy is the place to start.
• 57:12
  I think you have to, if you're talking about equine assisted services, you have
• 57:18
  to be able to put something in front of somebody and say, there's a book.
• 57:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 57:26
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: You, you've.
• 57:27
  A room full of shelves with things like this on it, or pull one of
• 57:32
  those down and say, this is the book.
• 57:34
  So they, they know what it is.
• 57:36
  They can touch it, feel it, understand it.
• 57:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 57:40
  That's what we can do on our end.
• 57:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: But one of, one of the things,
• 57:44
  Rupert Isaacson: how do we, let's say, let's say I go with you
• 57:47
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 57:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Into a room with the Jockey Club dudes, and we are like,
• 57:52
  all right, we're here to get you guys to do the right thing effectively.
• 57:56
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Now you've gotta show them,
• 57:58
  Rupert Isaacson: well, okay, fine.
• 58:00
  But nonetheless, there has to be, we will of course do our damnedest to do that
• 58:08
  at the same time, of course there needs to be a certain will on the
• 58:11
  end of the people of the Jockey Club folks, the people you're going into the
• 58:14
  room with, to be somewhat be disposed to do something other than say no.
• 58:20
  And.
• 58:22
  Of course one would think, well that's just a human thing.
• 58:24
  Of course they would want to support this type of thing 'cause
• 58:27
  it's the right thing to do.
• 58:27
  But no.
• 58:28
  So what do we need to do to change the culture within, say, the Jockey Club to
• 58:33
  be predisposed to act philanthropically
• 58:40
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: towards equine assisted services?
• 58:43
  Rupert Isaacson: In this particular case?
• 58:44
  Yes.
• 58:45
  Because I guess you could, you could say that the, that's actually a good point
• 58:48
  that you make because you could say that the injured jockey fund has been doing
• 58:52
  that philanthropically for generations.
• 58:55
  And they do do quite a lot of work to try to look after they're humans.
• 58:59
  It's now just the next stage.
• 59:01
  How do we, yeah.
• 59:03
  How does one affect that culture?
• 59:05
  I, I totally take your point.
• 59:06
  That one needs to go in there with a good structure and all of that
• 59:09
  stuff, but if there isn't a basic predisposition to do the right thing.
• 59:19
  No matter how good your structures are, you're dealing with someone
• 59:22
  who really doesn't want to hear what you've gotta say.
• 59:26
  So that's a cultural thing.
• 59:28
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It it's not so much culture as an educational thing.
• 59:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 59:33
  How do you separate the two?
• 59:34
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I promise you they don't know.
• 59:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 59:38
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Nobody knows about equine assisted services,
• 59:42
  Rupert Isaacson: so we need to go talk.
• 59:43
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: People in the racing industry, equine assisted services,
• 59:46
  they look at me and they pause for a moment and then they go, ah, you
• 59:51
  mean writing for the disabled, right?
• 59:53
  I go, yeah, but it's so much more than that.
• 59:57
  So that's where the equine assisted world has not, you haven't gotten your message
• 1:00:04
  out to explain to people this Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  Doing, this is the science behind it.
• 1:00:09
  Do you know how long it took me to find this amazing person called Rupert
• 1:00:13
  Isaacson, who was standing on a video with a video by a whiteboard, drawing out
• 1:00:22
  little stick man and showing oxytocin and cortisol and the Kinsey cells and beating.
• 1:00:30
  Well,
• 1:00:30
  Rupert Isaacson: you're good.
• 1:00:32
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: That took me forever to find.
• 1:00:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  Well, I'll tell you why it took you forever to find, because
• 1:00:40
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: when
• 1:00:41
  Rupert Isaacson: the Jockey Club doesn't give me a million bucks a
• 1:00:44
  year to go out and publicize it.
• 1:00:45
  And so the difficulty is that we do what we can.
• 1:00:47
  Right?
• 1:00:48
  So we, we do put stuff out on YouTube and we do, but if we were to do like
• 1:00:52
  an actual publicity campaign, we would need that funded and we'd have to,
• 1:00:58
  we would have to quo, we would have to justify why we are using that.
• 1:01:03
  To fly our flag rather than to do the work.
• 1:01:06
  So up until now, because you know, let's say we've been around for 20 years,
• 1:01:11
  what we've tended to spend our money on when we've fundraised is services
• 1:01:16
  servicing people and helping new places get started and giving grants to
• 1:01:21
  those new places and so on and so on.
• 1:01:23
  Because that's where the need is.
• 1:01:24
  If you're in my position, I'm a dad, you know, if I'm choosing to spend this dollar
• 1:01:30
  here to educate people, even though I know long term we need to, and here to serve
• 1:01:36
  this family who's in crisis, well I know where I'm gonna spend that, that dollar.
• 1:01:40
  So that is of course, exactly what the equine assisted world needs from
• 1:01:46
  the more established entity is the money to go out and do that education.
• 1:01:51
  'cause it's not just to the horse industry, it's to
• 1:01:53
  government and to government.
• 1:01:55
  Yeah.
• 1:01:56
  Regulatory bodies and so forth.
• 1:01:57
  Insurance companies, you know, all of that.
• 1:02:00
  So I, I'm, I'm with you.
• 1:02:03
  It's just that, as you said, you answered that point earlier where you said, well,
• 1:02:06
  people are so busy kind of doing what they're doing and bootstrapping it.
• 1:02:11
  And you know, like for if I go to talk to the Jockey Club, for example,
• 1:02:16
  let's say we actually do that, which means you say Rupert at two o'clock on
• 1:02:21
  Tuesday, there's something of something.
• 1:02:23
  We are going to go and have this meeting in Virginia or Ireland or Kentucky
• 1:02:27
  or new Market or wherever, right?
• 1:02:31
  So I will then have to get my butt on a plane, go there.
• 1:02:36
  It's gonna cost me a minimum of 2K to just go there and make my case minimum.
• 1:02:43
  That's before we've even talked about, I don't know.
• 1:02:47
  Maybe doing two or three more places because then you say,
• 1:02:50
  okay, well now we're on the road.
• 1:02:51
  Maybe actually we should also go to the French and we should also go to
• 1:02:54
  the Irish and dah, dah, dah, dah.
• 1:02:56
  So now it becomes 5K, six K
• 1:02:59
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: and nothing will have happened
• 1:03:00
  Rupert Isaacson: and the day,
• 1:03:02
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: nothing.
• 1:03:02
  Right.
• 1:03:03
  Rupert Isaacson: And those, and it's not like the organization has said,
• 1:03:06
  Hey, we, we've heard about you.
• 1:03:08
  This is great.
• 1:03:08
  Here's six K, come and talk to us.
• 1:03:11
  Right.
• 1:03:12
  So I'm not saying we can't get around this issue.
• 1:03:17
  I'm just exploring the practicalities of how do we strategize this?
• 1:03:23
  You are sitting there within the racing industry.
• 1:03:25
  I'm sitting here with a product that works for the racing industry and for the
• 1:03:31
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: humanity.
• 1:03:31
  Rupert Isaacson: We would get served by the thorough.
• 1:03:33
  So how do we reach 'em?
• 1:03:35
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, I think what you, you have to remember
• 1:03:38
  is the equine assisted service industry is a new industry.
• 1:03:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:03:45
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So you are doing what you would do in any new
• 1:03:48
  industry is you are working the grassroots, you are making your family.
• 1:03:52
  Absolutely.
• 1:03:53
  And that's where you have to spend your time and energy and money.
• 1:03:57
  And you've been doing that for the last 20, 25 years.
• 1:04:00
  Am I right?
• 1:04:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:04:03
  Not to mention bring my own son up, you know?
• 1:04:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 1:04:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Which is a certain thing as well.
• 1:04:08
  Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And I met Rowan at tribe in this August and he's
• 1:04:14
  the most lovely, lovely young man.
• 1:04:17
  And he's got a beautiful speaking voice.
• 1:04:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:04:19
  He does
• 1:04:20
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: most gorgeous speaking voice.
• 1:04:22
  And I came away from that and I thought, oh my God.
• 1:04:26
  Rupert was told that, you know, when he was, what, three and a half that this is?
• 1:04:32
  Yeah.
• 1:04:32
  That's it.
• 1:04:33
  We can't do anymore from you on your own.
• 1:04:36
  And the same that with David Doyle's daughter.
• 1:04:38
  Take her home and love her.
• 1:04:41
  And I thought about Rowan and he's a big boy.
• 1:04:45
  He's a big man.
• 1:04:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:04:47
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And he's strong.
• 1:04:49
  Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  A gentle giant.
• 1:04:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:04:51
  And
• 1:04:52
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: had Rupert not gone on this journey and been
• 1:04:55
  curious and inquisitive and you know, just to tenacious about, you
• 1:05:00
  know, finding a way through this and finding Temple Brandon Rowan would
• 1:05:05
  be a young man now who was nonverbal.
• 1:05:08
  Can you imagine how frustrated and how angry he would be?
• 1:05:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:05:13
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I mean, it's a totally different scenario.
• 1:05:16
  Those are the sort of stories that you need to
• 1:05:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:05:21
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: To people.
• 1:05:22
  Something that gets them.
• 1:05:23
  I think what you do is yes, you poke away at the Jockey Club.
• 1:05:31
  I can do that and it's not costing me anything.
• 1:05:35
  'Cause I'm in the States, but I think what what you do is you start to educate the
• 1:05:41
  racing community and you find people who have connections to autistic children.
• 1:05:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 1:05:48
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And it's, you know, the incidence of
• 1:05:51
  autism now is, it's pretty high.
• 1:05:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:05:54
  It's,
• 1:05:54
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: and I was just reading something this morning about
• 1:05:56
  how they're saying I think it's Robert Kennedy saying this, that one in
• 1:06:00
  Rupert Isaacson: 12,
• 1:06:01
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: That Tylenol pregnant women who took Tylenol,
• 1:06:04
  that's what causes autism.
• 1:06:06
  So, it, anyway, there's there's a large incidence of, of autistic.
• 1:06:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  There is, whatever you think of what the causes are.
• 1:06:17
  It went from one in 10,000 to one under one in 20.
• 1:06:25
  In 30 years, something has happened.
• 1:06:29
  Yes.
• 1:06:31
  But where I come in is, whatever has happened, we can do something about it.
• 1:06:36
  That's neuroplasticity.
• 1:06:38
  We can rebuild brains.
• 1:06:40
  We know this.
• 1:06:41
  And you can do it with strokes, you can do it with traumatic brain injuries.
• 1:06:44
  You can do it, and we can certainly do it with regressive autism, because that,
• 1:06:48
  that's often what we're seeing is kids that were developing somewhat normally and
• 1:06:53
  at some point they took some sort of hit.
• 1:06:55
  Now it's too controversial to go into what that hit might have been.
• 1:07:01
  And also from my point of view, almost irrelevant because I'm
• 1:07:05
  dealing with the aftermath.
• 1:07:08
  And what we find is that Well, yeah, actually we can do a lot.
• 1:07:13
  So I'm, I'm with you and of course I'm playing devil's advocate
• 1:07:16
  against myself here because horse boy currently is in Berlin.
• 1:07:19
  Talking to the to the, the Bundestag, the, the, the German parliament you
• 1:07:24
  met the amazing Henrik and Giddy Bergoff and their son Julian in,
• 1:07:29
  in the wheelchair and their story.
• 1:07:32
  And spotter alert lads.
• 1:07:34
  I just yesterday did a, a podcast with Giddy Burko.
• 1:07:37
  You, you need to listen to that one..
• 1:07:40
  And so they're, they're, they're, and David Doyle is with them.
• 1:07:43
  So David Dole has flown from Ireland and they are talking
• 1:07:46
  to the, the German Parliament about getting state funding for.
• 1:07:53
  Horse boy movement method and other, not just us, but all
• 1:07:56
  sorts of equine assisted things.
• 1:07:58
  And this builds on the back of what David DOL has already done
• 1:08:01
  in Ireland, getting those programs supported by government there.
• 1:08:05
  So I'm playing devil's advocate against myself.
• 1:08:07
  We have actually been doing this kind of thing, and of course, as you know, Joel
• 1:08:11
  Dunlap from Square Peg in California is, has been in Kentucky several times.
• 1:08:16
  She is working on that level.
• 1:08:19
  And I also know that you are getting something together up your
• 1:08:22
  sleeve at the Cura in Ireland.
• 1:08:25
  Somewhere in the next 12 months or so.
• 1:08:28
  We'll all be there and I'll get my ass there.
• 1:08:31
  Of course.
• 1:08:33
  So, you know, but I think the reason why I'm asking you these questions and
• 1:08:37
  having you answer them on this podcast is because I'm, I'm throwing this out now
• 1:08:41
  to you, the listeners and the viewers.
• 1:08:44
  You can't, we can't.
• 1:08:48
  Expect people to know what we do if we don't tell 'em.
• 1:08:52
  So for every single one of you that is out there doing that good work
• 1:08:57
  and you are all out there doing this good work, put the bugger on YouTube
• 1:09:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: just a, just a short little YouTube film.
• 1:09:07
  It can be 60 seconds.
• 1:09:08
  Anything Rupert that convey exactly what you're doing.
• 1:09:13
  Rupert Isaacson: And don't worry if it's crap,
• 1:09:14
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: doesn't matter
• 1:09:15
  Rupert Isaacson: because then you'll do another one.
• 1:09:17
  Yeah.
• 1:09:17
  And it will be better and you'll do another one and it will be better.
• 1:09:21
  And Eve also really good is your higher functioning artists.
• 1:09:26
  Get them to make little films about you and put it out there.
• 1:09:31
  But what we can't, I love the Irish term giving out.
• 1:09:35
  We can't give out, we can't complain.
• 1:09:39
  If we are not, so we, I, I asked those challenging questions to Susie
• 1:09:44
  just now saying, well, what can the thoroughbred industry do for us?
• 1:09:49
  And well, we know they can give us money and we need to go in there and tell them
• 1:09:53
  why they should and what they should do.
• 1:09:55
  But where she's right is they need also to hear from us.
• 1:10:00
  So what about open letters?
• 1:10:03
  What about you know, campaigns of I dunno why my brain is blanking on the word, when
• 1:10:10
  everyone signs their name to something.
• 1:10:12
  Yeah, petition.
• 1:10:14
  Thank you.
• 1:10:14
  Good lord.
• 1:10:16
  I need another cup of tea.
• 1:10:16
  Clearly, you know, all of these things make a difference.
• 1:10:19
  And also reaching out to your local racetrack.
• 1:10:21
  So we talked about David Doyle.
• 1:10:23
  He came out with a really good idea in Ireland, which is to go to individual
• 1:10:28
  race courses, which stand Id.
• 1:10:30
  In between race meetings and they have these amazing facilities
• 1:10:34
  and they're actually looking for reasons to be relevant.
• 1:10:37
  So they do, you know, stag parties and they do this and they do that.
• 1:10:41
  He went to them and said, what about equine assisted work happening in
• 1:10:47
  these places in between race meetings?
• 1:10:48
  And they went, that's a good idea.
• 1:10:51
  So back in the spring of this year, I found myself at Limerick Race Course
• 1:10:56
  with David Doe with a whole bunch of autistic riders in jockey silks on
• 1:11:01
  thoroughbreds where we began, which were donation thoroughbreds at the racetrack.
• 1:11:04
  And this was really interesting to me because they were then being taken back
• 1:11:08
  to their old world, these thoroughbreds now with very vulnerable riders on them
• 1:11:13
  and parading in the you know, the warmup area as if they were about to go and race.
• 1:11:19
  And we were on TV and everyone was being interviewed and we're talking about why
• 1:11:23
  this is important, this great that they absolutely stepped up and supported us.
• 1:11:27
  And I was thinking in the back of my mind,
• 1:11:32
  will there be any kind of return to previous pre therapy behavior?
• 1:11:38
  This will be an interesting ex Well, there wasn't the, the retraining was
• 1:11:43
  so effective and so thorough that even when these thoroughbreds were
• 1:11:47
  put back centrally, not just in the, in the location where they had been
• 1:11:52
  getting ready to race, but the rider is now wearing jockey silks and boots
• 1:11:57
  and all that, and don't think that horses don't notice that sort of thing.
• 1:12:00
  Of course they do.
• 1:12:01
  And yet not a foot put wrong.
• 1:12:05
  They could not have been better ambassadors for their own breed,
• 1:12:08
  you know, it was extraordinary.
• 1:12:10
  They have.
• 1:12:10
  Had
• 1:12:11
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: vulnerable children on that.
• 1:12:12
  Indeed.
• 1:12:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Very, very vulnerable passengers.
• 1:12:16
  Oh.
• 1:12:16
  So if you are an equine assisted outfit, is there anything stopping you from a,
• 1:12:23
  approaching your own local race course?
• 1:12:26
  Remember that these are individual businesses that are run.
• 1:12:29
  Is there anything from stopping you from approaching your local hunt and their
• 1:12:33
  point to point meeting, which they have every year, there's nothing stopping you.
• 1:12:37
  And don't worry if they say no.
• 1:12:40
  If they say no, go to the next one.
• 1:12:41
  I've generally found that there's a, a three no rule.
• 1:12:45
  People will say no three times and then they realize that
• 1:12:47
  you're just not gonna go away.
• 1:12:49
  And then they're like, all right, fine.
• 1:12:50
  You know, just to shut you up.
• 1:12:53
  And then they realize, oh, actually we come out of this looking quite good.
• 1:12:55
  You know what I mean?
• 1:12:56
  So
• 1:12:57
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: a little booth, have a little table there.
• 1:13:00
  With some flies, some toys or whatever.
• 1:13:03
  Something to just, something to bring them in and just tell them what you're doing.
• 1:13:08
  Because I promise you, people in the racing industry do not know what's
• 1:13:12
  happening in the equine assisted world.
• 1:13:14
  It's a relatively new area, and everybody today has got their
• 1:13:20
  head down in the road mm-hmm.
• 1:13:22
  Field.
• 1:13:22
  And they're not looking over the hedge unless you get an idiot like me who's
• 1:13:26
  just like, what's happening over there?
• 1:13:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, curiosity.
• 1:13:30
  Thank God for it.
• 1:13:32
  Okay.
• 1:13:33
  I'm optimistic.
• 1:13:34
  I I think you're gonna do it, Susie.
• 1:13:37
  I think that you are going to be the catalyst that makes that difference.
• 1:13:41
  I, I met you, I hung out with you in kil Coon, and I thought,
• 1:13:45
  oh, this woman is a force.
• 1:13:47
  You didn't have to show up to our tribe day,
• 1:13:50
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: but you wouldn't keep me away.
• 1:13:53
  Rupert Isaacson: But you had other things in your life to do.
• 1:13:55
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I show up everywhere.
• 1:13:57
  Rupert Isaacson: if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast,
• 1:14:00
  I'm guessing you are, then you've probably also always wondered a little
• 1:14:05
  bit about the old master system.
• 1:14:08
  of dressage training.
• 1:14:09
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 1:14:18
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 1:14:24
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 1:14:31
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 1:14:33
  Intrigued?
• 1:14:34
  Like to know more?
• 1:14:36
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 1:14:41
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 1:14:43
  Take it from there.
• 1:14:44
  You know, and you live between different spots and all of this, and you made time.
• 1:14:48
  You took time, and you didn't just show up alone.
• 1:14:50
  You, you brought a couple of interested parties and you showcased us.
• 1:14:54
  Yeah.
• 1:14:55
  You didn't need to do that.
• 1:14:56
  So I'm both grateful and very optimistic because I know talent when I see it, and
• 1:15:04
  you're clearly gonna get the job done.
• 1:15:06
  And rising tide lifts all boats.
• 1:15:08
  So yes, we'll spoil will be in there doing the things that you do, but we
• 1:15:11
  will be turning around to lots of other programs and saying, come along with us.
• 1:15:16
  Let's not sit in our own silos.
• 1:15:19
  And certainly let's not, horse boy won't be trying to like, hold the money
• 1:15:23
  from the racing industry to itself.
• 1:15:25
  Quite the opposite.
• 1:15:26
  What I would like to do is work on setting up funds that are just purely merit-based
• 1:15:33
  across the equine assisted field because.
• 1:15:36
  What we do as you know, is, is fairly specific in terms of, you know,
• 1:15:41
  neuroplasticity, but there's all kinds of other programs out there as well.
• 1:15:44
  You mentioned the prison ones and Horseback uk.
• 1:15:47
  What they do, you know, there, there's a bunch out there.
• 1:15:50
  I, I would like to be a catalyst in making sure that everybody gets served.
• 1:15:58
  So I do think when we have you on again next year to give the report
• 1:16:04
  on what the progress has been with the Jockey Club, I think you're
• 1:16:07
  going to be reporting progress.
• 1:16:09
  There's something else I want to ask you about there.
• 1:16:11
  Do you remember a bit earlier in this conversation, I said you got
• 1:16:16
  into this as much because you wanted to protect the thoroughbred horse
• 1:16:21
  as to help people like my son.
• 1:16:24
  And I think that that's perfectly valid and honest and good.
• 1:16:29
  Tell me why the thoroughbred itself.
• 1:16:32
  In terms of its bloodlines is a little bit vulnerable right now.
• 1:16:35
  This was really interesting to me.
• 1:16:37
  I didn't know this until you told it to me.
• 1:16:39
  We tend to think of thoroughbreds as like this thing.
• 1:16:41
  It's been there forever.
• 1:16:42
  It'll always be there.
• 1:16:44
  Not so much perhaps it seems.
• 1:16:46
  Tell me what it is and why you care.
• 1:16:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Could, can I divert you?
• 1:16:51
  Very, very, it won't be for long.
• 1:16:53
  With horse boy, your three modalities, the Hakeem in hand
• 1:16:57
  dressage work that you do Yeah.
• 1:17:01
  Passes into collection and balance for horse boy.
• 1:17:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:17:07
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: They can create those big rocking motions that will rock
• 1:17:10
  the children's hips and create oxytocin.
• 1:17:13
  Yeah.
• 1:17:15
  I saw Terry Brosnan demonstrate
• 1:17:19
  Rupert Isaacson: she runs the horse by place at Hillco.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah.
• 1:17:23
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And a light bulb went off.
• 1:17:25
  'Cause she said we get them to cross over the midline.
• 1:17:29
  Yeah.
• 1:17:29
  What is coming over the midline horses, thoroughbred horses
• 1:17:35
  certainly don't do that ever.
• 1:17:38
  And it suddenly occurred to me, my God, every yearling that has been
• 1:17:43
  started needs to do this work.
• 1:17:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:17:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: How to cross over the midline Because I can't tell
• 1:17:52
  you how many two year olds and older horses I've ridden that will try to
• 1:17:55
  buck and you go, God, don't do that.
• 1:17:57
  You idiot.
• 1:17:58
  You're going to fall down because they dunno where their feet are,
• 1:18:01
  their front feet are, and they end up going a over t kettle.
• 1:18:05
  Not only does it give them the body awareness and where their
• 1:18:09
  feet are, are, it creates balance.
• 1:18:14
  It puts, it
• 1:18:14
  Rupert Isaacson: creates neuroplasticity in the horse
• 1:18:16
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: and posture and it creates neuroplasticity in the
• 1:18:19
  horse because it's left, right brain.
• 1:18:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:18:22
  They can think.
• 1:18:23
  Yeah.
• 1:18:23
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And it brings 'em into collection.
• 1:18:25
  But even more than that, it gives 'em confidence.
• 1:18:30
  So to me, if you were to do this with a yearling before
• 1:18:35
  you're, as you're starting him,
• 1:18:37
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 1:18:37
  You are
• 1:18:38
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: getting a much more balanced, collected horse
• 1:18:43
  that knows where his body, where his feet are, where his body is.
• 1:18:47
  You're gonna end up with a sand horse,
• 1:18:50
  Rupert Isaacson: a hundred
• 1:18:51
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: hundred,
• 1:18:52
  Rupert Isaacson: and you can actually rehab the injuries this way
• 1:18:54
  too, because it's like a yoga and
• 1:18:57
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: it then sets them up for.
• 1:18:59
  Further career options.
• 1:19:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:19:02
  Absolutely.
• 1:19:03
  Because you put the building blocks in for the jumping and the dressage
• 1:19:07
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 1:19:07
  That
• 1:19:07
  Rupert Isaacson: they might need later, which is just about balancing yourself.
• 1:19:11
  You've set that up for them.
• 1:19:12
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 1:19:13
  You do.
• 1:19:13
  I think to Keen is the bridge into the thoroughbred world.
• 1:19:17
  Yeah.
• 1:19:18
  And Friday, Terry Brosnan is very kindly going to come down to Jesse
• 1:19:23
  Harrington's in common stand, and she's going to teach my three-year-old Okay.
• 1:19:32
  In the indoor school.
• 1:19:33
  Okay.
• 1:19:34
  And I'm hoping that I, we can show it to Jesse and she'll see the results of that.
• 1:19:40
  Now,
• 1:19:40
  Rupert Isaacson: who is Jesse Harrington?
• 1:19:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Jesse Harrington is Alan's national treasure.
• 1:19:45
  Okay.
• 1:19:46
  Rupert Isaacson: She
• 1:19:46
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: is a racehorse trainer.
• 1:19:48
  She was a very successful steeplechase trainer.
• 1:19:51
  She was on the Olympic three day team.
• 1:19:54
  And she's a very successful flat horse trainer, and she's one of
• 1:19:57
  the larger trainers in Ireland and just an exceptional human being.
• 1:20:04
  And I'm lucky enough to have my horse and some other horses down.
• 1:20:08
  Okay.
• 1:20:10
  Said yes.
• 1:20:12
  Yes, that'll be fine.
• 1:20:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, wonderful.
• 1:20:15
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So what I'd like to see is I would like
• 1:20:17
  to see the thoroughbred world endorsing the keen method.
• 1:20:22
  Yeah,
• 1:20:23
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I agree with you.
• 1:20:24
  That's where the, that's where the crossover is.
• 1:20:27
  Because it serves the horse as much as it serves.
• 1:20:30
  Human.
• 1:20:31
  And just for those listeners who are not familiar, 'cause not everyone
• 1:20:35
  who listens to this knows what our programs are takin, T-A-K-H-I-N is the
• 1:20:42
  in-hand work lunging and long reigning.
• 1:20:44
  So it's not ridden as no ridden work where you teach the horse all the
• 1:20:48
  dressy stuff and the strengthening and the suckling that they would
• 1:20:52
  need to know to do the dressage.
• 1:20:56
  You use this as its own therapy to prepare, maintain and rehab horses.
• 1:21:02
  But of course we then get autistic people, veterans service users of
• 1:21:08
  any kind to be the trainers that do the work so that it, it's a sort of
• 1:21:13
  circular, holistic, win win, win thing.
• 1:21:16
  And then also for the people who run the, the program.
• 1:21:20
  Any of you who are running programs, you know how stressed you are
• 1:21:23
  because you don't have enough time to condition and maintain your horses
• 1:21:27
  because you've just got so many clients coming through the door.
• 1:21:29
  Well, what TA Keen does is it makes those conditioning sessions the
• 1:21:35
  session that you do with your client.
• 1:21:37
  So instead of trying to separate out that time and be in stress and time conflict,
• 1:21:43
  you have no time conflict anymore.
• 1:21:46
  So, yes, I, I, I agree.
• 1:21:48
  And so much of that work, if you do it very early, 'cause the horse isn't
• 1:21:53
  bearing any weight because you can introduce all the lateral work, you
• 1:21:57
  can introduce the pf, you can introduce all these things without, in any
• 1:22:02
  way negatively affecting the horse because there is no weight being born.
• 1:22:05
  So I'm very, very pleased to hear that that's about to happen and
• 1:22:09
  a bit nervous and 'cause now the pressure's on to do a good job.
• 1:22:14
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: But going to set them up to be sound or horses in the long run.
• 1:22:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:22:18
  Yeah.
• 1:22:19
  Absolutely.
• 1:22:19
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Knows, knows where his body is, his
• 1:22:22
  feet are and they're balanced.
• 1:22:25
  That's half the battle.
• 1:22:26
  Rupert Isaacson: It is.
• 1:22:27
  And this brings me to your book.
• 1:22:28
  Okay.
• 1:22:28
  So, I asked you, so you, you diverted me from my question about why is the third
• 1:22:33
  Red Horse itself vulnerable at the moment?
• 1:22:36
  So you wrote a book called The Biley Turk.
• 1:22:37
  Right.
• 1:22:38
  And one of the reasons why I find the Biley Turk an interesting historical place
• 1:22:44
  to put one's focus as a horse person and a therapy person is because that story
• 1:22:51
  of, so the Barley Turk being one of the foundation stallions of the Thoroughbreds
• 1:22:55
  what often isn't known is that this was a warhorse, so it was acquired somehow
• 1:23:03
  at the siege of Vienna, I think, was it?
• 1:23:05
  Or.
• 1:23:06
  A Buddha.
• 1:23:07
  Yeah.
• 1:23:08
  So when the, when the Ottomans were trying to take over Europe and remember they got
• 1:23:13
  as far as Vienna and all of the European powers had to suddenly stop punching
• 1:23:18
  each other up and go, hold on a second.
• 1:23:21
  Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 1:23:22
  If we don't like get our shit together for at least five years, these guys
• 1:23:27
  are just gonna take it all from us and it will all be irrelevant.
• 1:23:29
  So maybe, maybe we should cooperate here.
• 1:23:32
  So they did.
• 1:23:32
  And at the end of the 17th century, they, you know, managed to secure
• 1:23:37
  Europe from the Ottoman threat, but it was not done without great effort.
• 1:23:42
  And in these coalitions of military that came together to do this, many of
• 1:23:47
  those European co countries when they were reorganizing their military at
• 1:23:52
  that time had Irish contingents because the Anglo-Irish nobility and the Irish.
• 1:24:02
  Poor peasants often sold themselves as mercenaries.
• 1:24:05
  It was one of the ways that they made a living and they all had a
• 1:24:08
  sort of fighting spirit, and they were great horsemen and so on.
• 1:24:12
  So they went and made a few Bob fighting for the Germans or fighting
• 1:24:15
  for the Austrians or this or that or the other as, as well as obviously
• 1:24:19
  for the Brits from time to time.
• 1:24:21
  And so there's this chap, he biley, he shows up at this siege and
• 1:24:25
  he somehow acquires this horse.
• 1:24:26
  And there's all these different stories right about did he buy it,
• 1:24:29
  did he nick it, did he exchange?
• 1:24:31
  It was, you know, was it gifted?
• 1:24:33
  Whatever happens, he brings this thing home.
• 1:24:36
  And we talked about racing, having started with the step cultures.
• 1:24:45
  The Turman horse is of course one of the purest throwbacks
• 1:24:50
  to that early step culture.
• 1:24:53
  And it's both a dressage horse and a racing horse.
• 1:24:57
  And it is still to this day, Turk and horses.
• 1:25:00
  Rock, they're rad, they're fantastic.
• 1:25:02
  I know people who've got them and they're brilliant because they have all the
• 1:25:05
  fire, but they have all the nos as well.
• 1:25:09
  And you can use them in multiple purposes.
• 1:25:12
  They just don't grow terribly big.
• 1:25:14
  So you're probably not gonna jump a meter 60 on them if you're a big-ish human.
• 1:25:18
  But nonetheless, they are a really versatile, so of course the
• 1:25:22
  ancestor of the modern, no, this bloke brings it home to Ireland.
• 1:25:26
  And guess what?
• 1:25:27
  It shows up at another battle.
• 1:25:29
  The battle that basically decides that England is gonna be England.
• 1:25:33
  The Battle of the Boyne, which weirdly and confusingly is fought
• 1:25:36
  in Ireland because it ends up being a Protestant Catholic thing.
• 1:25:38
  And I could go into why that happened in one of my more boring old dead dudes.
• 1:25:44
  His history of dress thing.
• 1:25:45
  I think I will, but suffice to say, but relatively
• 1:25:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: little bloodshed in England, but a lot in, in Ireland.
• 1:25:52
  Indeed,
• 1:25:52
  Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
• 1:25:52
  We like to do our proxy war.
• 1:25:54
  Yeah.
• 1:25:54
  But also to be fair, you know, anytime that.
• 1:25:56
  France or someone else wanted to mess with England, you'd do it through
• 1:26:00
  the back door of Scotland or Ireland, bite him in the butt, you know, and
• 1:26:04
  then that would turn our attention over there, and then you could do
• 1:26:06
  naughty things to us somewhere else.
• 1:26:08
  And this of course is one of those big, but this was a decisive battle in
• 1:26:11
  terms of European of British history because it basically decided would we
• 1:26:16
  be Protestant or would we be Catholic?
• 1:26:18
  And the Protestants win, and Bali is on the winning side, I believe.
• 1:26:23
  And then so this horse before it becomes a race horse.
• 1:26:26
  So we think of, we think of thoroughbreds, as you said, as they don't cross
• 1:26:30
  the midline, they just go zoom.
• 1:26:31
  But at least one of their ancestors was crossing the midline a lot.
• 1:26:35
  Because if you fight hand to hand on a horse, you use the tacking system.
• 1:26:41
  The ting system that we are talking about was originally created for three things.
• 1:26:47
  I'm talking thousands of years ago, not by me Ru but Isaacson, it was to, to put your
• 1:26:51
  horse able to move in three dimensions.
• 1:26:54
  Why do you want to do that?
• 1:26:55
  Because you wanna catch cows because you're a step herder and you live off
• 1:26:59
  cows and goats and sheep, and they move in three dimensions and try and
• 1:27:02
  run away from you and stop and spin.
• 1:27:04
  And so you've gotta have a horse that can do the same thing, which means you've
• 1:27:08
  gotta train them to go to the side and cross the midline and do pirouettes.
• 1:27:12
  Then of course you might go into battle.
• 1:27:14
  'cause I want to Nick Susie's cows and I've nicked her cows.
• 1:27:17
  I'm riding over there.
• 1:27:18
  Now she's noticed that I've nicked her cows.
• 1:27:20
  She wants to nick 'em back.
• 1:27:21
  So we have a running fight.
• 1:27:23
  If she's a better horseman than me, she will win the fight.
• 1:27:26
  So her horses trained for battle in these stop start spin laterally stuff,
• 1:27:31
  including PFS and other things like that.
• 1:27:34
  And then of course we have a sort of display fun way of doing it where we
• 1:27:38
  can get together in festivals and PR about, on our horses looking pretty
• 1:27:42
  to try and impress each other and sell the semen of our, of our horses.
• 1:27:49
  And this has been going on for thousands years.
• 1:27:50
  But what's interesting to me is that this horse, it's the foundation horse of the
• 1:27:54
  zoom, zoom industry was actually three dimensional spinny, spinny, spinny horse
• 1:28:00
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: that we've come full circle.
• 1:28:01
  Massage horse.
• 1:28:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:28:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Which is lovely.
• 1:28:05
  And the interesting thing, Rupert, is that the three foundation stars of thorough,
• 1:28:10
  it is rumored that the Barley Turk took part in a race at down Royal, which.
• 1:28:17
  It's not the down royal race course we have today, but it's actually on the side
• 1:28:21
  of Dan Patrick with two other horses.
• 1:28:24
  But that is rumored.
• 1:28:27
  The Gido and the Arabian was never ridden.
• 1:28:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Never ridden,
• 1:28:32
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: and the Dali Arabian came basically as a show horse.
• 1:28:36
  He wasn't raised either.
• 1:28:37
  So, so
• 1:28:39
  Rupert Isaacson: do people just look at the qualities of these
• 1:28:41
  horses unridden and say, you know what, we are breeding to them.
• 1:28:45
  What, how did that arise?
• 1:28:47
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It happened because there were a number of what they
• 1:28:51
  called oriental horses in England in the 16th century, 16th, 17th century.
• 1:28:59
  And there were in excess of, I've counted 190 Oriental stallions,
• 1:29:05
  and some of them are quite prevalent in the early step book.
• 1:29:10
  So the.
• 1:29:11
  Fascinating thing is why is it only three stallions?
• 1:29:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:29:17
  From at least 190, and it comes down to the three of their descendants who
• 1:29:23
  were a cocktail of the three stallions, but match and her and ellipse, and that
• 1:29:28
  they either aside from the Dali line and the Ga dolphin line or the barley.
• 1:29:35
  So it's a combination.
• 1:29:36
  So it's not just the Y chromosome, it's probably a combination of the mitochondria
• 1:29:42
  and the, the y chromosome that's given us our, our foundation of the thorough breed.
• 1:29:48
  So it's actually inherent in eclipse.
• 1:29:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:29:52
  Now you told me that, and I didn't know this, that the Bly line
• 1:29:57
  and the good dolphin line are disappearing from the thoroughbred
• 1:30:02
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: that's gone.
• 1:30:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Why and why should we care?
• 1:30:05
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well I wrote the book and then I thought I better
• 1:30:08
  put my money where my mouth was.
• 1:30:09
  So I thought, well, you better go and sort of read some of these
• 1:30:13
  voices and then maybe somebody will join you on your little quest.
• 1:30:18
  That hasn't happened yet.
• 1:30:20
  But I was at the sales new market a couple of years ago and one of Michael
• 1:30:25
  Richard Kent, who had affiliate of mine, he goes, see why that line hasn't lasted?
• 1:30:33
  He said, because you need time and, and patience and, and staff.
• 1:30:40
  And he said, Lippi here was trying to put your Philly on the hot walker,
• 1:30:43
  and she wasn't having any of it.
• 1:30:45
  And I went, what did I tell you?
• 1:30:47
  These horses, you have to ask them.
• 1:30:50
  You cannot tell them what to do.
• 1:30:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely
• 1:30:54
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: tell them what to do.
• 1:30:55
  It's game over.
• 1:30:56
  It ain't, it's not happening.
• 1:30:58
  And they don't forget the very, the two lines are very intelligent,
• 1:31:03
  Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
• 1:31:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Barley line is extremely intelligent.
• 1:31:07
  Rupert Isaacson: So you think people have stopped breeding them
• 1:31:09
  just because they require more,
• 1:31:11
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: they require more horsemanship and more, I see patients
• 1:31:15
  and they, they tend to be quite hot.
• 1:31:17
  They're on their toes.
• 1:31:18
  They're not bad horses at all.
• 1:31:20
  They're all lovely people, but
• 1:31:21
  Rupert Isaacson: they're sharp.
• 1:31:22
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Don't cross them.
• 1:31:23
  Don't come in telling them what to do or they, okay.
• 1:31:26
  Different.
• 1:31:27
  They go dolphin, Arabians tend to be quite bullheaded and they're
• 1:31:34
  tough and they're determined.
• 1:31:36
  And those are two qualities.
• 1:31:39
  The intelligence and, and that spirit, that high metal that
• 1:31:43
  the barley line has and the.
• 1:31:46
  Toughness and the determination that the good LP line have.
• 1:31:49
  Those are essential qualities for race horses.
• 1:31:54
  Rupert Isaacson: So now you say, okay, so I can understand people
• 1:31:57
  are now trying to cut corners.
• 1:31:58
  They don't want a horse that you have to work so hard for, so they're trying
• 1:32:01
  to breed to an easier bloodline.
• 1:32:05
  Speak to me as a total rookie.
• 1:32:06
  Why does that even matter?
• 1:32:07
  Like, why, why don't you say, okay, well fine, breathe that
• 1:32:09
  line out, breed to another line.
• 1:32:12
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well that's, that's what we're doing.
• 1:32:13
  We've bred to exclusively to the Dali Arabian line and temperaments a lot
• 1:32:20
  of times are much, much easier than a Barley Turk temperament by far.
• 1:32:25
  The barleys, you have to treat little bit like Phillies in
• 1:32:28
  that you've gotta be, so why
• 1:32:29
  Rupert Isaacson: do we need then the barley line?
• 1:32:30
  Why do we need the good offen line?
• 1:32:32
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: They have that high metal, they have that
• 1:32:34
  far, they have that courage.
• 1:32:36
  They're all very brave.
• 1:32:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:39
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Intelligent.
• 1:32:40
  So you need in a racehorse, you need that far, has the determination
• 1:32:44
  and the toughness you need that when the chips are down.
• 1:32:49
  Rupert Isaacson: There must also be an inbreeding issue as well.
• 1:32:52
  I mean, if you, if you start narrowing down to just one line of
• 1:32:55
  three, surely there's going to be issues that come up cognitively and
• 1:33:01
  physically eventually, because there just isn't enough outside blood.
• 1:33:05
  Right.
• 1:33:06
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It hasn't happened yet.
• 1:33:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:33:08
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: But will happen in,
• 1:33:10
  Rupert Isaacson: you think it will happen
• 1:33:11
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: in about 10 years time.
• 1:33:13
  Rupert, every single thorough red world trace back to a
• 1:33:16
  course of 1913 called Polaris.
• 1:33:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:33:21
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: That's how we've, we've narrowed down
• 1:33:25
  Rupert Isaacson: and, and then we can end up with what, three?
• 1:33:26
  Three horses with three heads.
• 1:33:29
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Oh.
• 1:33:30
  Probably just horses that are soft and don't have, yeah.
• 1:33:33
  That will to win, you know, it'll be a different breed.
• 1:33:36
  I think
• 1:33:37
  Rupert Isaacson: I should imagine too, physically they, they may not be as tough.
• 1:33:40
  Yeah.
• 1:33:40
  So that, would we see more injuries on the racetrack?
• 1:33:43
  Would we see more tendons popping?
• 1:33:44
  Would we see more bones breaking?
• 1:33:48
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Maybe not, you know, I dunno,
• 1:33:51
  Rupert Isaacson: in breeding in any animal, it's never seems
• 1:33:54
  to be a great idea, right?
• 1:33:55
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:33:57
  Seems to be something to avoid.
• 1:34:00
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So, you know,
• 1:34:01
  Rupert Isaacson: we know with the dog it's not a good idea, right?
• 1:34:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: We've, we've seen it in dogs, we've
• 1:34:05
  seen it in the English bulldog.
• 1:34:06
  We've seen it in the French Bulldog.
• 1:34:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:34:09
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: In Charles Spaniel, where they've, their
• 1:34:12
  breeding, their, their heads or their skull is too small for their brains.
• 1:34:15
  And the windpipe is too small.
• 1:34:18
  And
• 1:34:18
  Rupert Isaacson: particularly when I'm crossing the line over into the horse boy
• 1:34:22
  work, where we're doing the mounted work, I actually need a bit of a grumpy old.
• 1:34:28
  Slightly dominant type of horse.
• 1:34:30
  I need that because those horses tend not to spook.
• 1:34:35
  If you, if you go to a horse boy stable, you'll tend to find a whole bunch of
• 1:34:38
  like dominant grumps because they've all got that kind of uncle or auntie
• 1:34:42
  brain where they're like, right, that that's the sort of horse's attitude.
• 1:34:47
  But that is actually what will often keep you and the child alive when you
• 1:34:51
  are out there and a wild boar jumps out or someone opens an umbrella
• 1:34:56
  in front of your horse or whatever.
• 1:34:57
  And of course with horse boy, we need to be out there in the world.
• 1:35:01
  We do not spend all our time in arenas.
• 1:35:04
  Because if you've got autom auto, meaning the Greek word for the self, if the
• 1:35:10
  problem is I've got selfism, autom, I'm locked within the self, the difficulty is
• 1:35:14
  the relationship with the exterior world.
• 1:35:17
  Then the last thing I need to do when I'm working with that person is be
• 1:35:19
  inside some big industrial sterile shed with sand in it, you know?
• 1:35:24
  That's not the outside world.
• 1:35:27
  If the difficulty is the relationship with the exterior world, then
• 1:35:30
  that is where we must go.
• 1:35:32
  And in order to do that safely, I need horses that have a, as you
• 1:35:36
  say, have that courageous spirit.
• 1:35:38
  And sometimes that means, yeah, we have to work a little harder with
• 1:35:41
  them and we certainly have to work more in partnership with them.
• 1:35:45
  Like horse boy horses, we don't tell them what to do.
• 1:35:48
  'cause we're not picking fights.
• 1:35:49
  We can't pick fights.
• 1:35:50
  Like I, if I've got your autistic child on, I can't pick a fight.
• 1:35:54
  I need my horse to have that attitude of I'm with you, you
• 1:35:59
  know, I, I can make decisions.
• 1:36:01
  Yeah.
• 1:36:01
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: But when you have a child on a horse and it's been
• 1:36:04
  coming to you for a few weeks Mm.
• 1:36:08
  Same horse every time.
• 1:36:10
  Do they build a relationship with the horse, which is different
• 1:36:14
  to a relationship that, a deeper relationship than they'd have
• 1:36:18
  with another human being or how?
• 1:36:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Well the answer, go ahead.
• 1:36:24
  Sorry.
• 1:36:25
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: There has to be that trust element
• 1:36:28
  Rupert Isaacson: there does No, I mean the answer is both yes and no.
• 1:36:31
  Meaning that not every person, because we're not just dealing with kids who
• 1:36:36
  comes for our services, is necessarily massively motivated by horses.
• 1:36:41
  So if we have someone coming in through the door who their horses are, oh
• 1:36:46
  yeah, yeah, I quite like the horse.
• 1:36:47
  But really I'd prefer other things.
• 1:36:49
  Then as you know, with Horse Boy and Movement Method and
• 1:36:52
  so on, we're very versatile.
• 1:36:53
  We can follow their interests, include the horse in that as much
• 1:36:57
  or as little as seems relevant.
• 1:37:00
  But generally over time, because the horses are around, they're
• 1:37:03
  going to build relationships with them because they're social animals
• 1:37:07
  that you build relationships with.
• 1:37:08
  And then you get a certain number of people who are very horse
• 1:37:11
  motivated and will absolutely.
• 1:37:15
  Forge very close and personal relationships with the horses.
• 1:37:18
  And then within that, there's another subset who will either
• 1:37:23
  generalize, they love all horses kind of equally, or some of them
• 1:37:26
  will be no, like, this is my horse.
• 1:37:29
  So we get all of those ranges of personality type that come through the
• 1:37:33
  door just as we get all these different ranges of horse personality type, some
• 1:37:37
  of whom love all people, some of whom only love a couple of people, some
• 1:37:41
  of whom don't really care for people that much, but hey, you know, and we
• 1:37:44
  will work with them where they are.
• 1:37:46
  So it, you, you get all of the above.
• 1:37:49
  But what we need of course is a horse that is versatile, who can
• 1:37:53
  be as much or as little horses as necessary in that particular moment
• 1:37:57
  and has that sort of judgment.
• 1:37:59
  And also we need a horse that when, you ask him to switch jobs,
• 1:38:10
  can do so in a professional manner and say, oh, you changed the job.
• 1:38:16
  And not say, well, you changed the job description on me.
• 1:38:18
  So, you know, not you.
• 1:38:19
  No.
• 1:38:20
  You know, we've all seen that in certain horses.
• 1:38:22
  Yeah.
• 1:38:23
  That no, we, we look for the, and so that's where I, it's interesting you talk
• 1:38:27
  about the biley line when you say, if that line is going, that sort of courageous,
• 1:38:32
  slightly independent, think for itself line, that rings a bell with me as a,
• 1:38:37
  as a therapeutic practitioner going, Hmm, we actually need that kind of line.
• 1:38:42
  Because when they come to do the work with us after their racing career, or
• 1:38:48
  perhaps they're not even bred for racing, perhaps they're just bred for this.
• 1:38:52
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It's interesting you say that.
• 1:38:54
  That occurred to me during the summer.
• 1:38:56
  I thought, you know, these horses actually would be ideally suited.
• 1:38:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:39:01
  And just because it's a thoroughbred, does it have to be bred for racing?
• 1:39:03
  No.
• 1:39:03
  Right.
• 1:39:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Because they're,
• 1:39:06
  Rupert Isaacson: would it be interesting, this would be really interesting to me
• 1:39:08
  would be to identify what's the subset within the thoroughbreds that are like
• 1:39:12
  the best suited for our kind of work.
• 1:39:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:39:15
  And say, well, why can't we, why can't we just breed those as well?
• 1:39:18
  Like, why does it always have to be a retired horse or from the racetrack?
• 1:39:26
  Just 'cause it's thoroughbred doesn't mean it has to race.
• 1:39:28
  Right.
• 1:39:28
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Nice thing about getting them from the
• 1:39:30
  racetrack is that they have, from conception, they've been handled.
• 1:39:35
  Rupert Isaacson: That's true.
• 1:39:36
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: All come through basically the same sort of protocol.
• 1:39:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:39:41
  Know what you're getting.
• 1:39:42
  You know, that they know how to go up, you know how they,
• 1:39:45
  they know how to switch leads.
• 1:39:47
  Rupert Isaacson: They know how to be in a group together.
• 1:39:49
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: They know how to be in a routine
• 1:39:54
  routine
• 1:39:55
  Rupert Isaacson: and take on a job.
• 1:39:56
  Yeah.
• 1:39:58
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Another little beef that I've gotten now
• 1:40:01
  is not the place to air it, but
• 1:40:03
  Rupert Isaacson: I hear, oh, go on.
• 1:40:04
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: The horse welfare.
• 1:40:06
  And I keep saying to people, you've gotta remember, thoroughbreds are
• 1:40:09
  not quite the same as any other bush brew because they're a hybrid.
• 1:40:14
  They've never been out on the planes by themselves.
• 1:40:17
  They've always deposited, they've always been in stalls and yes.
• 1:40:23
  You can turn them out and that, but they don't necessarily take to being
• 1:40:29
  left out in the, in the elements.
• 1:40:31
  They're very, very much creatures of, of routine.
• 1:40:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Well also I think because they come from those
• 1:40:37
  desert lines desert people keep their horses very close to them.
• 1:40:41
  You know, we all know about the sort of bedwin idea of you have
• 1:40:43
  the horse in your tent with you.
• 1:40:45
  Of course not every single one of your horses.
• 1:40:46
  I think they're a bit selective about which horse they'd bring
• 1:40:48
  in, but nonetheless yeah, yeah.
• 1:40:51
  They're horses that are bred to be very human focused.
• 1:40:54
  I think that this is very true and I think this is often not overlooked even,
• 1:41:00
  but sort of, it's not that it's ignored 'cause people don't know, but I think
• 1:41:04
  people have a perception of thorough is this wild, uncontrolled thing.
• 1:41:09
  Whereas actually, as you say, no, they're, they're selectively
• 1:41:12
  bred for humanness a bit as well.
• 1:41:14
  People, people ness.
• 1:41:16
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Very much so.
• 1:41:17
  They have a lot of contact with people.
• 1:41:19
  Yeah.
• 1:41:21
  Rupert Isaacson: But
• 1:41:22
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: no, it's like any, any horse, not every horse is
• 1:41:24
  going to be suitable for your work.
• 1:41:26
  Not every company.
• 1:41:27
  Indeed.
• 1:41:28
  And you need your big old cold bloods and your warm bloods and your hairy pony and
• 1:41:33
  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely
• 1:41:35
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: all of them.
• 1:41:36
  But I, I think the key is letting people know what's happening in the equine
• 1:41:42
  assisted world and putting the science behind it, telling them why you are.
• 1:41:47
  The only person that I've found in the, this area is the horse boy.
• 1:41:52
  People that will actually tell you this is the science.
• 1:41:56
  And if you've got the science, then you have buy-in because you have somebody
• 1:42:02
  who has an autistic child and they're going, oh, it's not just about being
• 1:42:08
  what somebody and putting my child on a horse and leading him around.
• 1:42:11
  It's about getting his hips to move and he's releasing oxytocin.
• 1:42:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:42:18
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So something's happening in his body.
• 1:42:20
  It's when he gets in that, that space with the the horse, the magnetic
• 1:42:25
  field of the horse's heart, is going to affect my child's heart,
• 1:42:29
  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely
• 1:42:30
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: breathing it.
• 1:42:31
  He's going to learn quite quickly that he has to somewhat self moderate.
• 1:42:35
  You explain those because when people hear about equine assisted services,
• 1:42:41
  they think it's putting people with horses and it's outside and it's nice
• 1:42:46
  and it's healthy and it's good for them.
• 1:42:47
  Tell them why.
• 1:42:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
• 1:42:49
  No, I couldn't agree more.
• 1:42:51
  Without the science to, to be fair to people, why should they support
• 1:42:54
  something that isn't explained?
• 1:42:58
  And it, it's one of my favorite beefs actually, is when I
• 1:43:02
  hear my own colleagues saying.
• 1:43:07
  Well, you can't really explain what's, it's just, it's like
• 1:43:09
  it's a miraculous thing.
• 1:43:10
  It's like, no, it's not.
• 1:43:11
  And that's a hard thing to fund it.
• 1:43:14
  That actually is something going on quite systematically and
• 1:43:17
  physiologically, and it's not that hard to get your head around it.
• 1:43:22
  Rock your hips, get this feelgood hormone that calms your nervous system.
• 1:43:25
  That also makes you communicate, hey, two for one.
• 1:43:28
  And then because you're crossing the midline all the time, which is solving
• 1:43:31
  problems, your brain produces a protein.
• 1:43:34
  It's called BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor that turns
• 1:43:37
  into a stem cell, which turns into a neuron, billions of 'em.
• 1:43:40
  So the brain produces more of itself.
• 1:43:41
  And among those neurons is these things with a funny name, sounds
• 1:43:45
  like a Pokemon character, kinji cells, and they cover social skills.
• 1:43:49
  So if you do all that stuff together, you're gonna see change.
• 1:43:52
  That's not a hard thing to learn, to just wrap off your tongue.
• 1:43:57
  And it's, it's worth, I think.
• 1:44:00
  The while of equine practitioners to practice that.
• 1:44:05
  Because when we have to advocate for ourselves, and if, you know, one, one
• 1:44:10
  of my other piece sometimes is when I'm doing trainings and someone will
• 1:44:14
  say, and I'll say, look, you kind of actually do need to know this.
• 1:44:17
  You kind of do need to be able to, to somebody memorize this, or at least put
• 1:44:21
  it up on your wall so you can refer to it.
• 1:44:24
  When people come into your program and say, why is it working?
• 1:44:27
  It is that thing that diagram up there.
• 1:44:30
  Or when funders come in, they look at it and say, oh, it's that diagram.
• 1:44:32
  Oh, even better, when the children and adults that you serve, they
• 1:44:37
  will learn the neuroscience.
• 1:44:39
  You know, my son knew that neuroscience by the time he was 11, gives them
• 1:44:43
  a user manual to their brain.
• 1:44:45
  It, it, it's a tool.
• 1:44:46
  It, it makes people more independent to know these things.
• 1:44:50
  And sometimes I get, well, I'm not interested in science.
• 1:44:53
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: No, no.
• 1:44:53
  You, yeah.
• 1:44:54
  Everybody has to know why.
• 1:44:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:44:57
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And especially if you're gonna put your hand in your pocket.
• 1:44:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:45:00
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Have some woman come to you and say, well, we can't
• 1:45:02
  really explain, it's just that this, this happens and it's Marvel Simpson Miracle.
• 1:45:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:45:07
  And it's just esoteric and say, well that sounds grand, but I'm not gonna fund it.
• 1:45:11
  Yeah.
• 1:45:12
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Let me take my coffee and walk on now, but show them that this
• 1:45:15
  is something that you can replicate.
• 1:45:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:45:20
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: The new New Market Pony Academy, which is at the British
• 1:45:25
  Sourcing Horse racing school in new Market they run a five day course.
• 1:45:29
  I dunno if you're familiar with it.
• 1:45:31
  I'm
• 1:45:31
  Rupert Isaacson: not.
• 1:45:31
  No.
• 1:45:32
  Tell me about it.
• 1:45:33
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, they're in New market at the British Horse
• 1:45:35
  Racing School, and they realize that there are lots of people in new
• 1:45:39
  market who know nothing about horses.
• 1:45:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:45:42
  Yeah.
• 1:45:43
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: They went to the elementary schools and
• 1:45:46
  they took out children who were having trouble in school.
• 1:45:51
  And had some social issues and different things.
• 1:45:54
  And they've created this five day course.
• 1:45:55
  They have a little classroom and they have a little book and they have pictures of
• 1:46:01
  dandy brush, body brush who thick, and you have to write what this one does,
• 1:46:06
  and then how would you muck out a stool?
• 1:46:08
  And they have to do that.
• 1:46:09
  And then they get a tape measure and a measuring stick.
• 1:46:13
  How many centimeters is 12 two go measure your pony.
• 1:46:18
  How many centimeters is that?
• 1:46:19
  So they're doing math, they're doing things like that.
• 1:46:22
  And then they have they take them out in the garden.
• 1:46:25
  They put them on the, the ponies in the indoor school.
• 1:46:28
  They lead them round by the end of the week.
• 1:46:30
  Those kids are trotting around there.
• 1:46:33
  I don't Which organization is this?
• 1:46:35
  It's called the New Market Pony Academy.
• 1:46:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:46:39
  And it's run by,
• 1:46:41
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: it's, I think it's back by Go Dolphin.
• 1:46:43
  Actually.
• 1:46:44
  It's Sheikh Mohammed has, has done an enormous really.
• 1:46:48
  Yeah,
• 1:46:48
  Rupert Isaacson: thank you for turning me onto this.
• 1:46:50
  I had no idea.
• 1:46:51
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: A British horse racing school in New Market, and it's run
• 1:46:55
  by a wonderful lady called Penny Taylor.
• 1:46:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Will you connect me?
• 1:46:59
  I would love to have a conversation.
• 1:47:01
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And I think the Queen might be one of the patrons.
• 1:47:04
  She's certainly been there from beyond
• 1:47:06
  Rupert Isaacson: the grave,
• 1:47:08
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Quin, Camilla.
• 1:47:10
  But,
• 1:47:10
  Rupert Isaacson: but
• 1:47:10
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Rupert, the testimonials, I mean, I read some of those
• 1:47:14
  and they just, they bring you to two.
• 1:47:17
  This, there was wonderful girl, I think it was a little girl, might've been a boy.
• 1:47:21
  And she said, this is my happy place.
• 1:47:25
  How long
• 1:47:25
  Rupert Isaacson: have they been running the program?
• 1:47:28
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I'd say five years.
• 1:47:28
  Anyway.
• 1:47:30
  Rupert Isaacson: So isn't it interesting that here's something big going on?
• 1:47:34
  I'd never heard of it until I met you.
• 1:47:36
  Yeah,
• 1:47:37
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I talked to somebody who's very involved in
• 1:47:40
  racing or whose son is very involved in racing and she has grandchildren.
• 1:47:44
  New market.
• 1:47:46
  And I said to them, new market, what's that?
• 1:47:49
  And I go, please tell me.
• 1:47:53
  Tell tell me.
• 1:47:53
  You've never heard of it.
• 1:47:54
  You of all people never heard of it.
• 1:47:57
  Living in new market on the FA road and did not know.
• 1:48:01
  Yeah.
• 1:48:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:48:02
  So once again, this is at the British Racing School and it's
• 1:48:04
  called the New Market Pony Academy.
• 1:48:07
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Thank you.
• 1:48:07
  And the
• 1:48:08
  Rupert Isaacson: lady running it is
• 1:48:09
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Penny Taylor.
• 1:48:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Penny Taylor.
• 1:48:11
  This sounds like somebody we need to be talking to.
• 1:48:13
  Yeah.
• 1:48:14
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Yeah.
• 1:48:14
  Rupert Isaacson: This sounds like somebody who gets things done
• 1:48:17
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: and it's backed by Gado.
• 1:48:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:48:20
  Wonderful.
• 1:48:21
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: So, no, it's, it's, it's,
• 1:48:22
  Rupert Isaacson: so there's something that answered my question.
• 1:48:24
  What, you know, the people that the well in the establishment of the
• 1:48:28
  racing industry, what are they doing?
• 1:48:29
  Well, there's something they're doing and I didn't know until
• 1:48:32
  I met you and you told me.
• 1:48:34
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: And that happens, you know, this is the same old story.
• 1:48:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:48:38
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: People in the equine assisted world don't know what
• 1:48:41
  other people are doing in the sector.
• 1:48:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:48:44
  Guilty as charged.
• 1:48:45
  I'm, I'm busy doing my thing.
• 1:48:46
  Yeah.
• 1:48:47
  But that's the point of this podcast, right?
• 1:48:49
  Is that we exchange information and we don't just wait till we
• 1:48:54
  meet each other at conferences.
• 1:48:56
  You know,
• 1:48:57
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I need get done.
• 1:48:58
  So, no, it's this, this is great.
• 1:49:00
  And let's, let's rock on.
• 1:49:02
  Let's, all right.
• 1:49:03
  Venue together for next year and let's get the equine assisted world, well publicized
• 1:49:10
  within the, the racing industry.
• 1:49:12
  And let's see.
• 1:49:13
  So
• 1:49:13
  Rupert Isaacson: let's, let's make a deal for, for our listeners, Susie and I
• 1:49:16
  will pledge to do this podcast again in what, a year to 18 months, depending on.
• 1:49:23
  And we will give you a report of where we've gotten to, and it
• 1:49:30
  will, wherever it is, it will be further along than where we are now.
• 1:49:33
  The other
• 1:49:35
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: they have that they started in the last three years by a guy
• 1:49:38
  called Bobby Beavers is Autism and racing.
• 1:49:43
  And they have there's several race courses around England that are set
• 1:49:48
  up for autistic people and children
• 1:49:51
  Rupert Isaacson: to come and enjoy the day as a sort of sensory friendly.
• 1:49:56
  Okay, yeah.
• 1:49:57
  Talk to them too.
• 1:49:58
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Where I live in Ireland, down the road is Mooth,
• 1:50:02
  which you're from, and it has a big sign as you come into Mooth
• 1:50:06
  and it says Autism Friendly Town.
• 1:50:10
  Yeah.
• 1:50:10
  Rupert Isaacson: And that, of course, Mooth is right where Kil CL is,
• 1:50:12
  which is our horse boy center there.
• 1:50:15
  But it's, it's okay.
• 1:50:18
  So, but these are good initiatives, but I'm still not
• 1:50:22
  hearing the word Jockey Club.
• 1:50:23
  So that's what we need to do, is we can, you know, we need to go
• 1:50:27
  to them and say, you know, lances, it's not just people like Horse Boy.
• 1:50:30
  You've got stuff within your own industry that ready to go to support
• 1:50:34
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: and the.
• 1:50:35
  Within the industry, Rupert, that you can get on this bus?
• 1:50:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 1:50:42
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Show them and make them aware of it.
• 1:50:45
  Okay.
• 1:50:45
  You've got a bus moving forwards.
• 1:50:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Alright.
• 1:50:47
  Sold.
• 1:50:48
  I'll be there.
• 1:50:49
  Set up the gig.
• 1:50:49
  I'll show up.
• 1:50:50
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Put pressure on the establishment.
• 1:50:53
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 1:50:56
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Thank you.
• 1:50:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Deal.
• 1:50:59
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: I found Alright then.
• 1:50:59
  Should
• 1:51:00
  Rupert Isaacson: we wrap it up there then?
• 1:51:01
  But before, before you go there, some people will want to know your book.
• 1:51:05
  Tell us the, the, the, the title again and where they can get it.
• 1:51:09
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: It's outta print so
• 1:51:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Best books always are,
• 1:51:13
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: you can't get it.
• 1:51:14
  It was called barley.
• 1:51:16
  The Thoroughbreds Ticking Time Bomb
• 1:51:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Barley.
• 1:51:20
  The Thoroughbreds Ticking Time Bomb.
• 1:51:23
  Why is it a ticking time bomb?
• 1:51:24
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Because the line was fizzling out.
• 1:51:28
  Yeah,
• 1:51:28
  Rupert Isaacson: but they could get it on meta mops and they could get it on Amazon.
• 1:51:31
  Right.
• 1:51:33
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: No, I don't think you can get it on Amazon anymore.
• 1:51:35
  You could try.
• 1:51:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Just 'cause it's outta print doesn't mean it's not on Amazon.
• 1:51:38
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Well, it might be.
• 1:51:39
  It might
• 1:51:39
  Rupert Isaacson: be.
• 1:51:39
  Yeah.
• 1:51:39
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:40
  No secondhand stuff.
• 1:51:42
  All right.
• 1:51:43
  I will get one.
• 1:51:44
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: All right.
• 1:51:44
  Well I will, I will rust one up and send you.
• 1:51:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
• 1:51:49
  Alright.
• 1:51:50
  In that case lads, we will reconvene with Susie and give
• 1:51:54
  you a report of where we got to.
• 1:51:56
  Thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:51:59
  Suzi Prichard-Jones: Thank you.
• 1:51:59
  It's been a pleasure and an honor.
• 1:52:01
  Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
• 1:52:05
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• 1:52:09
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• 1:52:14
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• 1:52:16
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• 1:52:19
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• 1:52:22
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• 1:52:27
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• 1:52:30
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• 1:52:34
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• 1:52:37
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• 1:53:05
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• 1:53:09
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