An Equine Conversation

Welcome to An Equine Conversation, a podcast brought to you by Abbey’s Run Equestrian.

This podcast aims to help you, the horse owner, improve your knowledge by giving you access to top quality information that will help you be the best horse owner you can be so that you can give your horses the best life possible.

Through An Equine Conversation, I’ll share my expertise with you along with helping you connect to and hear from some amazing experts in their own fields – because while I have a lot of knowledge, I am by no means the expert in all of the things. We’ll also be talking with horse owners about their journey with their animals.

We’ll explore ways our horses can be physically and mentally healthier through topics around training, horse-health, enrichment, emergency preparedness, history, our own mental wellbeing and physical health and more. We’ll be giving you practical actions you can implement with your horses and information to explore, consider and further investigate.

These podcast episodes are absolutely designed to be thought-provoking and they may bring you some ideas, approaches or information that you haven’t come across previously.

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. If you'd like him to help with your podcast, get in touch by email at business@mbpod.com

Sarah Nickels 7/30/25 Sarah Nickels 7/30/25

S6 E8: The Path to Connection Training - with Hannah Weston

This is an episode that’s been a long-time coming on An Equine Conversation. Hannah Weston was one of the very first people who, unknowingly, introduced me to the world of online learning about positive reinforcement training with horses back in 2013 through her business Connection Training. It was an absolute pleasure to finally get to meet Hannah and chat with her about her own horsie origin story and the path to developing Connection Training and more recently, moving her horsie life from England to France. As with every horsie origin story we hear on An Equine Conversation, this one too is full of relatable moments and the twists and turns that life takes to get us to where we are.

Sarah Nickels 7/23/25 Sarah Nickels 7/23/25

S6 E7: Sarah’s Story - part 2

Back in S6 E4, I shared the start of my horsie origin story. In this episode, I share more of the memorable moments that helped shape who I am as a horse person and coach today. These memories include: poking poo with a stick, horse’s birthday celebrations, attempting breeding, finding a career path and more.

Sarah Nickels 7/9/25 Sarah Nickels 7/9/25

S6 E5: How a Table-top Game can make you a better Owner/Trainer - with Mary Hunter

To the uninitiated, suggesting that a table-top game can make us be better horse trainers may sound a bit bonkers. But to those of us in the know, and those of us who have played this and similar games, we have experienced just what a positive difference they can make to our training in what is a low-risk environment – there’s no chance of us stuffing up our horses.

I’m so pleased to have Mary Hunter from Behavior Explorer join me today to explain a little about how this works and why playing a game, away from our horses can do so much for us.

Plus, we get to hear Mary’s horsie origin story too, where, much like Lucy in S6 E3, Mary had a particular, special horse who really changed the trajectory of her life.

Sarah Nickels 7/2/25 Sarah Nickels 7/2/25

S6 E4: Sarah’s Story - part 1

Throughout An Equine Conversation, we capture many of our guests horsie origin stories… but of course, being the interviewer, I’m the one asking the questions. In this episode, I’m going to share with you the early years of my own horsie origin story & some of the strong memories I have along the way.

Sarah Nickels 6/25/25 Sarah Nickels 6/25/25

S6 E3: Lucy & Tao’s story - with Lucy Chester

I so much enjoyed recording this conversation with Lucy Chester from Lucy Chester Horsemanship in England. I’ve followed Lucy’s work for a while and admired her care of her horse Tao, and the work she has been doing to raise the profile of more ethical training approaches. I wanted to hear Lucy’s horsie origin story and to hear about Tao’s story too, as I knew it had not been and still isn’t all smooth sailing. Lucy's story is, I think, very inspiring.

It was amazing to finally connect with Lucy and to realise just how much of the learning journey that we had both experienced, despite being on opposite sides of the world.

Sarah Nickels 6/18/25 Sarah Nickels 6/18/25

S6 E2: Yes, but…

In today’s episode, I’m going to chat about my training approach. Why it’s not just about positive reinforcement training.

Late last year, I was asked some great questions about my training approach that really got me thinking. And as this has become clearer to me, well, nothing’s changed, it’s more I’ve found the words to explain it, I want to share those words with you.

I should say, in a later episode this Season, I’m going to speak about my horsie origin story, so we’re not going into that detail here. This is about where I’m at in my story just now.

So, do I train with positive reinforcement, abbreviated as a capital R followed immediately with a plus sign? My answer to that is: yes, BUT.

And there are really 3 ‘buts’ here that I’ll talk through this episode.

Sarah Nickels 12/25/24 Sarah Nickels 12/25/24

S5 E8: The path to mules - with Ellen Cochrane

I’m delighted to welcome Ellen Cochrane back to An Equine Conversation. We heard from Ellen in Season 4, talking all about equine agility and The International Horse Agility Club. This episode is something quiet different: We’re hearing about Ellen’s journey to and experiences in working with mules, both her own mule Inara, and her voluntary efforts in supporting humans working with mules in Morocco to improve welfare outcomes for animals and people. I get tingles even thinking about this episode & what Ellen has been involved with. I hope you find the episode as educational and inspiring as I have.

Sarah Nickels 12/11/24 Sarah Nickels 12/11/24

S5 E6: The Horse’s Mouth - with Dr Paul Owens

I am so pleased to be welcoming our 2nd first time guest to An Equine Conversation for Season 5: our most wonderful Equine Veterinary Dentist, Dr Paul Owens from the Horse Vet Dentist.

I won’t lie, I used to think the horses mouth was a whole lot simpler than it is. For many years, my horses had an annual visit from an equine dental technician. I’d seen a couple of talks given by them & I thought I knew much of what there was to know. Gosh, how wrong I was! It was thanks to a number of wonderful horsie friends whose opinions I rate, who were working with Dr Paul Owens and singing his praises, that we too got Paul on board our horse-care team maybe 4-5 years ago now. And wow, have we learnt so much over that time. Paul’s knowledge is amazing, as is his preparedness to educate interested owners. Each time Paul’s here, which is every 6-months, there are things I learn and get to see with my own eyes in my horses mouths which is really impactful for my understanding.

We really love having Paul as part of our herd’s care team as we share the mission of improving welfare for equines through our work and both love learning more, with Paul bringing us information on the latest research into all things horses mouths. Not only that, but we get to hear some cool stories about the work he does with Zoo’s Victoria too. Which, for those of you who like me, train with positive reinforcement, mean that Paul is already really familiar with this training approach as he sees it in action in his work with the Zoo & is so awesome in supporting what I do with my herd, which can be to our amusement. In his visit here just a few weeks ago, Rufus is such a pro at loading on the crush, we’ve made it so positively reinforcing for him, that he took himself there before we were even ready for him.

In today’s episode, we’re going to peer inside the horse’s mouth with Paul and learn a bunch about how it works and equine oral health care.