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 7/9/25 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 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.