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Horse sense gets a corporate image
WORKING with horses for years has proved one thing to trainer Andrew Froggatt – they can teach you more about yourself than you would imagine. In a new twist on the old idea of corporate team-building day, Mr Froggatt and partner Janine Sudbury hope this insight will turn their new business, Talkinghorses, into a winner. Forget pony trekking. A day at Sudbury Farm on the Kapiti Coast involves working “on the ground” with one of the stable’s horses till it knows you, trusts you and does what you want, which is not as easy as it sounds. “Energy levels and anxiety are very important because horses are very aware…they are like an emotional mirror. If you are aggressive, anxious or high energy you get nowhere.” Mr Froggatt said the key to the exercise was to get people to understand themselves better and see how they reacted in dealing with an unusual, possibly stressful, situation.
Clients spend some time watching how Mr Froggatt talks and works with a horse before they don their gumboots and have a go themselves.
“As far as corporate days out go, it’s really different because if you just go out and jump on a quad bike you are going to have fun, but you learn nothing about yourself,” he said. “With this, people really learn about themselves and about their own personality, leadership qualities and how they communicate.”
So far, Mr Froggatt has worked with 16 ASB bank managers and staff from New Zealand Pharmaceuticals and Fonterra. To accommodate the new business, the couple recently invested a “substantial amount” in a rural property at Te Horo and are spending more upgrading the facilities, stables and fencing. They have just spent $7000 on six station-bred horses from Gisborne which will be trained and used for corporate client days but will eventually be sold and replaced.
The farm provides a base for other parts of the couple’s business as well. Mr Froggatt also breaks in and retrains horses, particularly those with behavioural problems. “Most horse problems are really caused by people and fixing them is easy. You can change a 10 year old horse’s lifelong habits in about two weeks, but it may take an owner two years to learn new habits.”
Though Mr Froggatt firmly rejects being a horse whisperer, he said Talkinghorses did use a training system based on relaxing horses and building trust, respect and understanding, rather than using brute force and punishment. The couple also apply their training ethic to running a pre-season “holiday camp” and training centre for race and show horses.
Mr Froggatt said they were also about to start supervised training days when people could bring their horses to the farm and break them in or retraining them using the couple’s training system. The next challenge would be hiring and training staff to help with their various ventures, he said.
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