If you are thinking about attending our Healthy Horse Conference (running in Newbury, Berkshire on 30th November 2019) you might be wondering why I am running a Conference when I normally run one Horse First Aid Courses. Well there’s several reasons that I wanted to put on a different type of event, and I’ve outlined four of these below so you can understand a bit more about what happens behind the scenes.
1. Build on our existing courses
You might have attended one of my courses already, or perhaps seen these on social media. I run a one day Horse First Aid Course (and an online version), an anatomy course and dissection days. I absolutely love running these courses, where we have a veterinary speaker and a small group of horse owners. However there is so much information that I would like to give owners, and there’s only so much we can fit into one day.
I wanted to explore some of the topics in the Horse First Aid Course in more depth, which is something we can do at the Conference. For instance we touch on lameness, and keeping your horse had a healthy weight but on the Conference we can go into much more detail.
Having welcomed almost 600 owners, riders and equine professionals onto my courses I also wanted to explore some of the many questions that have been raised to date.
2. Bring more speakers together
Having one veterinary or expert speaker for the day is fantastic, but it is quite hard for the one speaker to deliver so much content, and be interesting and engaging for a whole six hours. I do try and support our speakers and I lead some of the activities on our courses. Having five speakers at the Conference is going to be fantastic, we can learn from each ones area of expertise, and our ‘ask the experts’ section at the end of the day will bring all their knowledge together for the delegates questions. I literally can’t wait.
Whilst some of our audience may be familiar with the work of some of the speakers I would love their messages to get to even more people. There is so much information thrown at us everyday it is always a pleasure to take time to explore topics in more depth.
3. An event for professionals and owners
I wanted to run a day of inspired learning that could benefit both equine practitioners or coaches, as well as owners. I love giving the latest research based information to anyone who has a vested interest in horses, whether they run a livery yard, own an old retired pony or offer therapies and support for horses. I want to make a better world for horses, and the more people who hear the correct factual information the better in my opinion.
4. Create an event that I wanted to attend
Perhaps this is a slightly selfish reason but I often see Conferences that I would like to attend but they are either too far away, or not quite the right fit for me.
I have a very strong interest in veterinary CPD, but I’m not a vet, so some of the talks offered at a veterinary Conference wouldn’t be quite right for me. If you’re not a vet these days can be upwards of £500 plus as well. I don’t really want to attend an event of hundreds of people either, whilst I probably would ask a question I would find this slightly intimidating.
I would love to attend an event that was useful and friendly, and this is something that I know we achieve with our courses. Our Conference will have more attendees than our other events but it will still retain that friendly feel. I’m delighted that we are welcoming lots of familiar faces, and I’m looking forward to meeting some new owners and equine professionals as well.
If you haven’t secured your place you still have time, we have 4 spaces left and you can book at this link.
