Hi my name is Briar Morris I’m a 22 yo horse mad girl and have been my whole life.
Having my first pony at the age of three helped solidify my love for horses. I grew up in QLD riding, and training horses as well as competing in eventing and show jumping throughout high school. I started training off the track thoroughbreds and exercising other people’s horses by the age of 15 and started training unhandled horses by the age of 18.
I have always had a love for Brumbies and wanted to train my own Brumby but didn’t know where to get my own.
I came across the Australian Brumby Challenge early 2016 and managed to enter and get in as a trainer. I had the privileged training VBA Esther. I have kept VBA Esther and she has been one of my biggest accomplishments. At 70 days out of the wild I was riding her bareback and bridleless which I had never done with a horse before.
Being able to do the McDowells Herbal Australian Brumby Challenge again in 2018 has been a dream come true and to be paired with VBA Levi has been a adventure so far.
At 5 weeks in we are still at very early stages. He has a huge flight response and not a whole lot of confidence so instead of trying to figure me out in the first few weeks all he wanted to do was get out of there. We have just been doing a lot of conifidence building with him, and I am now super happy to say that we have a great relationship building. I am challenging myself this challenge and will start Levi completely at liberty. So I am planning to be able to lead him without a halter or lead rope (this he is already doing), I also want to be able to ride him walk trot and canter stop turn and back up bareback without ever having a halter or bridle on him. It may take us a little longer but the methods we use are helping to really build his confidence and show him that he has the say in how far we push our relationship. I’m excited to see where we can go in 150 days and I’m excited to share the journey with everyone.
You can follow VBA Levi on Facebook at my Facebook page Briars Brumbies or on my website www.briarsbrumbies.com.au
