Charlie, is my beautiful coloured baby. I was lucky enough to buy him a year ago from Louise Parker at Trevor Hall Farm in Wales who has owned him since he was 6 months old (he’s now 4).

Charlie is an American Bashkir Curly, which is actually a rare breed of horse that has a completely different type of coat to a “normal horse” which actually makes them hypoallergenic & suitable for people who have allergies to pet hair. Charlie however is a curly without a curl so he doesn’t have the characteristic almost poodle like curl in his coat & sort of dreadlock style ringlets in his mane & tail but does retain the hypoallergenic hair whilst looking more like a regular horse.

Apart from the obvious benefits to allergy suffers my experience of Curlies is a breed that has the most fabulous temperaments. Charlie is an absolute diamond, he is calm in everything that faces him, he just takes life & everything it throws at him in his stride. Admittedly I think Louise & the way she raises them & produces them also helps. Charlie spent the first 3 years of his life living out on the welsh hills with a lovely herd led by her curly Stallion Trouble, so he had plenty of opportunity to learn to be a horse. Louise also takes Nutrition seriously & with the help of Sarah Braithwaite & forage/soil analysis they are given the best in vitamin/mineral supplements, to create a healthy horse from the inside.

Charlie was then started by Ken Faulkner of Australian Natural Horsemanship & produced by Louise & Rhian using Ken’s methods.

To read more about Louise & Curly Horses visit her website Trevor Hall Farm

When I first saw Charlie I fell in love, I just remember thinking that he looked like he had walked through spilt paint as he had 4 perfectly level white stockings. At the time I still had Jasper & had owned Bear for about 9 months, so another horse wasn’t even a remote possibility. I then returned to Trevor Hall just over a year later, having just lost Jasper a month previous, to watch another Ken Faulkner clinic & saw Charlie again, Rhian was riding him on Ken’s advanced clinic & he was being an absolute star. I knew he was for sale (as he had been the year before too) but emotions were still very raw after loosing Jasper & whilst in the long term I wanted to get another friend for Bear (he was still very ill) the timing just wasn’t right, so I came away.

I then spent the next 3 months constantly thinking about Charlie & trying to decide whether it was my heart ruling my head. By the end of October I knew it was now or never with Charlie & I headed back to Wales to try him properly with the view to buying him. Louise was thrilled he might go to a home where he would continue to be cared for & trained in the methods he had started with. Once I saw him again there was no saying no I’d seen this horse 18 months before & here he was still waiting for me. As it turned out Louise had had another lady arrive on the same day in the hope of buying Charlie, so it really had been now or never & clearly charlie & I were just meant to be together.

Charlie has been everything I had hoped for & more, he is the most gentle giant (he keeps growing!!) & has the most kind patient manner, funnily enough he reminds a lot of people of my beautiful Jasper in the way he approaches life. Despite being a baby he’s been teaching my partner natural horsemanship & has now got him wonderfully trained in the art of less of definitely more.

We all just love having him as part of the family, he is so full of mischief but in a very appealing way. He loves having his bum scratched which is a bit disconcerting if you don’t know him & suddenly you have a horse rapidly reversing in your direction. He’s been experimenting with essential oils (carrot seed being a firm favourite) & flower essences & learning from Bear about browsing & natural foraging, he soon caught on to the joys of cleavers & cow parsley.
When he’s not sleeping, we take both the boys out for lovely walks in hand around the countryside & get regular comments about our oversized dogs.

Charlie is another forever horse & I know will teach me so much over our years together.