Teacher in the Spotlight: Ellen Fuld
When I attended a “horse massage” workshop in July 2012 at what was then Blokkadevrij Paard, run by Greetje, I knew straight away: Bongo was amazing, and I immediately thought Greetje was a wonderful and very special person. I continued following her journey with Bongo on social media. That same year, I bought Zing and attended various clinics and training courses in groundwork with different instructors.
When I heard that Greetje had purchased the location in Kootwijkerbroek in 2014 and was starting her first training programme, I signed up straight away. Among other things, I completed the Guasha course and the instructor training programme with her, which at the time still took several years to complete. During that period, Greetje also organised fantastic Working Equitation clinics and cattle-working sessions. As some of you may know, training Zing was quite a challenge 😊, so Zing and I eventually joined an intensive residential training programme with Greetje. In the end, Zingeling stayed at Greetje’s yard. Zing was regularly used as the “Professor” during training courses, while I often joined the programmes as an intern.
In 2017, King Messi was born, a son of Tessa, a Friesian mare, and Nevada. The day he was born, I saw this beautiful little black colt and instantly fell in love. When Messi was four weeks old, Greetje told me that he was for sale. I didn’t need a second to think about it: I bought him.
After four and a half years, dealing with the daily traffic to and from the Human & Horse Academy was becoming increasingly difficult. In 2019, I moved Zing to Stal Hilverzicht, the yard where I am still based today. Messi went to a youngstock yard together with his half-brother Maximus, where he could simply enjoy being a horse in a group of young stallions and grow up alongside horses of his own age. When Messi turned three, I brought him to Stal Hilverzicht and slowly began his training according to the Human & Horse Method.
There is something incredibly special about training a young horse in this way: with trust, relaxation and clarity. By then, of course, I had learned an enormous amount from training Zing, from the many training days in which I had already been involved as a teacher for several years, and from my daily work as an instructor, which I have been doing full-time since 2020.
Working with Messi is a joy every single day. He is now nine years old, and we are focusing more and more on refinement, including developing a correct piaffe, school halt and canter pirouette.
The biggest difference between training Zing and Messi was mainly in the way we started and in everything I had learned during the years in between. With Zing, I still had to discover many of the finer points of the craft myself while teaching him at the same time. That made it an incredibly fascinating and educational journey, but at times it was also quite challenging.
With Messi, I was able to build on everything I had learned with Zing, as well as on the many years of experience I had gained as a teacher and instructor. But perhaps the most important insight was the confidence I had developed over the years: in the end, things will work out. Training a horse is a process of solving puzzles, being patient and, above all, giving the horse the time it needs.
Of course, I also wanted to complete a training programme with Greetje together with Messi. So we took part in the Liberty programme, and we are currently attending the Heartcircle days. It is a wonderful way for us to continue learning, developing and refining our work together.
Alongside my work as a teacher and instructor, I also graduated in 2024 as a Veterinary Naturopathic Therapist, specialising in dogs, horses and cats.
Within naturopathy, I look at the animal as a whole: physically, mentally and energetically. Rather than focusing solely on the complaint or symptom, I also try to understand where an imbalance may be coming from and what the animal needs to support its own natural ability to recover. In my work, I use approaches including nutrition, herbs, tissue salts, Bach flower remedies and aromatherapy.
My aim is always to support the animal in the most natural and appropriate way possible, working step by step and keeping the animal’s wellbeing at the heart of everything I do. Naturally, this is always complementary to conventional veterinary medicine and, whenever necessary, in consultation with a veterinarian.
