Horse and rider osteopath

One of the longest-standing equine osteopaths in the country, Liz Launder also treats riders and is a keen breeder of Welsh ponies and sport horses

- Stephanie Bateman

I’ve always had a passion for horses after being brought up around them. One grandfather was in the Royal Horse Artillery and was on the gun carriages in World War I, and even after the war he still drove ponies. One of my earliest memories was sitting in a pony trap with him. The other grandfather worked for Manchester Water Board as a forester and used teams of horses to pull out the trees and logs to keep the reservoir water clear.

From age five we had something to ride and did the usual Pony Club activities. My father wasn’t keen on the idea of having horses just to ride – so the ponies we had needed to be rideable but also do a job. The land that my family had in Cumbria wasn’t suitable for machinery, so we used Fell ponies to pull out trees and move rocks.

Now, I breed Welsh section Ds, As and Bs, showjumpers and sport horses. Jay Halim won the international five-year-old class in Belgium in 2019 on a horse that I’d bred called Skelwith Diamond Lady. Her mother Skelwith Lady Delilah was second in the SEIB final at Hickstead in 2016. I’m not an enormous breeder but what I’ve bred has been good.