Richard Maxwell

The equine behaviour specialist talks to Martha Terry about how he learnt to change a horse's mind, riding for Monty Roberts, and knowing when a horse is in pain

“I USED to get just the crazies, the horses on the last stop before the abattoir,” says Richard Maxwell.

He might still be a place of last resort, but with 1,000 equine clients a year, from cobs who won’t load to Olympic eventers shy of the start box, Richard is a go-to horseman for many of the industry’s biggest names when they can’t find the key to a horse.

I first called Richard in despair from the bottom of a ramp while my own horse was snorting and spinning around me, having burst out of the trailer like a champagne cork. My yard manager Sophie Allison, a former European eventing young rider who had enlisted Richard to solve “seven very different problems” over three decades, said there was only one solution.

A month later (Richard is in high demand), the three of us are sheltering in the tack room after four hours in drenching rain while Richard calmly taught my horse how to use the left side of his brain (the parasympathetic nervous system) rather than defaulting to his fight-orflight instincts and trying to kick the trailer into orbit.

Loading horses has been Richard’s bread and butter, after he put a small ad in H&H in the 1990s saying: “Want to go to a show and can’t load?” and his phone exploded with new clients.

Competition horses are what really make him tick, but all behavioural problems get similar treatment. Using his home-made pressure halters, he works with the horse on the ground, “asking it questions” – to go forward, backward, in a circle, move away from him – until it trusts him as the “passive leader”. Once this is established, the rest usually follows.