When my husband and I came to Zaluzi, we decided to make our dreams come true. Since our childhoods, we had been longing to keep horses. Not just for fun, but also for hard work. This is why we bought a three years old warm-blooded gelding which had been taught to draw.

All of us were young and unexperienced, city inhabitants - we were real greenhorns. In that time, horses and even special literature regarding this topic were rare in our region, so it was hard to find any counseling. There were just two or three persons we could exchange our experience with.

And so, surprisingly, the horse was giving us lessons instead in the end. We had a lot of fun together. Finally, we learned to kind of ride and he accepted to kind of follow our orders. After some time, we got even more experienced and we got used to each other. Unfortunately, the horse got a colic and, despite hard fight of his vet, passed away.

After this incident, the stable was so desolate that we decided to buy a new horse. This time, we bought a beautiful black mare. Her name was Lady, she was seven years old and she was only used to drawing. In spite of this, we tried to saddle her up and, quite surprisingly, no obvious problems occured. In a few days, Lady learned to walk nicely.

However, the better Lady was outside, the worse she behaved in the stable. Every single morning she was meaner and she always found a new way to get rid of me. I kept trying to manage her, but she could always find a new manner to annoy me. I started looking for a piece of good advice.

In that time, Lady gave birth to a splendid foal, she behaved herself outside and was nice to children. For these reasons, we decided to keep her.

Then, I chanced upon an interesting article in a horsemanship magazine. It informed that a trainer called Mr Spatny runs a course. This course was called Parelli Natural Horsemanship (PNH) and it took place in Pisek. I joined in and during the three-day course I found realized that not the horse, but I was to blame.

Since then, I have undergone similar courses four times and I have to admit that this experience has been enriching me and our horses a lot. We have also successfully tried to use the Linda Tellington-Jones' T-Touch method.

Later, Lady has born other two foals and I have been training them using a "miscellany of kind of natural methods" (Pat Parelli, John Lyons, Monty Roberts, R. Miller, Linda Tellington-Jones) since their earliest age. Even though the three younger horses keep me very occupied, even Lady has changed her behaviour for the better significantly. Fortunately, nowadays there are many books and other relevant sources to gain helpful information from.

Do not expect to find horses kept in the English or Western style, since it is not possible to do this in the circumstances. As riders and even "pseudo-riders" often switch, I focus on keeping our horses calm and uneasy to be frightened to be sure that even children can handle them without worries.

Nor expect noisy machines that would drive you between various places. Despite thousand years of their domestication, horses are shy herbivores, used to escape from any kind of suspected danger. They are very perceptive and sensitive. Therefore, at our place you can find forthcoming friends that follow almost any of your wishes just for a nice word and a caressing hand.

To find out that there is always a lot of fun here, see a few Snaps of Summer Holidays.