Mark Walters
“Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.”Tim Notke
I have always believed that anyone can learn to ride and train horses no matter how unconventional the combination. If you come to the party with the right attitude you will be successful. I started my equestrian journey riding friends horses and riding school lessons. From here I was inspired and wanted to make it my career. At 16 I had my first horse an unstarted Haflinger Earendil Elentari (Tara.) She taught me so much and being so versatile allowed me to try many disciplines and training approaches. I was then able to decide which areas I wanted to focus on, mainly being dressage. I was fortunate to work at The Talland School of Equitation along side the late Molly Sivewright and Pammy Hutton, here I was get an insight into top dressage and elite training. Upon returning home I set up my first training and livery yard and things built from there.
I have had brilliant and diverse training from Isobel Wessels, Carl Hester, Peter Storr, Henk van Bergen, Frederick Pignion, Honza Blaha to name but a few. I learnt many lessons some more difficult than others and mainly on myself.I was fortunate to ride and train many beautiful horse with success at National level but by far the greatest opportunity was IceBlue Valentino with Gloria Price and Jennifer Long. He helped me achieve my goal of training a horse from the start to Grand Prix, after a difficult start and failing as a show jumper in Holland his confidence gone I felt he was the one to join the team and although not easy, I have loved every minute of it.
Now we have established Corvedale Equestrian and year on year it builds momentum with a string of exciting horses and surrounded by wonderful friends myself and Nick are excited for what comes next.