Jane Myers

Jane Myers (MSc Equine) was born and raised in Northern England, married Stuart Myers (also from Northern England) and they both emigrated to Australia while in their thirties. Jane and Stuart now live between Australia and the UK (and sometimes the USA). Jane has always been crazy about horses and considers herself extremely fortunate that she has been able to follow her passion and has spent most of her childhood and all her adulthood working with horses and horse people.

At around the age of 10 Jane set out to wear her parents down and eventually managed to get her first pony at age 11. This first pony was shared with her best friend and they paid for her upkeep by working at the stables where she was kept and by doing paper rounds.

Jane was born with significant hearing loss and went through school without hearing aids. Consequently, she didn't do very well at school, only learning to read properly at the age of eight (once she did learn to read however there was no stopping her). Throughout school, Jane sat at the back of the class and day-dreamed about horses for pretty much most of the time, was classed as a 'slow learner' and was in remedial classes for most subjects.

By secondary school, Jane had perfected the art of being invisible - pretty good for a very tall and very uncoordinated adolescent - and so was able to carry on with daydreams about horses uninterrupted. Every minute she was not at school she was with her horse, working to pay for the upkeep of him, or reading books about horses. Jane left school at sixteen without a single exam pass result and started her first job with horses.

After several years of very hard work for very little pay, she decided that she need some qualifications. She had met Stuart when she was sixteen while doing that first 'proper' job with horses and he (having had a far better education) encouraged her to go to college to obtain a degree and eventually University where she obtained a Masters degree in Equine Science (specialising in the grazing behaviour of horses, carrying out research at the esteemed Edinburgh vet school in the UK).

Jane is now a professional author of several books as well as a public speaker (along with Stuart) on the subject of Sustainable Horsekeeping and Rider Biomechanics. Jane and Stuart's business is called Equiculture and they have a website www.equiculture.net

Those two years during the Masters were an incredible experience for Jane and she will always be immensely grateful for being given that opportunity for further education. Finally getting a good education was the best thing Jane has ever done and she now firmly believes that education is the key to almost everything that is important in life (after good health). Jane believes that anyone can learn more, at any stage in their life, if they have the desire to learn.