Writer, ethologist and horse trainer, Lucy has travelled and worked in many countries and equestrian disciplines discovering the easiest, most universally applicable and successful ways of understanding and working with horses.

"To understand an animal's nature you have to see it in its natural state"

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Raised among horses and fascinated by animal behaviour from an early age, Lucy studied zoology at University College London, specializing in ethology and neuroscience, before doing postgraduate research in Sussex University, working between times with a variety of trainers. Returning to her native Wales, she had a rather atypical riding centre in Snowdonia, where she began training wild Welsh ponies, became known for her success with “problem” horses, edited a climbing magazine and wrote her first books. Her insight and teaching led to the publication of The Horse´s Mind (1984), a book that pre-dated modern trends and has had enormous influence for its combination of an ethological approach with wide experience gained working in Britain, Ireland, the USA and Portugal.

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Apart from writing books and articles and teaching equine ethology in universities in Wales, England, Spain and many Latin American countries, Lucy has been the protagonist of three documentaries: To Ride a Wild Horse (HTV 1984) in which she caught and rode a wild mustang stallion in Arizona; Chamana de Caballos (The Horse Shaman, Catalonia 2002) and Salvajes (Wild Pottokas, Alucina 2017).

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Those who watch Lucy working often say she is a horse whisperer, but she is guided by scientific principles: above all, the observation of feral horses.

"To understand horses and their difficulties in our hands, we need to watch them as they really are, without anthropomorphic interpretations and expectations"

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To this end, she has studied many populations of feral horses in the Americas and Australia, above all in Venezuela, where for years she ran residential ethology courses. These studies led to Horses In Company (2017), a book whose evolutionary perspective revolutionizes our view of horse society.

They also convinced Lucy that anybody who wants to understand and work with horses must have the opportunity to observe them in truly natural circumstances. To this end, she started the Pottoka Project, in which she released a herd of feral Basque ponies in the mountains of north Extremadura, where she lives. Now, European students, professionals and horse lovers can share and contribute to the ever-expanding understanding that the study of natural behaviour brings.