Posh Pony

Messages like this remind us just how special the connection between people and animals can be. Beautiful Alvin 🩵🐴

It’s the beautiful connections that make this work so special 💙

Alvin and Zappa received the sweetest birthday card from their lovely friend Lenka. I think it’s safe to say these two very special horses have found their way into her heart—and she has certainly found her way into ours. 🐴💙

ANIMAL-ASSISTED THERAPY IS NOT AN NDIS SCAM

Ben Fordham recently described “horse therapy” as the latest NDIS scam. This misleading generalisation fails to distinguish recreational activities from legitimate animal-assisted therapy.

View the original post:
https://www.facebook.com/100053078863268/posts/1574123884366892/

The NDIA confirms that animal-assisted therapy can be funded when delivered by a qualified health professional as part of a goal-directed, evidence-based treatment plan and when it meets NDIS funding requirements.

ATL supports action against fraud, inflated fees and inappropriate claiming. However, legitimate practitioners and participants should not be discredited because some providers misuse the system.

ATL has written to Ben Fordham to request a correction and has offered to provide accurate information about this specialised field.

Fraud should be exposed—but facts and professional distinctions matter.

Read the NDIA guidance:
https://www.ndis.gov.au/participants/assistive-technology/animal-supports/what-animal-assisted-therapy

Ben Fordham

Ben FordhamstedTherapy

We were honoured to welcome the Gwangju University Global Challenge Team from South Korea to Posh Pony this week. 🇰🇷🐴🌿

The visit was coordinated through Animal Therapies Ltd, after Gwangju University approached the organisation seeking to learn more about animal therapies in Australia. Posh Pony was invited to host the delegation, and we were delighted to welcome the team alongside Izzy Kyle, Occupational Therapist from Super Groms Therapies. Izzy collaborates with Posh Pony in delivering joint counselling and occupational therapy sessions and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Equine Facilitated Therapy from Ulster University, Northern Ireland.

The visiting team included a nursing professor and students from nursing, companion animal industries, and photography and media. Together, we explored how animal therapies are implemented in Australia, how therapy animals are carefully selected and supported, and the therapeutic approaches we use to promote mental health and wellbeing while maintaining the highest standards of animal welfare.

The discussion was engaging and interactive, with many thoughtful questions about how animal therapies could be implemented in Korea, the practical steps involved in establishing services, and the importance of maintaining high standards of both client care and animal welfare. We also discussed the potential role of animal-assisted interventions within hospital settings and the growing concern around workplace mental health in Korea. The professor was particularly interested in how animal therapies could support the wellbeing of healthcare professionals and others working in high-pressure environments.

It was a wonderful morning of professional discussion, shared learning and cultural exchange. Thank you to Animal Therapies Ltd for coordinating this opportunity, to Izzy for sharing her expertise, and to the Gwangju University Global Challenge Team for your curiosity, thoughtful questions and enthusiasm. We wish you every success for the remainder of your Australian journey.

❤️👌❤️

She never set out to write a children’s classic.

She wanted to stop people from hurting horses.

By the time Anna Sewell began writing Black Beauty, she had spent decades watching them suffer. As a teenager, she slipped on a rainy road and permanently injured both ankles. The treatments of the day only made things worse. For the rest of her life, she lived with chronic pain, relying on horse-drawn carriages to get almost everywhere. Unlike most Victorians, she didn’t see horses as scenery or machines. She depended on them. She spoke to them gently. And she noticed everything.

She watched exhausted cab horses whipped through city streets. She saw animals worked until they collapsed. She despised the fashionable “bearing rein,” a leather strap that forced horses to hold their heads unnaturally high simply because wealthy owners thought it looked elegant. It was painful, unnecessary, and everywhere.

Confined to bed as her health deteriorated, Sewell spent six years writing the only novel of her life. Too weak to write for long, she often dictated chapters to her mother, Mary, who carefully transcribed them. Her revolutionary idea was simple: let the horse tell the story.

Instead of preaching, Black Beauty invited readers inside the mind of an animal. Suddenly, the horse wasn’t property. It had fears, memories, joy, exhaustion, and pain. Readers who had walked past working horses every day found themselves unable to look away.

Published in November 1877, the book was an immediate success. Anna Sewell died just five months later, never knowing it would sell more than 50 million copies, be translated into dozens of languages, and become one of the most influential animal welfare books ever written.

At her funeral, her mother made one final request: the horses pulling Anna’s hearse would wear no bearing reins.

It was a quiet tribute to a woman who changed the world simply by giving a horse a voice.