RENOWNED British horse trainer, TV presenter and adventurer Emma Massingale, from Holsworthy, has secured her place firmly in the limelight over these last few years with a number of her equine projects.

Emma has appeared on radio, screen and in an online advert for the Mole Valley Farmers, and is now celebrating two triumphs at this year’s Equus Film Festival.

Emma said: “We won ‘best documentary’ for The Island Project and ‘best commercial’ for The Midnight Race — it was fantastic to win one award let alone two.”

The awards were held in New York, on November 21, this year but unfortunately, due to her current tour, Emma was unable to attend.

Emma completed the last leg of her tour, ‘Method behind the madness — Autumn 2016 Tour,’ last Friday, November 25, with her final demonstration at Merrist Wood College in Surrey.

Emma’s tour will resume next spring on April 21, at the Unicorn Equestrian Centre in Gloucestershire.

Emma said: “I was unable to go to the awards in New York unfortunately as I have been very busy with my tour. I have been visiting places around the midlands, giving demonstrations and educating people on other, less conventional ways of communicating with horses. It has been reasonably stressful but I have enjoyed it!”

During the Equus Film Festival Emma walked away with two awards, one of which was the ‘best commercial’ award for the midnight race.

Emma developed and created the commercial, which is a promotional film made from QIPCO British Champions Series.

The Midnight Race features former racehorses, which are from the British Thoroughbred Retaining Centre. The commercial sees the veteran racehorses letting themselves out of their stables, walking up to a gallop and then racing by themselves — all under the light of the moon and thanks to Emma’s skilled training.

In partnership with Equine Productions, Emma also took honours at the Equus Film Festival for The Island Project, in the international documentary category.

Going into more detail about what The Island Project had entailed, Emma said: “Last year I spent a month out on an island off the west coast of Ireland, where I took four of my trained Connemara and two unbroken, wild Connemara ponies.

“It was a great experience as I backed the two ponies completely at liberty, whilst having to catch and cook my own food and film the documentary mostly by myself. It was a proper survival adventure.”

The project saw Emma spend a month on an uninhabited section of an Irish island off the coast of the Connemara National Park. Her aim was to enter the horse’s world to experience what it is like for them in their natural environment to help her in turn understand them better.

Speaking about her adventure, Emma said: “It really was amazing, but I remember when I got to the island, at first I was a bit like ‘oh, I’m now on my own’, but I soon settled down into it and it was fantastic to be given the opportunity to embrace the natural environment of the ponies.

“Normally we bring them into our world; you don’t often get the chance to enter the horses’ natural home and it was great to experience what it is like for them back in their native environment.”

Accompanying Emma on her adventure were four trained Connemara horses from her ‘Liberty’ team and two, previously unhandled, Connemara ponies.

Whilst out filming for The Island Project, Emma broke her two Connemara ponies in using the ‘liberty training’ technique. She explained that in order to break a horse or pony ‘at liberty’ she must ‘communicate without equipment’.

“You really have to be able to connect with the horse and speak their language. I began using the technique when breaking in one horse, I am now able to do it with up to 12 at a time, so it’s like training a herd rather than an individual.”

Emma is the first British person to have developed a language that is so well understood by horses that she is able to communicate with a large number of horses at a time.

When asked where her career began Emma said she has always had a love and fondness for horses, which started at a very young age.

She told the Post: “When I was younger I always wanted to be a vet. However, due to my quite bad dyslexia I was unable to gain the grades I needed for this — but that did not deter me.

“Even though I could not follow my initial path, I knew I wanted to work with animals and I remember one day I just went up to my Dad and said ‘I’m going to be a professional horse trainer’. My Dad replied, ‘well how are you going to do that?’ At the time I said I didn’t know, but I was determined to do it!”

Speaking about the first horse she trained by herself, Emma said: “I remember when I first sat on the horse ready to break it in, I didn’t have a clue what to do. I got on and thought ‘how do I do this? How do I get him to go!’

“I spent ages working it out. What I enjoy most though is that challenge, the adventure each horse brings because every horse is different and brings with it new challenges.

“To begin with I felt like I was starting a race 100m behind everyone else because I had had no training breaking them in, I just learned from the horse.”

During her long career of training horses, Emma said she has encountered more than one ‘naughty’ pony. She said that gaining a horse’s trust and changing people’s perceptions of horses is very interesting to her.

She said: “I am happy to work with naughty or troubled horses; they pose even more of a challenge. I had a very naughty pony a while back called Tom — he actually went viral. Whilst trying to train him I ended up bringing him into the house where I got him to lie down and pose for a picture. I made it into a charity card and the photo went viral online.

“What I loved about that was the fact that people saw him in a different light after the card. Instead of saying ‘oh look there is naughty Tom’, they would say ‘awh look there is Tom’, people’s perceptions of him changed and it really interests me to try and help that happen.”

Emma’s passion for the equine world is quite clear. She has herself entered the spotlight recently, not only with her win at the Equus Film Festival but with many of her other on-screen appearances.

Most recently she was instrumental in aiding the creation of Mole Valley Farmers new Ad campaign — filmed in their Holsworthy store. Emma’s two Shetland ponies, Albert and Ernie, starred in the production, along with a number of Emma’s other trained animals.

Now Albert and Ernie are stars in their own rights and are set to hit TV screens again when they feature in Shetland Adventure.

Watch out for Albert, Ernie and Emma in their TV debut, Shetland Adventure, which is due to be screened on The One Show on Wednesday, December 9.