Sophie is a professional rider and trainer based near Badminton. She takes on all horses for training, though she particularly specialises in problem horses.
16/09/2025
⭐ Immediate training spaces ⭐
After being completely ghosted by not one but TWO people having bookings this month 😳🙈 I have two training spaces available for backing, schooling, problem solving etc.
I don’t know why people think it’s acceptable to ghost someone, I take a deposit at booking anyway so I really don’t care if you cancel last minute, I promise! 🤪 we all know what horses are like when we make plans for them 😆
Please message me if you’d like to get booked in and take advantage of immediate availability 😊
Sophie xx
15/09/2025
Describing a big blue TRUCK. I promise it’s TRUCK. A blue one 😂 having a 2.5 year old is hilarious 😂
14/09/2025
Harvey hat cam! 📸 Belvoir Open Team Chase 2025 🐎
A great spin around to start off the season, we weren’t very fast so came back with 3rd place but good to dust the cobwebs off!!
After a summer of just showjumping it took me a while to stop jumping like a showjumper 😂😂 you have to think so much quicker here as the strides come up so much faster 😆 soon though we were back to looking for that long stride and sending him into every fence just the way Harvey likes it 💪
13/09/2025
⭐ TOM UPDATE ⭐
I know you guys have been longing for an update on the fluffy one, sadly this is the only update on Tom you’ll get in a while as he’s now turned away to get feral in the field until next year.
He is still lame in trot Right Fore, worse on a turn. Since the beginning of his lameness (May this year) I have spent a total of £4,960.85 😱😱 in investigations and treatment, none of which have made any difference. He has had feet x rays, MRIs, neck x rays (He already has clean back x rays), steroids in coffin joints, hocks, then arthrimed injections in both front coffin joints - all which made absolutely no difference. He has seen three different vet specialists, farrier, osteo and physio.
Remarkably enough, I had the physio out to him recently and she watched him trot up lame. She treated him, found slight stiffness in his neck and general tightness in his back etc but nothing untoward or anything to explain lameness. He has an amazing range of flexion in all 4 legs, more so than the average horse so he potentially could very easily over exert himself. But again, there was nothing major found.
HOWEVER, immediately after treatment and turning him back out in the field (where he had been out for 3 weeks by this point) the bloody horse trotted off sound for the first time in months 😳😂 so clearly the physio helped something. This is when I went ahead and got neck x rays, which came up completely clear. A week later and he is lame again. So that’s my decision made to turn him away for 6 months to a year.
I am still not convinced this lameness is due to mild coffin joint arthritis found on his MRI. His x rays of coffin joints are clean. And if this was entirely the case, the arthrimid injections into the joint should have at least helped and they did nothing. And why did he go sound after a physio treatment??
I seriously think he has soft tissue damage somewhere. I genuinely believe he will come right and I hope that having some time off to recover in the field will help whatever it is repair itself 🩷🩷
Have a great “Holiday” buddy, we will all miss you so much and can’t wait to have you back next year ###x
10/09/2025
Earlier in the year I decided I wanted to focus on showjumping as Tommy has given me such a love for it. So I sold Mossie my eventer to a wonderful home (they got a DC in their first event together last week!!😍) and put the funds from him towards purchasing a second show jumper, Oreo 🥰 and now I’ve been gifted a third show jumper, Yogi! Crazy how fate works 🥰🙏
So, here are my string of talented Show jumpers 😂 honestly I’m shocked I get to say that as I come from very humble beginnings I’ve had no financial leg up, so to own one talented showjumper is incredible, but to now own three?! I’m so excited for where the next year is going to take us 🥰🥰🥰
Yogi Jumping 110cm
Oreo jumping 120cm
Tommy jumping 130cm
05/09/2025
I felt compelled to take this video today as the amount of people suggesting Dora has arthritis or kissing spine on my previous video of her riding bridleless, simply because I said it’s not her favourite thing to work on the bit or work “correctly” in the arena and so I don’t want her to go to a dressage home.
Now I know none of this came from a bad place and people are simply conditioned to think this way (which again isn’t a bad thing), but is it so hard to believe that a horse simply prefers to work a different way? She WILL work on the bit and into the contact if you ask her to, hence taking this video to prove that. I could spend a few months schooling her and she will probably get loads better as she’s been off work for a long time, however I know it’s not her favourite thing so I’m not going to keep pushing and training her to work better in the arena when that’s not the home I want for her anyway, what would be the point??
She would make a fantastic riding club horse, or for someone who enjoys having lessons but doesn’t care about having a collected, uphill, top dressage mark canter. She’s your comfortable armchair horse where you can drop your reins and wobble about and know she’s going to stay in the same nice even canter 🥰
Look at the bridleless video again and see how happy she is. Still in the arena, still working, just in a way she prefers.
I don’t try and make every horse an all rounder. I find out what they love to do best, and I channel that then find them a home best suited where I know they’re going to be happy.
05/09/2025
This is why I need no encouragement 😂😂
Also last horse is of course called Yogi, I have too many so I said Oreo twice 😂 my brain is clearly like right that’s enough horses names now 😂😂
Olaf isn’t counted here as I have no idea where he is. Probably in someone’s garden in the village 🤷🏻♀️😂
04/09/2025
How do I set up a syndicate to keep a horse?? (because they’re expensive AF!)
Asking for a friend who is becoming bankrupt… 😂
Ps stop encouraging me, you’re all a bad influence!!! 😂😂
Giggling that I’ve had a few offers to buy Yogi when he’s not even anywhere near for sale yet. Please believe me he is not easy I just make him look easy 😂
Thank you SuzeyP Photography for the awesome pics in the pouring rain yesterday! 🩷 📸
03/09/2025
Eeeeek I CANNOT keep another one 👀😂😂
Yogi, my latest new horse who I’m not calling one of my “Rescue’s” as he doesn’t fit into that category, though I was gifted him for free because no one’s really got on with him and he is the definition of “sharp as sh*t” 😂😂
He is a competition horse bred for the top, with fab paces and a scopey jump. But none of that matters if no one can get a tune out of him! However me and him just click! I love him! 😍 his previous owner knew I liked him when I had him in for a few weeks training over a year ago, hence why she just decided to cut her losses and gift him to me as no one else was getting on with him despite him being sent to a couple of pros to sell.
Saying that, I still have to ride tactfully - he had me off yesterday just where I came out the side door, he doesn’t even buck he’s just sharp and he’s small 😂 but today he was mega, jumping his round second 100cm course like this! 😍😍😍
Awesome Mr Yogi Bear, let’s hope I actually do find you a home in time and don’t keep you for myself 🤪🥰😂
02/09/2025
Dora, my “rescue” horse.
I’ve had Dora for 5 weeks now, bringing her back into work and getting to know her. She has a history of napping, getting overwhelmed and running backwards. I’ve seen this both out hacking and in the arena, and I’ve been working on Dora’s confidence so it’s already so much better and we can go out solo hacking now with no issues 🥰
In the short time I’ve owned her I can see she loves jumping, but hates flatwork. She will quite happily go in the arena and do circles on a loose rein with her head in the air, have lovely transitions etc but she resists when being asked to work correctly, on the bit, even and with an inside flexion on circles. Basic stuff. The more I ask her to use her body correctly, the more she resists. She’s actually more willing to work on the bit evenly when out hacking.
Today I tried really hard to help her but we both ended up getting frustrated, to the point I just thought screw this, and took the whole bridle off 😂😂
This is Dora’s first try at liberty work with me and she was so happy, willing, obedient and best of all she really enjoyed it! 🥰🥰 you’d never believe she was ever a problem horse would you!
I’m not ready to find her a home yet but when I do look for her home I don’t want her to go to someone wanting to do dressage. She just doesn’t want to work on the bit and I’m sure if I keep trying she will start to soften and work the way I’d like her to work, but it is clear it’s not her favourite thing and the whole reason I do what I do is to rescue and rehabilitate horses and find out what they enjoy, then find them a home who wants to do exactly that!🩷
Dora isn’t going to be a dressage diva but she’s still going to be a cracking horse for someone 🥰 we are taking her clear round jumping tomorrow, I think she’s going to love it! 😍
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Sophie Seymour Equestrian posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
I’ve been riding since I was just two years old, my mother taught me everything she knew, and its her kindness with animals that influenced me as a child to love all animals like she does. The daredevil side, well, that's all on me! Growing up I absolutely loved jumping! I would jump ba****ck all the time, but my mother was very strict and we were only allowed to jump once a week, she hated the thought of ponies being jumped every day.
I had always had fantastic well behaved ponies growing up, although they were cheeky, they were brilliant. That was until my mother went out and bought me and my sister a 12.2hh mare called Scribble who was known to rear and bolt and thought ‘what a lovely pony for my 7 and 9 year old daughters’...
Scribble would have the other Pony Club Mums quivering with fear. But you know what? She was one of the best ponies we’d ever had. She was just very misunderstood and we genuinely believe she would have been PTS in someone else’s hands. The difficulty with Scribble was that if you pulled on her to stop she would only go faster, to stop you had to drop the reins and she would slow right down. You had to have ultimate trust in her. An incredible thing for a 7 year old child to learn to do, right? Scribble was an insane showjumper, incredibly fast against the clock and would never have a pole down. I would be jumping around classes against kids on their 15hh-16hh horses and we would always win, unless we had a steering fault or Scribble ‘locked on’ to the wrong fence which I’d have no choice but to jump it - this happened fairly regularly! We also figured out how to make Scribble rear on command and not just when she was excited. This was GREAT fun and myself and my sister used this to our advantage all the time. I remember in Pony Club I would tell the instructors that I had to be the one that jumped first or my pony would rear. If they didn’t let me go first I would ask scribble to rear, and the sight of a pony rearing bolt upright with a 7 year old on board always convinced the instructors to let me go first - hehe! I believe its upon Scribble where I developed my ‘daredevil’ status, but also my love for “problem horses” and trying to help them.
I started tackless riding when I was 15 years old. The feeling of complete freedom you get when you first take that bridle off is a feeling I will never forget, and I will never get enough of it. I really hope in the future I am able to organise some tackless demonstrations and teach people how to do the same with their own horses.
Roo came into my life when I was 18, and he is the sole reason I am where I am today. I was at a point where I was going to give horses up completely. I was studying my A levels and I had three part time jobs. At the time I didn't have a horse of my own and I was just schooling other peoples horses for a bit of cash now and then. I decided to try and find a horse for full loan, and that's when Roo stumbled into my life. Originally it was only supposed to be a one year loan, but the year flew by so his owner agreed to let me have him for longer. After almost 6 years, I purchased Roo with the help of many strangers, friends and family - if you haven't heard the story of how I purchased him by selling Christmas cards, you can find it on my page somewhere!
After having Roo for a couple of months, that’s when I created ‘Sophie Seymour Equestrian’. It was so hard to begin with, I was so young and no one wanted such a young rider to school their horses, so I mainly focused on problem horses. Horses who no other professional would touch, or owners who could not afford the prices of an experienced professional. I was painfully cheap in my first few years - I was putting myself at risk riding these “dangerous” horses every day whilst barely making enough money to get by. But I loved it! And I helped so many horses and riders.
Once I had proved myself enough and developed a good reputation I could finally put my prices up to what I’m worth, and years later (with of course a few bumps and wrong turns along the way!), and with another horse stumbling into my life (Odin!), I now run a thriving equestrian business, backing, schooling, problem solving, sales livery, competing etc and I couldn’t be happier! :D
As anyone who follows my page knows, I am incredibly open and honest. I always share my downfalls as well as my highs, I like to be relatable - you will never see only the good from me! I really do love helping people and horses, so please feel free to ask me anything, even if you have no intention of using my services but simply would like some advice, pop me a message! :D
