Some horses are naturally cleverer than others and it’s also a known fact that horses that live in isolation from other equines tend to crave human attention and form a special bond with their owner.

So it is with Master and I while I abandoned him to go to New York and run the marathon he developed some alarming attention-seeking skills.

His best one is the ability to get both his front feet at once stuck in the lowest rung of the rylock fence. He was forced into that usually out of bounds field by the farmer who insists on running his cattle over the entire farm green hills of Wyoming fashion at the same time as feeding said cattle regularly on food that ‘only horse’ must never have at this time of year!

So, having been confined to the smart normally out of bounds front field which has precisely 10 yards of rylock fencing round one tree, Master developed the fine art of wrapping itself up until it stuck like a turkey at Christmas and looking helpless – but he always does it in such a way that feet, legs and shoes remain intact.

This performance always entails much rushing around with wire cutters and the thing is I know is that he does it on purpose to attract attention.

He always makes sure he can be properly viewed from the kitchen window!

This message of how to spot a clever horse was very much to the fore of the sell-out William Fox Pitt Masterclass that BHS Scotland held recently. William spent quite a lot of time on advising the audience on how to select a good event horse.

He certainly looks for the extra ‘je ne sais quoi’ in a horse and this special skill combined with his total dedication to his sport and determination is what makes him a winner.

He told the audience he was far more frightened of his mother than any horse as a child and every time he fell off, he was told to jolly well get on again – which developed into an all consuming dedication and focus that has made him into the most consistent victor in world eventing.

But besides a special eye for a horse, dedication and deep knowledge it was also obvious at our masterclass that William takes a long time to develop a relationship with a young horse and takes care not to push horses too fast, giving them their fifth and sixth years to develop.

It was an excellent evening and BHS Scotland is proud to be able to bring inspiring and educational master classes to Scotland, we are already planning our next one!

It’s education all the way in the society as Marjory Norrie ran a wonderful British Riding Clubs welfare conference last weekend, where the strong message of how horse owners should plan ahead and be fair to your horse in the taking of all the decisions we do on their behalf.

We are also about to hold our access conference with about 80 delegates interested in attending.

As we go about fulfilling our educational aims, it is most heartening that there seems to be an insatiable audience waiting to absorb the knowledge we offer.

The best thing about this is the amount of people in Scotland desperate to treat their horses and ponies fairly – it would just be nice for us all if the cleverer of our equines were just as fair in return!