At CWA, I studied Level 2 Horse Care, followed by Level 3 Equine Management.

Initially I wasn’t thinking about going to university, but I found myself wanting to further my knowledge in subjects I was taught during my time at college, especially when hearing about the different universities I could go to and what they offered.

I chose CWA because it was close to me and offered Equine Studies, which was the course I wanted to study. I had looked at other sixth forms around Cambridge, which weren’t equine related, but I didn’t think they suited me.

Both the courses I did at CWA covered the biology of the horse, horse health, conformation, general yard processes etc.

I found learning about conformation interesting because I had never looked deeply at how a horse’s conformation can have such an impact on how they move, the implications that come with it and the long-term effect it has on the horse. The riding aspect was also fun and interesting. Getting to learn new things on such different types of horses taught me a lot and really improved my riding. 

I have great memories from college and made good friends, who all came from different equine backgrounds. This meant that as well as learning from our subjects, we also got to learn from each other.

After college I had a gap year and worked on a busy pre-training racing yard in Newmarket. I choose to take a gap year as Covid-19 would have impacted my university experience, e.g. online, which doesn’t suit my style of learning.

After my year of working, I started at Writtle University studying Equine Performance Business Management on the Certificate of Higher Education course. This course is only a year long, so it gives me the opportunity to do a second year, which I’m considering doing.

My time at CWA really benefitted me in my work. It taught me how to work at industry standard and gave me basic knowledge about horse health, which is incredibility important in the racing industry. It also helped me in higher education. CWA gave me a good understanding of most of the modules I do now.