Kelly Marks is the UK’s most popular ‘Horse Whisperer’. This isn’t surprising as ‘horses are in her blood’ as the saying goes, her father, Douglas Marks, was sent to be an apprentice jockey at the age of 14. He then went onto become a racehorse trainer pulling off some remarkable gambles with horses other people had written off as no good.
Kelly was born in Windsor and her father had a bet come off and managed to buy Uplands which he sold to Fred Winter and then he built Lethornes on the Upper Lambourn road. Kelly remembers: “He wouldn’t let me have a pony on the place originally but Liz Beard and her Dad, Jack Dowdeswell, were very kind to me and let me keep my pony at Neardown!”
Kelly loved ponies but unfortunately had a bad head accident when she fell off at age 6 (not wearing a hat). Her accident didn’t put Kelly off though and she rode at her local riding school and at age 8 managed to get a win at her local horse show on the local riding school’s pony Puzzle in the Child’s First Pony which she remembers as the first ‘best day of her life’. The second best day of her life came when she was 11 and she became the proud owner of a 13hh grey connemara called Seamus who bolted, ran out at jumps, couldn’t be caught and wouldn’t go in a trailer. After spending every available moment with him, in just two years he became the best pony in the whole world ever.
As a teenager Kelly was a keen showjumper and was was driven the length and breadth of the country by her sister, Sandra, to compete. These years were funded on a shoe-string budget and living mainly on toast. She won two British ShowJumping Championships as a junior, qualified for the Horse of the Year Show at Wembley in the Young Riders (won by Michael Whittaker that year) and won 4 classes at Hickstead once having one of her heroes, Caroline Bradley finish second and Miss Bradley was as gracious as one would imagine.
Kelly went on to racing and won on the flat and over hurdles, was in the Ladies British Team over several years and jumped several of the Grand National fences when she played the part of the Lady Jockey in ‘Champions’, the story of Bob Champion. In 1991 she stopped using the whip in races as it ‘just felt wrong’ whipping a horse whether racing or not. In this time she had some of her biggest successes riding in races, she won the most valuable ladies handicap race of the year at the Group One course, Newbury – the Trinifold Silver Clef in 1993. Kelly retired in 1995 immediately after winning the Ladies European Championship (with two first placings, one third) in Bratislava and Vienna.
Kelly met Monty Roberts through a chance meeting at a French petrol station in 1993. Monty asked her first to help with the writing of his book ‘The Man Who Listens to Horses’ and she also took time to work alongside him with ‘the horses with problems’. After a conversation with the Queen at Windsor Castle, Monty Roberts later asked Kelly if she could put together courses in his methods. This she did and became the first teacher of his methods world-wide.
Kelly put together the Monty Roberts courses, which started in the UK in 1995 and later set up her own organisation Intelligent Horsemanship in 1999. Since then literally thousands of horse lovers have benefited from her courses, demonstrations, books, most notably: Perfect Manners – How to Behave so Your Horse Does Too, Perfect Partners – How to be the Owner Your Horse Would choose for Himself, and Perfect Confidence – Overcoming Fear, Gaining Confidence and Achieving Success with Horses, as well as personal ‘hands on’ help with their horse.
Kelly has had her own very successful demonstrations around the world where she’s helped overcome a wide variety of equine problems such as refusing to load in the horsebox, bucking, bolting, rearing, napping, spooking, shying, biting, kicking as well as nice simple young horses that are ready to have their first saddle and rider.
In 2020 Kelly received the honour of being recognised by The Queen for her dedicated work with Monty Roberts to improve horsemanship worldwide. Kelly founded Intelligent Horsemanship in 1997 and has helped thousands of students and horses to develop effective partnerships, based on Monty Roberts’ non-violent techniques.
In 2019 Suzi Cairns interviewed Kelly as part of the Knock-Knock series of recordings:
Kelly lives and works in ‘The Valley of the Racehorse’.
