TALKING to Richard Moore MBE, chair of One Equine Trust, always feels like a serious matter, mainly I think because his heart is well and truly in his work advocating for equine assisted services (EAS) in Northern Ireland.

Moore was recognised in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours list for his contributions to equine-assisted therapy and learning in Northern Ireland. Now retired, Moore’s former career was in the meat industry, where he was director of two major Northern Irish companies.

In talking with Moore recently, what struck me was he believes while the MBE is to be gratefully acknowledged, he feels frustrated that EAS, and in particular the practitioners delivering the services, still do not have the visibility and professional backing in Northern Ireland that they deserve.

At the beginning of his EAS journey, Richard had, as he calls it, “an amateur interest” in horses. A chance conversation with Dr Robert Huey, former Chief Veterinary Officer and the man developing an Equine Strategy for Northern Ireland at the time, tweaked his interest further.

Huey attempted to develop the Equine Strategy through cross-government collaboration and building on the findings of the 2019 Deloitte Report that identified equine assisted therapy and learning as a key area with potential for growth.

With no quantifiable data at the time on the positive effect of EAS in Northern Ireland, plus the collapse of the Northern Irish Assembly in March 2022, it made it almost impossible to access Government level support, and this position still exists today. There remains no Equine Strategy for Northern Ireland.

Moore and his colleagues set up One Equine Trust as a “flag in the ground” to begin to shine a light on EAS, which across occupational therapy, psychotherapy, equine assisted learning and cognitive behavioural therapy as just a handful of examples, is providing vital support services to many adults and children in need.

To some extent, amid the endemic lack of administration in Northern Ireland currently, Moore and One Equine Trust are also working to ensure professional, safe and regulated incorporation of horses into clinical practice.

Moore is honest in his feelings of dissatisfaction in the lack of significant exposure and appreciation of what is being achieved by practitioners in Northern Ireland. Moore firmly believes that Northern Ireland (and the island of Ireland as a whole) is well-placed to become a world centre of excellence across the broad spectrum of equine assisted services.

Moore and One Equine Trust are adamant in their ambition to forge a path to support the EAS modalities for long-term activity in Northern Ireland and their ambition reaches far beyond discussion. They have already collaborated with three independent practitioners to develop a two-year equine assisted learning project: started in April 2024, this programme caters to students with severe learning difficulties between three and 19 years old across three school sites.They also ran a two-year project of Equine Assisted Learning to both special educational needs and mainstream students at St Colmcille’s primary school in Downpatrick.

Another successful project was a collaboration between Horses for People, Women’s Aid and an independent psychotherapist. The workshops provided equine assisted workshops to a group of 12 women engaged with the Women’s Aid organisation. There’s also been Equines for Education: An Early Start project exploring Psychotherapy with Equines, Changing Lives Through Horses with RDA, workshops in collaboration with CAFRE, development of a practitioner forum plus a monthly webinar series for EAS practitioners.

Ultimately, in our conversation, Moore implies that he feels a bit defeated, he feels that things aren’t moving fast enough, that the value of such services are not being acknowledged within the health service budget nor the justice service budgets.

Perhaps however, Moore cannot truly see objectively that I see, that he and the One Equine Trust are a vital support system for everyone in Northern Ireland working towards the same goal as them, and for all the vulnerable people who find support in EAS in Northern Ireland.

The MBE is an acknowledgment from royalty, yes, but it also perhaps represents the thanks that anyone in the EAS industry would no doubt like to extend to Moore and his bravery in shouting so loudly about the power of EAS.

Build it and they will come.