Meet our Founder- Marie Matter
Marie’s path to equestrian education has been anything but conventional. With a background in Cognitive Neuroscience, human resource, leadership and coaching, Marie spent 7 years working in research before building a corporate career spanning more than a decade.The horses were always there.Following a life changing brain injury to her husband in 2018, Marie’s understanding of the brain moved beyond research and theory into lived experience. It fundamentally changed the way she thought about learning, emotional regulation, fatigue, resilience, and human performance- and ultimately changed the direction of her life.In 2020 at the beginning staged of the global pandemic, she left the corporate world and founded Australian Baroque Riding Academy.Marie began bringing together two disciplines rarely found in the same arena; the science of how humans learn and the centuries old principles of French Classical Equitation.Her approach recognises that riding is not simply physical. Attention, fear, confidence, sensory processing, emotional regulation, proprioception and previous experience all influence what happens between horse and rider.Today Marie is a trained credentialed Trainer, Instructor and Advanced Practitioner with the Foundation for the Equestrian Arts (FEA), a qualified sports and trauma informed coach, and only Australian representative on the board with the FEA.Her work spans classical horsemanship, rider education, neurofeedback, mindset, confidence, safety and disaster planning and recovery- but the philosophy behind it remains simple:Understand the person. Educate the rider. Respect the horse.
Why Us?
Why Now?
For generations, riding instruction has largely focussed on what the rider does, where their hands go, where their legs sit, how the body moves and how the horse responds. Those things matter. However, they are only part of the picture. We now understand far more about how the brain learns, how fear and stress affect us, how neurodivergent people experience learning differently and how emotional regulation influences communication and decision making.Likewise our understanding of the horse has evolved too. Modern equestrian education must consider not only what we can teach a horse to do, but how the horse experiences the learning process itself. THAT changes the question from simply asking "How do we make a better rider?" into "What does this person need in order to learn- and what does this horse need in order to understand?"That is where ABRA is different.We bring together brain science, French classical dressage, neurofeedback, trauma informed practice, personalised learning and horse welfare into one integrated approach. Not because they are fashionable additions to equestrian education. But because we believe they belong there.The world has changed. Equestrian education should too.Not one point of difference.
An entire system of difference.
ABRA isn't a traditional riding school with additional programs added around the edges. It was built differently from the beginning. We bring together disciplines that are rarely found in the same equestrian environment.Individually each matters.Together they create something very different.