An East Yorkshire farmer's daughter has won a government grant to further her career - as a horse whisperer.

Jo Milne, from Driffield, has been awarded more than �2,300 to study the horse training techniques developed by American Monty Roberts.

His gentle methods, based on understanding the horse's own "language", were made famous by the novel and film The Horse Whisperer.

Mrs Milne, 34, said: "I feel it's a better way to train horses - you ask the horse to do things rather than tell it to."

Natural behaviour

The grant has been given under the Vocational Training Scheme by the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra).

It will allow Mrs Milne, who owns four horses, to take courses at the Intelligent Horsemanship School in Oxfordshire.

Mrs Milne said she had been inspired by Monty Roberts' own three books, which include The Man Who Listens To Horses.

"There's quite a lot of psychology involved.

"You watch the horse and use its natural behaviour to your own advantage."

Business hopes

Her mind was made up when she took a young untrained horse along to a demonstration of the technique last September.

"It took them 45 minutes to get the horse started, ready to be ridden.

"With normal techniques you wouldn't even think about it for two or three weeks at least.

"And I knew it wasn't a fluke because I knew the horse."

After studying for at least a year, she hopes to set up her own horse training business.