Meet Michelle

Some might say that Michelle O’Neill was born with horses on the brain.
If you meet Michelle, you will know she is honest, down to earth and has been around the block a few times. There is very little in the horse industry that she has not seen, or that surprises her.
Michelle is that rare individual who will look at a problem that no one else wants to touch and will figure out the why and the how. She does not like to quit (although she has learnt over the years there are times when you just need to walk away) and feels that every horse and rider can be helped to make a better combination.
Cherry Tree Equine was born in 2010 when Michelle realised she was sick and tired of seeing people being disheartened by either poor horse selection or lack of guidance. She knew she had the right experience and the attitude to make a difference to these partnerships. So she decided to take all this hard earned knowledge (and much of it was very hard earned!), and save others some time and trouble by using her knowledge to help.
Originally, the Cherry Tree Equine revolved around private lessons and retraining and selling horses. But over time the business has grown to where the business model revolves around horsemanship clinics and online training through Cherry Tree Virtual.
Michelle was born in rural Australia, where she enjoyed all the great aspects of a country upbringing. In love with horses from a young age, she was always keen to help her father with either his racehorses or doing stock work on the farm on her pony.
As a youngster at Pony club, she competed in every event possible, but as she got older decided to specialise in dressage which she loved for the involved training and the connection she could create with a horse. When Michelle went away to boarding school, one of her three prerequisites was that she must be able to take her horse. This was a trend she continued as she went to university and to work for various corporate rural businesses across the country.
Changes in location and lifestyle saw Michelle change direction as she hit her twenties, moving across to the western disciplines, where her love of the sport of barrel racing was born.
Always keen to try new things, Michelle kept competing in various other events; turning her hand to everything from showing at halter, to reining and campdrafting.
As a great lover of the process of horse training, Michelle began breeding her own competition horses in the early 2000’s and these horses have gone onto great success with not only Michelle in the barrel racing world, but with other people in a wide range of disciplines. She often jokes that if her horses have any holes in their training, there is no one else to blame but herself.
Michelle is an active breeder and competitor. She regularly upskills herself whenever possible to try and stay at the top of her game as both a clinician and competitor.
Michelle enjoys working with people from all locations and all disciplines. She gets her greatest enjoyment from watching people overcome problems and become better horse people.