Susan McBane started riding at four years of age at a small, local riding school which taught correct classical methods. On the owner's retirement, she transferred to conventional riding schools with very different attitudes and methods. McBane bought her own horse at age 20 and stopped competing because of the clash of principles. In 1978 she founded, with clinical psychologist and competition horse breeder Dr Moyra Williams, the Equine Behaviour Study Circle, later the Equine Behaviour Forum, which ran for 41 years. She had and shared other horses but in the 1980s began part-time training with Desi Lorent, a long-time friend and pupil of Nuno Oliveira, the most famous, modern classical master. In the late 90s, McBane took an HNC in Equine Science and Management and began teaching classical riding. A few years later, Equitation Science emerged, mainly instigated by Dr Andrew McLean and (now)Professor Paul McGreevy. McBane has attended various educational events on ES and began to study it privately and use it in her lessons, combining it with classical riding. She began writing professionally in 1968 and has since written 44 books and hundreds of articles, as well as editing four magazines. She continues to edit Tracking-up magazine and write on Equitation Science and classical riding monthly for Equi-Ads magazine.