While writing a recent newsletter I was given the chance to reflect on a lovely day I’d spent with a plucky little pony called Dinky. It inspired me to look back on the many horses I have had the privilege of interacting and working with over the years, and compile a list of some of the many things I believe horses can teach us. This list included things like helping us to reflect on our relationships and how we interact with our loved ones, becoming present and more mindful, gaining new perspectives and insights on how we view the world and, not least, how good for the soul just being around horses can be. However, one of the biggest lessons I have learnt from horses over the years is the importance of authenticity.
Quite simply, authenticity is the ability to be genuine or “real” in the way we interact with others and how we approach any given situation.
I want to share with you how a horse called Amber helped me to understand what it means to be authentic and how it can make all the difference to our experiences and relationships.
Amber was five years old when I bought her for my riding centre, originally she had been bred to race but hadn’t “made the grade”. When sourcing horses for the riding centre it was really important to me that they were well mannered and well-schooled. Sometimes this was easier said than done but it was vital for the learner’s experience and progress, so I looked for horses that were kind and calm and, at the same time, keen to help in the learning process. My motto was quality training on quality horses.
When I brought Amber home, as with all horses new to the centre, I initially only used her in the training of my students who were working towards teaching qualifications, rather than send her straight into the riding centre. However, after having her for a few months decided that it didn’t feel right to keep her at the riding centre. So, I tried to sell her.
The first person that came to see Amber, with the potential to buy her, was a young woman in her twenties. After riding Amber the woman fed back to me that she was the most “unschooled horse she had ever ridden”. This made me smile and at first I wondered if I my students and I just had a special relationship with her where I we knew what really made her tick. While this may be a nice feeling for any horse person (similar to the feeling when the cat or dog choose to sit with you over anyone else in the room!!) I knew that it wasn’t helpful to think in this way. So, I gradually started to let some of my more advanced clients ride her in their lessons. Many of them absolutely loved the experienced because she really was so beautifully mannered, despite what the initial potential buyer had experienced.
However, it still felt unfair to keep Amber so I tried to find another home for her again. This time I managed to find a buyer and they had her vetted but there turned out to be something wrong with Amber’s eye which meant that the sale couldn’t be completed.
Amber was starting to feel a bit like a boomerang and it was clear that perhaps she wasn’t meant to go anywhere else after all!
So, she stayed and after several years it got to the point where I was more and more comfortable with beginner riders learning on her while having a lunging lesson and I found that due to her sensitivity they could learn more quickly on her.
One day I had a rider who said to me “Rosie I am so nervous!” and, when I asked why, she said, “because you have allowed me to ride Amber today”. Despite this person’s telling me on multiple occasions how nervous she felt, Amber couldn’t have been more amazing in that lesson, straight, relaxed and calm throughout, and this particular rider went on to develop a lovely bond with her. Around the same time I had a very competent rider come to me for lessons. She was working towards one of her Pony Club tests and I knew that Amber would be perfect to help show off her skills in the best possible light. But when she came to ride her, Amber was all over the place, she shot left, shot right and was generally skittish so I asked the girl if she was ok. Her response came back that she was absolutely fine so we carried on, but the whole session was very tense. At the end we reflected on the lesson and this is when she shared that she had actually been quite nervous as she hadn’t done this assessment on a strange horse before. This was something that really stuck with me as I moved into Equine Facilitated Learning as I realised, in hindsight, that the beginner rider who had been completely honest about her nerves right from the start had therefore become calm and congruent in her body which is what Amber was picking up on. Whereas the usually confident and competent teenager kept telling me she was fine when she wasn’t! She was suppressing her vulnerability and Amber was picking up on her body language which did not match with how she was claiming to be feeling during the lesson.
I saw something similar happen during University competitions that would be held at the centre. There would be four teams with four riders each and they had to ride a dressage test on a strange horse and jump a course of fences, also on a strange horse. When they arrived, four of my staff would ride four of our horses for the teams to observe and then each team would get to choose which of their team members would ride each horse. What I witnessed over and over again was that they would often see Amber and how relaxed she was and would choose to put their least competent rider on her. Generally, these people had less competition experience than some of the more highly skilled riders and Amber would be completely calm and relaxed with them. However, when given to a more competent rider, who may have been more likely to deny that they had any nerves or vulnerabilities, she often would not perform so well and would be more spooky in the arena.
Since Amber’s passing at the age of 17, she would often come to me in meditations and Shamanic journeying, and I believe this is because she was a key teacher, consistently demonstrating how authenticity can make all the difference to an interaction between horse and rider.
Even though I had decided that a life at a riding centre wasn’t right for her back in those early days, she clearly had other ideas. Amber ended up giving her life to my business. A wonderful soul who I have cried so many tears over.
Before I end this blog I would like to share another example of how horses respond to authenticity. I was once teaching a young rider on her own little pony in an outdoor arena, next to a farmyard. Every time she got close to the gate the pony would scoot to the other end of the arena and would appear to be frightened. I started to feel that, despite the fact that the rider had had the pony for a while, they may not be a good match for each other – something really wasn’t right. As I often do in situations like this, I eventually decided to talk the rider through a BodyScan to see if I could get to the bottom of what was going on. The result of the BodyScan was that the young rider was clenching her thighs and the pony was responding to this. So, I encouraged the girl to breath into the sensation in her thighs and ask what information it provided, to which she said “IT’S NOT FAIR! EVERYTIME I HAVE MY LESSON THAT BL***Y TRACTOR IS THERE. IT’S NEVER THERE WHEN ANYONE ELSE HAS THEIR LESSON!” The tractor she was referring to was transporting silage from one end of the neighbouring farmyard to another and the rider’s reaction was one of frustration to this. As soon as she tapped into this information she relaxed and the pony relaxed and went beautifully.
What I learnt from this experience is that prior to incorporating the BodyScan I was making assumptions on why the horse was behaving in that way, and so was making decisions during the lesson that were led by what I thought the problem was, in this case, fear. However, once the rider connected with the emotion she was actually feeling (frustration), even though she had previously denied that there was a problem, the whole dynamic of the lesson changed for the better for all of us.
I have many memories similar to these. Horses truly are wonderful teachers whether it’s helping us connect with our feelings or simply teaching us how to be more authentic and I am grateful every time a horse helps me learn something about myself.
If you are currently working towards living more authentically and you would like to explore how horses can help you do this, please get in touch with me – rosie@rosiewithey.co.uk