Books with Spirit - Horse Riding

This clinic was filled with more surprises than our three New Zealand participants.  Awesome and unexpected things almost became expected in this clinic. 

Click here to read about it!

The weather was not the only thing that blessed us at the Tonimbuk clinic.  The venue provided by our welcoming hosts, Jane and Sarah Mclaughlin, made a perfect setting for a wonderful experience. 

Small spaces,  big spaces, great footing arena, paddocks for the horses, bedrooms for the people, all in a gorgeous valley with kangaroos surprising some of the horses who hadn’t seen them that close before!  Most of us stayed at the house for the week, making for a really close group.

And the people… the people were all so special.  How come that always seems to happen in our clinics?

Leonie, a green rider with her beautiful standardbred Buddy, found a connection and softness that astounded all of us, even the experienced riders.  Buddy progressed from stiff and resistant to soft and willing, with massive changes to his body as well as his mind.

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Here’s a lovely article about the Tasmanian Spirit of Horse camp, drawn from Cynthia Cooper’s wide ranging and interesting newsletter on all sorts of horse issues, with photos and comment from me too. (There’s a link below for you to get to Cynthia’s website and subscribe to that newsletter)

Click here for the rest of the story

At the last clinic at Tanjil South, ‘cos of late cancellations, we took in at the last minute, a young lady who was suffering from really severe clinical depression for a healing with horses program running at the same time as our Spirit of Horse clinic.  As you may be aware, I’ve worked with lots of people with depression in my alternative therapy clinic.  We also brought the very talented “healer” and all round good horsewoman and dear friend, Sheila Angeloni, in to work one on one with her.

It was young Boot n Scoot our 4 year old hand reared orphan foal that chose her to work with (and yes I did notice what I said - he was MOST insistant!) This girl didn’t know the back end of a horse from the front, only came on her friend’s recommendation as an alternative to imminent hospitalization.

Click here for the rest of this beautiful story

This last clinic in New Zealand has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  I wonder if that’s always going to be the case from now on. 

You don’t have to have a problem horse to get a significant improvement in your relationship with your horse, but the problem horses do make the most spectacular stories!

Shade, a Welsh thoroughbred cross, came into the clinic with his lovely owner Crystal desperate to solve his incredibly dangerous problems.  He was a nightmare to ride in company, running backwards at high speed to attack other horses.  He would double barrel them, getting them from 10 metres away, frequently connecting with the riders at the same time.  A very unpleasant character to go out riding with. 

No matter how fond people were of Crystal, nobody wanted to ride with her any more - and who could blame them.

Click here for the rest of the story about what Shade was REALLY doing and how Crystal fixed this.

Cheryl, our New Zealand clinic host at Wainuiomata has a very peaceful herd of horses.  They usually run together and the humans can walk amongst them all in absolute safety with all the horses kind of mooching around quietly as the humans move amongst them.  I noticed this particularly on my first visit to her place.  In my herd, I have to insist that nobody play dominance games when humans are in the paddock, but Cheryl and her horses have created this lovely safe and feeling safe environment.  (I think I’m going to have to figure out how she does that and create it here at home too!)

During the clinic, it was much easier to put the new horse, little Nugget, who had been elsewhere on the property for a week by now, with his mate Apples into the paddock with Whisky.  ”Promise me you’ll look after him” Cheryl said.  And Whisky agreed.  Cheryl has been working on excellent communication with Whisky for some time now.

So, they put Nugget into the paddock and within a minute or two, Whisky had asked Nugget to move, Nugget said “no”, turned around, backed up to Whisky and kicked out.  Then the thud of hooves smacking into flesh could be heard and felt from clear across the paddock as Whisky gave young Nugget a hiding.

Becx, Nuggets owner, was wringing her hands in distress at her baby being on the receiving end of such violence and Cheryl was upset too at what she saw as Whisky breaking his promise.  “But, Whisky”, she said, “you promised to look after him!”

“I AM looking after him” said Whisky.

Then the pennies started dropping into place. Becx had been in the paddock with her children who had always been safe amongst this herd that never pushed each other around or played games amongst the humans, when Nugget had chased another horse towards one of the children.  It only stopped in time because of its own effort to not run over the child. 

“Oh my God”, said Becx, as she realised that Whisky was actually protecting her and the children by establishing the ground rules of this herd in this really special place.  “Thank you Whiskey!”

You know, we say everything happens for a reason, but sometimes it’s from a kind of empty place, with no real hope of knowing what the reason was.  In this extraordinary communication with our horses, we develop the ability to find out what the reason really is.  Like Cheryl and Becx did, with Whisky and Nugget that day. 

Now, you might think that this story is a bit “out there”, but there are more and more people who are “hearing” their horses in this extraordinary way … consciously and deliberately.  “If you want to hear your horse like Cheryl and Becx and learn the secrets of the great horsepeople of the world click here to buy Bobby’s Diaries right now

Yesterday we finished a private clinic here at Tanjil South that featured an amazing lady and her Friesian “soul connection” - her horse for those of you who don’t talk like that yet! This little horse (not so little, really) had been really intimidating. He would barge straight in on you, had had HEAPS of training costing lots of money and the only way she could get hin to stand off her was to be REALLY hard on him - which didn’t fit with who she was, who she wanted to be or with the relationship that she wanted with her horse.

We pretty quickly made the discovery that there was a connection with his “oh shit I’m dead” zone and his barging. (See the electronic Bobby’s Diaries - Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You” for an explanation of that concept click here to buy it now.) And nobody learns anything in the oh shit zone except survival reactions. So we went about establishing a place of deep comfort for this lad and then introduced our need to have him stand off us in the “not too sure zone” where all thinking learning takes place.

We made the discovery that most if not all of his training had taken place in the “oh shit I’m dead zone” and that although he deeply wanted to be close to his person and be with them, he was terribly afraid of what would happen when he got close (whacked for barging on top of them!) - thus he lived his life in a constant and awful fear of humans.

We realised that Friesians had been war horses and as such had been selected for their ability to keep going ahead through fear and even pain (that’s where the barging comes from), and for their devotion to their person. (Lots of other characteristics too I’m sure, but these were the ones that were particularly noticeable throughout the clinic!)

We learned the art of having major breakthroughs by not doing very much at all. (And that’s the understatement of the year)

We learned that a HORSE’S heart can sing and almost burst with joy too when us slow humans “get it”.

We had the most amazing days in the most gentle and connected space.

That was my week, what was yours?

This beautiful horse’s training was based on the electronic book “Bobby’s Diaries - Straight from the Horses Mouth to You”.  This book contains the secrets of great horsemen (even if they don’t realise it yet!) Click here to get this book through the most secure financial website in the world - you could be reading it in five minutes.

Well, New Zealand certainly put out the Kia Ora for me!  (That’s welcome for those like me who didn’t know that!)

A whole bunch of stuff combined to make this New Zealand trip one that I will remember for the rest of my life.  From the amazing bunch of people in the clinic to the outcomes they got and how they went about those outcomes, to my fabulous hosts Cheryl McCullagh and her Mum Sue, to Mrs Heenan who baked yummy goodies for us to eat every day to the delightful customer in the bank (Jimmy) who on overhearing that this was my first trip to New Zealand said “Welcome to New Zealand!” in the warmest tone imaginable and just made my day, to an amazing spiritual experience with the beautiful Maori healer Tiriana at Wainuiomata, to an awesome continuation of that experience with my friends in Otaki, Rob Green and his Mum Sue, to a communication experience with a wild seal at Kaikoura where I proved to myself beyond doubt that I can understand the wild animals too and they can understand me. Whew!  That was a big sentence covering a wide range of stuff!

For those of you who are just busting to hear about how I got on with my whale experience, I was too nauseous to connect with the three whales that we saw that day - bugger!  I did re-connect with one of them later that day, but because I couldn’t see him, I didn’t get the physical validation of two way communication that I had been hoping for.  Next time I talk to a whale it will be from something a lot more stable that a wildly pitching small boat in the middle of the open ocean!!  But the experience with the wild seal more than made up for it.

Lets go through this wonderful New Zealand experience one by one.  Click here to read about the clinic.