Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

Boy this photo just says it all doesn’t it?  Leonie already has a great relationship with her other horses, using what she learned from the approach in Zen Connection with Horses and here she is, using all that knowledge with her new foal, Angel. 

Like everyone proudly featured on this website, Leonie brings all her wide variety of life skills and things that she has learned from other teachers and insights that she has gained from her own experience, to this beautiful relationship with her horses.

Angel is named after our dear friend, Sheila Angeloni.

Angel has the best of both worlds – a person who listens and understands and acts on what they “get” and yet sets boundaries for a safe and contented and well balanced little horse.

How cool is this?

Tammy from Bruthen in Victoria, with her beautiful 1/2 Percheron mare Dana only a few weeks ago was too scared to ride her out in the paddock – in fact the yard wasn’t even much fun.  They changed that in the clinic at Bruthen earlier this month - big time!  And now look at them!

Tammy and her lovely mare Dana bareback and bridless. Don't try this at home folks unless you KNOW that you are safe!

 Go  girls and wooohooooo!

•  NOT  take that for granted, thus our job is to still help her NOT feel fear in as many areas of her life as we can.
•  NOT beat, kick, smack, whip or otherwise belt that wonderful, generous, automatic stop out of her that keeps our precious little grandaughter safer than she would be on any other kind of horse.

When your horse wants to be with you and wants to do what you want to do, you can achieve so much more with your horse.

Last week I worked on a wonderful 20 year old Arabian mare, Bremervale Promise, in the vet check and rest intervals of a 160 kilometre ride, that she completed in around 18 hours.  No big deal, she would have made it fine without me – maybe the reiki healing that I gave her made it a bit more comfortable, that’s all. 

This was Promise and young Sarah McLaughlin’s 4^th Quilty buckle, a silver belt buckle that is a symbol of the completion of that ride.  So this was the fourth time Promise had gone out and carried Sarah for 160 kilometres in less than 24 hours.  Congratulations on a brilliant effort to Sarah and Promise and all the other partnerships that completed the event with their horses in good enough condition to go out again.

Then there was the star of the show as far as I am concerned, a partnership between a lady and a white haired elderly gentleman named Sarisha, a 23 year old Arabian gelding who achieved their 11th Quilty buckle.  This was the eleventh time that Sarisha  had carried his owner Keryn Mahoney for 160 kilometres in much, much less than 24 hours.  This is an extraordinary new record and deserved of huge congratulations. 

So what makes it possible for one horse to do the most extraordinary feat of endurance with their rider, year after year after year?  And others cannot?

Click here for the rest of this story.

What makes a world class horsewoman? 

Is it someone who can help a shut down old horse find joyfulness with a human again?  Is it someone who can help their horse heal a seriously sagged, damaged back?   Is it someone who can transform with a stiff, tight and tense horse and bring them to relaxed, willing and eager to do what she wants? 

Well I think so.  Here’s a little story with a short video of a horse and a lady doing some very simple playing around on the ground.  If she keeps this up with everything else that she does with her horse, she will be a world class horsewoman in anyone’s language.  Simple, but beautiful…   Click here to read the rest of this inspiring story.

Click here for a series of photos of my three year old granddaughter Bree, starting her miniature pony Blondie under saddle.  Some people call this process breaking in, but we don’t believe in breaking horses…

It will blow your mind about how simple it is to get this kind of confidence from your horse.  This tiny 3 year old girl, who used to be scared herself, gets it with one of the ten most scared horses I have ever come across.

I’m not the doting grandmother or anything….

This is a little different to my normal blogs here, but I’m sure that you’ll get the impact of it anyway.

In the last fortnight in New Zealand, five extraordinary people found an expanded consciousness through their connection with horses, animals, nature and the earth itself.

Click here to read more about it.

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

Yoshi is a handsome little pony lucky to have an owner as dedicated as 13 year old Mary is to his physical and emotional welfare.  They came in to the clinic with a bond already developing.  Even though in extreme fear, this plucky little horse had been careful not to hurt Mary.  In 4 short days of a Spirit of Horse clinic, the increase in that bond was absolutely awesome.

Mary won the Horseland Warragul competition for a Spirit of Horse clinic – that’s the clinic based on Bobby’s Diaries.  In her entry she said she wanted to give her ponies a better life by understanding them better and she certainly did achieve that objective – in spades!

Mary and Yoshi enjoyed riding at pony club together, but she mostly couldn’t catch him, he reared up when being saddled, was difficult and occasionally impossible to bridle, jumped around while she was trying to get on, wouldn’t stand still, he didn’t enjoy any touch on his body and severely disliked  anyone touching his legs or feet (forget shoeing!).  A simple bot fly caused him to bowl straight over the top of the nearest human.  Altogether the ideal pony club mount (yes, that was a joke!)

Click here for more about how Mary won Yoshi over.

I have my horse working with me as a willing co-operative partner who is teaching ME how to get the results of the gifted rider – when no way am I anything of the kind!

Click here to find out how Bobby is teaching me to have fun and reach for the advanced dressage movement of piaffe with no bridle on, with nothing at all on his head!

Is it even achievable?  Is it one of those achievments that takes a lifetime?  I don’t know - but I’m sure going to have fun trying!