Tag Archives: riding

The robot horse

Have you ever met a robot horse?

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Wrapping up 2015: horse and human musings

This year was one full of change for me, my human family and horses. What is most significant to me about a year is that it encapsulates everything you’ve done, everything that’s happened to you, and all what you cannot control and that which you have put into action.

(originally published January 1, 2016)

Zuzka and Khami
Khami and Zuzka

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Creating sacred spaces with horses

I moved my horses recently, and I took the gravestone I’d had made for my departed gelding Khami with us. I was concerned that we would have to create a new sacred space at the new location, because the horses would no longer have Khami’s grave to roll on. A few days before the move I went out to the grave and it had rained hard so the center was squishy, smooth mud that took on the appearance of the surface of peanut butter upon opening a new jar. One of the horses had walked around the mud center, hoofprints marking the perimeter of the grave. (originally published November 20, 2015)

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Teeth and hooves: working with the aggressive horse

One of the hardest things for people to grapple with is the fact that their horse is not always nice. I talk about good behavior and model that for the horse, but sometimes the horse does not exhibit good behavior in spite of all the modeling. Sometimes we get a dose of teeth and hooves.

 

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Conversation between horse and rider

What is the conversation between horse and rider?

Recently I’ve been working with a horse and rider team who are deeply bonded. After an accident the owner is building up her riding time. Her concern was that he would not sustain a trot for a length of time and that her body was not seated in the saddle evenly. Each side of her felt different, and one side felt unwieldy and unable to really connect.

Khami_with_Susie

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Working with horse-to-horse bonds

Years ago, when I got my mare Zuzka, the trainer I was working with at the time was so happy when we were able to put her in the same corral space with my gelding Khami. The trainer said it helped her training because the mare would be moved around all day by him.

Zuzka and Khami
Khami and Zuzka

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8 ways to catch a horse

In the book No Life for a Lady, the biography of Agnes Moreland Cleaveland, the children were put in charge of catching a horse and riding into town in order to get supplies. This was New Mexico in the early 1900s. The author said that they didn’t have corrals so catching a horse could take half a day. The horses would know you wanted to catch them and would hide behind trees.

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In loving memory: A horse in a million

In Loving Memory – April 12. 1989-August 15. 2015 Khami, my bay Arabian gelding of 26 years, passed away quickly today of what appeared to be a heart attack. He was doing what he loved to do, running with his beloved herd, when he collapsed and died shortly after.

Khami, minutes before his death
Khami, minutes before his death

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Healing the horse and human herd from within

In Ortho-Bionomy we work with reflexes, and one of them is rebound. If a body does not have rebound then it has little ability to change, to heal itself. We want to reinstate rebound in the body in order to elicit change and the ability to correct itself. That ability can grow in a being and is directly tied into the continuing health of the organism. I seek that self-corrective response in each body I work with….and in my own.

Photo by One Defining Moment, Lori Hinkle
Photo by One Defining Moment, Lori Hinkle

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How horses “stake a claim”

This mare is “staking a claim” on this hill. She doesn’t want her friend standing there. What differentiates this activity from others, such as just moving a another horse from behind, is its sudden and very territorial nature.

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