How Horses Help

Horses can help humans improve physically - Horse-riding (for example) is a beneficial form of physical exercise. It is unlike most other types of physical movement for humans, which means it targets different areas of the body than many other sports or exercises. It can help core and trunk strength, coordination and balance, muscle flexibility and tone, cardiovascular health, and stable strength.

Horses can help humans emotionally - Some of the most significant emotional benefits humans can gain from horses are confidence, trust, non-verbal communication, and bonding. Creating a bond with a horse is a perfect way to learn how to open up emotionally and understand the importance of patience, trust, and communication.

Horses can help humans recover from trauma or support people with disabilities - Humans can feel better just by being around horses, but they are capable of much more than lifting spirits. Spending time with horses can be mentally and physically therapeutic.

In both human dynamics and horse herds, there is a hierarchy structure. Horses have a similar family structure where male and female horses stick together, and their offspring leave the nest once mature.  Horses are also communicative and expressive, much like people. They display different attitudes and emotions, making them relatable. In the company of people, horses can display happiness, stress, trust, worry and many other moods. With the ability to convey and read emotions, humans can understand horses’ sentiments and horses can understand humans.

The biophilia hypothesis tells us man has a connection with nature that is in our DNA and therefore has a genetic basis. Mans desire to connect with nature can be a positive motivation for change and being with a horse has a positive physiological effect on us.

Spending time in natural environments is associated with improved mental and spiritual health and for children, being out in nature improves play and physical activity. Our technological society has taken us away from being in nature and therefore been detrimental to our well-being and mental health. Working with a horse provides an outdoor activity where people can connect with nature and enjoy a positive experience.

Working experientially means clients are encouraged to ‘get a sense’ of what is happening and be involved in the here and now.  Horses are excellent for providing experiential learning activities.

This leads to the all-important horse human relationship and how this

promotes learning.

Horses give us the experiential learning; they allow us to interact with nature and they are congruent and authentic. 

Horses are prey animals so are very sensitive to our energy they test us by using the herd hierarchy to find our boundaries - we need to be congruent, make them feel safe, be a leader and treat them with respect.

Horses’ behaviour towards us can revel patterns of incongruency or patterns of behaviour that we are not even aware of. People learn through relationships, observation, and feedback - horses provide these in an authentic way and take us out of our familiar environment, make us vulnerable and encourage us to learn new skills we can take into everyday life.

Equine assisted learning is about people opening up, understanding what is holding them back, building confidence to move forward taking that experiential learning and using it to problem solve in everyday life.

The themes of our programs lend themselves to adaptability of age and gender and ability. The themes of Life Challenges and how we deal with them, Relationships, Boundaries, Expressing Your Self, Thoughts and Thinking, Feelings, Awareness, allow us to plan activities which are respectful and understanding of cultural diversity, social and physical needs.

Horses are the ideal conduit as they are incapable of pre-planning, or holding onto feelings. These characteristics enable everyone to work with horses to identify and learn behaviours and strategies to live a healthy life unencumbered by perception.

The activities we use are not exclusive to establishing the learning intent,grooming, simple exercises leading and more complex requests such as picking up feet, herd behaviour, liberty work and obstacle may be included.

Most of all we encourage everyone to have FUN ☺