My Journey To A Magical Connection With Horses
Beyond Horsemanship
I had worked as a Natural Horsemanship trainer since 2001 and was certified in Parelli Natural Horsemanship, held courses, private lessons and received horses for boarding and problem solving in my own training stable, competed in show jumping and western with my trotter, did ground training, liberty and rode bridleless... but I was looking for something deeper and started to question. Everything was actually based on pressure and yielding and negative reinforcement. Even if you started with a soft pressure, it was based on the fact that if the horse didn't listen, you would give stronger pressure and make it more uncomfortable for the horse. But then it was coercion anyway! It didn't resonate with me.
From 2012 I started training for masters in classical horsemanship where I found ease. Shortly after, in 2013, I bought the young horse Mifune from Denmark who was basically unhandled, a horse I could shape myself. He was very slow in his movements, extremely dominant and unwilling. Horsemanship exercises didn't work for him. He didn't want to cooperate so I started working with him free which got him more interested and made his body more mobile.
As if by fate, I found a documentary about a different way of working with horses based on the horses' own culture. I became fascinated by wild horses, which led me to travel to the USA in 2014 to study The Language of Horses and wild horse communication privately with a master horseman who had been trained by wild horses. I took these skills home with me and developed them further, then worked with them professionally and trained others.
This approach changed Mifune and my relationship as it is based on the horse's free will, natural herd behavior and instincts, not on pressure and pressure. I started by building a deep bond by meditating with him in the paddock and spending a lot of undemanding time and then continuing with the other horses' own herd rituals that build trust, respect, leadership, willingness, magical connection, focus and finally a liberty dance. I had also learned about the five elements of Classical Chinese Medicine which was amazingly accurate in character description when I understood that my horse belonged to the Wood element. A very challenging horse who in his character is extremely dominant, a lead stallion, always questions, challenges and reacts with aggression, reluctance and irritation. With this approach of horse´s communication system, based on freedom of choice, horses natural herd rituals and instincts, through a deep bond I found the magical dance.
In 2023 I worked with trail riding horses in Portugal. There I had a magical connection with Quitana, a shy Lusitanian horse that the workers had difficulty catching in the paddock for the trail rides. She sought me out immediately and after only spending a few moments with her, I took her to Europe's longest beach with lots of untouched nature on the Atlantic in Melides. It was about a km from the beach stable and I walked there with her on just a neck rope. She could have run away from me at any time back to the other horses but she stuck with me the whole time, even loose and despite a loose, large dog on the beach.
A horse that taught me what a magical contact is and she stole a part of my heart.
År 2023 arbetade jag med turridningshästar i Portugal. Där fick jag en magisk connection med Quitana, ett skyggt lusitanosto som arbetarna hade svårt att fånga i paddocken för turridningarna. Hon sökte sig till mig omedelbart och efter att bara spenderat några få tillfällen med henne, tog jag henne till Europas längsta strand med massa orörd natur vid Atlanten i Melides. Den låg ca en km från beachstallet och jag gick dit med henne i bara ett halsrep. Hon kunde när som helst sprungit ifrån mig tillbaks till de andra hästarna men höll sig vid mig hela tiden, även lös och trots en lös, stor hund på stranden.
En häst som lärde mig vad en magisk kontakt är och hon stal en del av mitt hjärta.