Dust settled as the leather fringe of well-worn chaps flung in the wind and the young cowboy pulled his horse to a quick stop. Then, clutching his reins in frustration, he looked up at the sky and shook his head. His horse had taken the wrong lead… again. (The horse’s lead describes the leg he leads off of when cantering. For example to canter to the right, the horse must be on the right lead, and the left lead to go left. When on the incorrect lead, the horse has trouble cantering in a balanced way.) “Well hold up just a second,” a steady voice broke the silence, and the young cowboy turned toward a lean man resting easily on his horse, who stood resting a hind leg and dozing off. “Do you know how to prepare him to take the right lead?”
The younger rider shook his head, and looked quizzically at the older horseman. “No.”
“See the preparation is the most important part,” the older cowboy’s soft blue eyes looked intently at the young man, who had turned his horse to face him.
Peter Leone and Select winning the $100,000 Grand Prix of Devon. Photo by Charles Fox
Wellington, FL – January 13, 2012 – Olympic Silver Medalist Peter Leone will join Kimberly S. Jaussi, Ph.D., at a workshop, “Leadership, Vision and the Equestrian Athlete”, to share his experiences, answer questions and offer advice. The workshop will be held during the College Preparatory Invitational (CPI) in the Special Events Pavilion at the Palm Beach Equestrian Center at 11:00 am on Saturday, January 14, 2012.
After the workshop Leone will autograph his DVD, Ride the Body: Select Insights of Peter Leone, that he produced along with Jaussi. The informative and practical DVD will be awarded to all the first place winners at the CPI. A drawing will be held during the workshop for additional DVD prizes.
Leone and Jaussi also co-authored the upcoming book, Peter Leone’s Show Jumping Clinic: Success Strategies for Equestrian Athletes (Storey Publishing), which will hit the shelves in spring of 2012.
Peter Cashman from West Point, Peter Leone, Naomi Blumenthal, and IHSA Founder and Executive Director, Bob Cacchione
Orlando, Florida – January 5, 2012 – Olympian Peter Leone joined members of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) Board of Directors at their annual meeting held in Orlando, FL to celebrate the launch of his new book, Peter Leone’s Show Jumping Clinic: Success Strategies for Equestrian Athletes. Leone’s book, written along with Kimberly S. Jaussi, PhD, herself an avid rider, writer and leadership professor and coach, explores every aspect of riding from the basics of correct use of aids through to the psychology of approaching a World Cup course. The book employs diagrams, exercises and anecdotes, as well as photos featuring riders such as McLain Ward, Richard Spooner and Georgina Bloomberg, as models demonstrating concepts from his text. Coaches, such as Eddie Federwisch from Virginia Intermont College, lauded the publication of the book as a comprehensive modern textbook on riding. Peter Leone’s Show Jumping Clinic: Success Strategies for Equestrian Athletes is slick and easy to read with a fresh format and catchy phrases that stick with you.
For most people, equine therapy is pretty fascinating to watch. However, without a visual account of just what happens between a horse and a human, the general public is at a loss to fully understand just how our beloved equine friends can really help people better understand themselves. Sometimes words just don’t describe the magic between people and horses. Yet clearly, judging by the success of movies such as “Seabiscuit”, people are truly amazed by horses, and all the while, profoundly affected by this admiration. So, in honoring the way in which an observable accounting of equine therapy can reveal more fully what it is, I have compiled a list of great equine-therapy related movies.
1. “Seabiscuit” Portraying the life of the famous racehorse, Seabiscuit, this movie also demonstrates the way in which the courageous character of a horse can uplift a down and out nation. http://www.seabiscuitmovie.com/
We all make resolutions, and sadly, many of us will never realize these often lofty goals. And what do we do then? We wonder why. First, why did we make the resolution in the first place, and if we are the introspective type, what is it about us that prevented us from reaching our target? But to answer these questions, we’d probably have to have a window into our unconscious. And really, we may just not have the time or patience for psychoanalysis. But maybe, just maybe, we can learn something about ourselves through time spent with a horse. So, in honor of resolutions, here are five reasons to try equine assisted therapy.
1. Horses are novel. For the majority of people, meeting a horse is an entirely new experience. While we may have some idea how self-exploration will go, we really have no idea how we will react, or more importantly, how the horse will react to us. This is the perfect environment then in which to learn about the self.
The client shifts around nervously in her chair, her darting eyes revealing a weak defense system. As she searches for a disguised response to an honest question, I wonder to myself, ‘Why must this be so difficult?’ The truth is, she is only doing what she knows — hiding. The problem, however, is that she is also uniquely attached to her only familiarity, and it — her unconscious desire to remain a victim, perpetrated upon by a long line of offenders — is killing her. And again, I wonder to myself, ‘I wish there were a way for me to show her this’. It is at this time that I wish for a horse.
Horses, unlike people, don’t disguise much, if anything. So a person’s unconscious wish to remain a victim doesn’t go unnoticed. Neither does the anger behind it. Because at some point in this person’s history, she was truly a victim, and what should have happened simply didn’t. So now she must replay this history with new relationships — and sometimes old ones — hoping to finally be cared for. However, unfortunately, the kindness that is now proffered to her doesn’t make up for what was missed, and naturally, she is angry about this. But this is a hopeless cycle, because her anger now pushes away the kindness that she needs so much.
With the holidays progressing rapidly, and the state of the economy on a fast decline, finding ways to improve mood is now more important than ever. However, as with most things, when they are needed most is also when they are hardest to attain – e.g. the ones who are hardest to love need it the most. And while the truth is being around horses will certainly stop the difficult holiday reminders many people suffer, or in any way improve the economy (horse owners would attest to this point), but it just might make a person feel a little better in one of the following ways.
1. Physiological Calming: Neurochemicals can be cunning little things. They rise often without their host’s awareness, and can wreak havoc on all sorts of health factors. To be sure, stress and the physiological ramifications of it are now considered to be possibly even more predictive of a potential heart attack than levels of cholesterol or blood pressure. However, given the dangers of elevated levels of epinephrine, cortisol, and dampened levels of serotonin, most people struggle when it comes to just how to lower them. Well, being around any animal has been demonstrated to be an effective way of calming the physiological system, and often due to their size and power, horses can have an even more pronounced effect on a person than other types of animals.
As sinuous advertisers and marketing consultants cleverly concocted strategies encouraging the masses to flock to their respective stores in droves and spend unheard-of amounts of money, merge with consumers’ unabated appetites for the latest and greatest gadget, device or fashionable gift, the result is a prime example of what authors John de Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H. Naylor and David Horsey so sagaciously dubbed “Affluenza”. As the title of their book (http://www.amazon.com/Affluenza-All-Consuming-Epidemic-Bk-Currents/dp/1576753573/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322271876&sr=8-1) suggests, affluenza is a method of describing America’s proclivity for overspending as an actual disease, and one akin to an addiction. The authors further state that, like any disease, affluenza comes with a host of symptoms, from depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol addiction, physical health problems, to a variety of stress-related conditions. Clearly, however, this disease is yet without a cure — that is unless you consider the current state of the economy a cure — and at the same time, one that desperately needs treatment. Is it possible then that equine therapy can be helpful in the treatment of affluenza?
Although equine therapy has been used for a wide variety of psychological and behavioral conditions, and weight loss has been attacked from seemingly every possible angle, is it possible that working with horses can somehow hold benefit for those struggling with weight?
To be sure, losing weight is its own animal, and own that is not so easily tamed. Much of the reason for this is that it is a very complex psychological condition that is often addressed physically. Yet the strong emotional, cognitive and behavioral precursors and underpinnings of being heavy are often not so easily overcome. After all, it is much easier to swallow a pill, or follow a diet than actually figure why the weight may have come on in the first place.
And yet the conditions of overeating and obesity do share several psychological factors that, in many ways, are prime subjects for equine therapy. Let’s look at these more closely.
When thinking about addictions, some things are quite obvious, while others are much more disguised. Clearly, those with substance abuse issues of any kind are still subject to a healthy dose of social stigma. Often this desire to hide what is not considered acceptable by the masses is what fuels the emergence of a multitude of “exclusive” addiction centers. For a sense of what these day spa like treatment centers look like, just Google “Malibu drug treatment.” Yet this avoidance of the problem also disguises a much larger issue. That is, that aside from the war in the Middle East, addiction issues — from prevention efforts to treatment, loss of work time, health claims, and addiction related incarcerations — claim the largest share of national spending. So it seems fitting then that treatment centers scramble for the latest and greatest way to treat this massive social problem. Of late, equine therapy has become one of these nascent methods for getting to the root of what causes a person to turn to the bottle, pill, or powder.
Horses and addictions would seem strange bedfellows, but our four legged friends are actually quite well suited for this population. For one thing, addictions involve a great deal of denial. Denial not just of the problem, but of what one is actually feeling, thinking and doing. And this denial pervades beyond others, but to the self as well, leaving a person that has a very fractured understanding of himself. This detachment from the self can actually be a very prominent reason to drink.
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