Horses: A Cure For What Ails You

Have you ever had a headache that lasted all day, no matter what you did, yet it miraculously disappeared almost as soon as you stepped foot into the barn? Or have you ever struggled with your emotions and been so depressed you can’t see a way through it until after you’ve gone riding?

If these scenarios sound familiar, you are probably aware of the special healing properties of the horse. Horses can connect with people in ways that often seem super natural. They seem to innately know where a person’s weak spot is and provide a source of intangible support to help that person overcome it.

Using horses for the physical rehabilitation of humans is the more popular type of “equine therapy” – the kind that is measurable and able to be captured in a snapshot. But I would rather illustrate a few examples of the emotional “therapy” horses give us, stories that often go untold because of the private nature of the emotional wounds humans carry around until an experience with a horse starts a healing process.

I’ll start with my own story. When I was four, my family was involved in a serious car accident that left my sister a paraplegic and my father a quadriplegic. They hit icy roads in Moses Lake at the end of the Thanksgiving holiday in 1969, while driving my sister and her roommate back to WSU. Luckily, I was not in the car, but I suffered emotional damage that took years to deal with. Our family dealt with crisis in a private way – too private. It was like we took this enormous hit, but we acted like nothing happened. We didn’t talk about what any of us were feeling or that our lives were now changed forever. I remember often being in a fearful and anxious state of mind. I had trouble sleeping, I was often nauseated and I had a hard time handling my emotions when I started school. My report cards often had penned notes from my teachers that said “needs improvement in self control,” which meant I often got upset and panicky in class over little things like forgetting to put my name on my paper before I handed it in. I was too afraid to ask for it back and risk seeing my teacher’s disapproval. As years went by, I became withdrawn, depressed and silent. The one thing that made me happy was animals. I had several dogs that were a great source of comfort to me, but I always longed for a pony.

My dream came true one night when my older brother, Dan, came home with a Shetland pony named Gypsy. Dan didn’t have a lot of money, but I think maybe he sensed I was in bad emotional shape, and he knew I loved horses more than anything. He made special arrangements to get me that pony, and it is one of the best memories I’ll ever have.

Gypsy wasn’t much for riding. A witherless wonder, Gypsy would run and put her head down so that I would slide down her neck and fall off. She could bow her neck and charge straight through any one rein stop I could attempt, but I didn’t care. She was the inspiration for many drawings that replaced the words I didn’t have to express my emotions and the trauma I’d been through. She was there in the pasture with her thick mane I could brush and her little solid body that I could lean against when my dad was hurting and didn’t want me around him in the house. She was the stepping stone to my next horse, Joe, that was given to me at age 10 by a kind neighbor. I rode and showed Joe for nine years until I graduated high school and started college.

In short, my brother’s gift to me started me on the road to emotional recovery. Starting with the horses of my youth, I learned life skills like confidence, leadership and staying calm in a crisis. I eventually got over my extreme shyness and a lot of other insecurities. My bad dreams went away. At school, I became known more as “that girl who likes horses more than boys” instead of “that weird girl who never smiles.” It’s been a long journey, and I still have some scars, but I think horses came into my life at a crucial time and were divinely provided.

I like to think that at times I may have been an example to others like me, who have suffered an emotional setback and found a way through it by connecting with horses. One friend of mine, Lori, comes to mind when I consider how I might have encouraged someone else to discover the special healing ways of horses.

I met Lori through my daughter’s kindergarten class in 1999. Her daughter and mine became fast friends and shared a love of animals, especially horses. I learned Lori also loved horses and had dreamed of owning one her whole life.

One day I invited her to ride with me on the alpine trails of our family’s ranch. Lori shared with me that she had been through a hard time with her family’s business. She had been under a lot of stress that was affecting her in negative ways, with symptoms similar to what I went through after the accident, symptoms severe enough to warrant medication.

As we were riding, she told me she felt so relaxed and happy, and that she wanted more than anything to get horses for herself and her daughter so that she could continue this horse-induced sense of joy. When we got back to the ranch house, we were both laughing and feeling great, and it made an impression on her husband. When she blurted out “Can I get a horse?” he didn’t even hesitate to say that if it would make her as happy as she was right then, she should start looking tomorrow!

Since that day in the woods, Lori has bought herself and her daughter horses that fulfill their dreams and sustain their emotional bank accounts. Lori often recounts that after she’s had a stressful day in the office, it all falls away the minute she gets her horse out of its stall. She no longer has to live with the anxiety she once had because now she has an outlet that is far more rewarding than any medicine a doctor could prescribe.​