I am 39 years old and I am blessed with what society calls learning disabilities. I have ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. I say that it is a blessing because unlike the regulated school system I have come to realize that just because I do not learn the way that the school system expects me to does not mean that I am defective. Let me assure you that it is a daily challenge to remind myself of this. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia when I was in 1st grade. The only reason that I was not diagnosed with the ADD/ADHD at the time was because in 1975 the doctors felt that only boys could have ADD/ADHD. I share the blessing of learning differently with Albert Einstein, my hero Thomas Edison, Henry Winkler “the Fonz” and many other incredible people to help remind me that I am not worthless.

The main thing that helped me through school, life, etc was my horses. When my older sister started taking riding lessons I came into contact with my first horse at age 8 and I knew that I was where I belonged. When my parents got me my first quarter horse at age 12 I had a best friend who would not judge me and accepted me for exactly who I was. It was unfortunate that the Ferrier who sold the horse to my mother who was scared of horses sold her a horse with navicular that would not show up on x-rays and within less than a week my new horse was lame and I could not ride him. Chino was a good friend but he had a broken spirit. My mother never had to worry about me with him because he never did anything “frisky” or “playful”. My sister had a horse that loved to run and play in the field. He had been a show horse who lived in a stall all of his life. Shad was a beautiful palomino quarter horse who took championships in English hunter jumper at Cow Palace in California. When he moved to Colorado with us and began to live in a pasture he was a very happy and active horse. The only time my horse Chino showed animation was if we tried to separate the two horses. Chino had been a cow horse before we got him and you could see in his sad dead eye that he had been broken somehow. He was not scared of me or anyone else only resigned to his place in life. I vowed that there had to be a better way to treat horses.

A friend of ours had an Arabian breading farm down the road when we lived in Georgia and she did not have a trainer. She was a pilot and was not home as much as she would like to be. She needed someone to work with her foals and young horses. I had been helping my mom train llamas at the farms where she was a llama manager. I would also go with her to as many of the horse seminars as I was able to. There was very little information on llamas in those days so my mom would go to the horse seminars to learn about horse breading and management.

I would work with the Arabian foals and start the young horses that she had by spending time with them and letting them take there time to accept the blankets, saddles, bridles, my weight laying across his saddle etc until the horses seemed comfortable with the idea.

I ran into two horses on her farm that were beyond my 15 year old self taught abilities. One was a young Arabian named scooter who was fine with all stages until I mounted him in the round pen that Joy insisted I use for my own safety. As soon as I got on his back he would lay down and refuse to get up. He would stay there until I took off the tack and was good and ready to get up. I asked people for advice and was told to poor water down his nose, shock him with a cattle prod, run at him and scare him into getting up and taking a crop to him. I could not stomach any of these options and so I had to leave scooter until I could her more information.

My other difficult case was a wild mustang who was not going to trust me and let me catch her no matter how much I tried to coax her. Again, I was a totally self trained kid at this point. Mostly I had trained lots of llamas and a few alpacas. I felt that I needed to give her space as I was not going to force her. She was so much smaller than my quarter horses or even the Arabians. By the way, my advice is not to try and corner a wild mustang in a round pen. She was an incredibly smart and gentle horse and I was a totally fearless teenager. When I got to close and she felt I needed to be out of her space she would brush past me and nock me out of the way with her shoulder. I know now that I could have gotten so hurt had she wanted to hurt me. This experience taught me that horses really do not want to step on us. She could have gone right over the top of me. When you catch a llama, they have personalities more like cats than dogs, you get them in a corner to catch them. This beautiful little Mustang could have gone right over the top of me and stepped on me but she only brushed me aside.

Before I could do more research my mom got a job at a llama farm in Louisiana so I was never able to work out how to work with the two above horses. I did have many other successes on Joy’s farm however.

My next horse was an Arabian that the trainer at the Arabian farm where my Mom managed llamas discovered a bank had foreclosed on another farm that used the animals as collateral and was going to sell them for slaughter. Bonnie, the trainer, convinced the Bank to let her find buyers as long as she was able to get the same amount that the slaughter house would pay. So I was able to pick up a registered Arabian filly for $100. We thought she was a 5 year old named Putin on the Ritz that had been started under saddle. The bank only had photo copies of the papers and not the originals so I had to send in a copy of the freeze brand to find out for certain. It took a month or so to bring her back up to weight and after being starved by the farm owners and the bank. I spent the time grooming her and building a relationship. I proceeded to use driving reigns on her through the stirrups of my English saddle and worked her for several more weeks. When I finally felt she was fit enough to be ridden I climbed on and rode her for short periods almost every day. She was an angel and never gave me a problem. She followed every queue that I gave her. I admit that I did not ask her for difficult moves as I was only expecting her to be started green. A few weeks after I started riding Ritzy I received word back from the Arabian registry that she was not Putin on the Ritz but was in fact the 4 year old AH Raneka. When Bonnie and I went over the records and she spoke to the trainer who used to work at the farm it turned out that the filly that I had brought home had never been started. This told me that though I was mostly self taught I was right in my belief that if I took my time and listened to the horse, going at the horses pace I did not have to frighten the horse. It was helpful to have access to such a wonderful trainer. Bonnie’s personal horse was a Quarter horse that she used with the Special Olympics. The fact that Bonnie had a horse that was used for the special Olympics gave me a new insight into a use for horses. I was not the only one who benefits from the healing of horses but horses are used to help people with physical disabilities.

When I was older and Ritzy had gone on to be a cross country event horse I was working with yet another counselor who prescribed horse back ridding for ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, and Dysgraphia. It turns out that they have discovered there is a coloration between the movement of a horse that helps center people with left brain/right brain differences which gives you the ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalcula, Autism, etc.

I have been horseless personally for 9 years and it has been a very difficult 9 years. I worked for a trainer for a while until I discovered that the trainer was drugging the horses to get the performance desired. I knew this was not what I wanted to learn.

When I came across Monty’s web site a month or so ago I was ecstatic as I felt like I finally found someone who understood what I was trying to say and do. I have been dreaming of teaching horses in a gentle way so that they can be therapy animals for others who need a friend who is going to be there for them. A horse will give a “Kid at Risk” a sense of confidence and accomplishment that is real and he can trust. A Horse will not tell you “you are doing a good job” if you are not. Unlike a dog a horse will also teach a “Kid at Risk” respect. If you do not respect a horse you will get hurt. It is something I used to do as a kid. I was very confident with horses but not with boys. If I was having a hard time with a guy I liked I would take him riding. The guy would learn a new respect for himself, the horse and me very quickly. They take one look up close at the big animal and they get an idea of how small they are. That is why horses still work so well for crowd control. Then you take this person who looks at this BIG animal and show them that with kindness and very small queues the horse will follow what they want and they have a new respect for themselves, as they should.

I have signed up to get my training certification with the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association so that I can learn what the horses need to learn so that they are ready to help the people who need them. I have found a Equine Rescue farm that rescues nurse mare foals so I can work with horses and find out about running a not for profit. I have started on my plan to help make the world a better place for Horses and Humans. It is a slow path as I have no money and the trainer where I get to work with horses does not agree with the Monty Roberts way. It makes me twitch every time I see the stud chain come out. I know it is not needed. I am so grateful for the Equus Online so that I can train the horses I get to work with better and learn the language of Equus.

I know this was long, this has been a plan and a dream of mine a life time in the making. I have always wanted to work and be with horses. It has only been in the last 2 years that God has given me the confidence to go after the goal that I have longed for my whole life which is to help horses be trained without fear and help people with differences who would be helped by a relationship with horses if they can afford one or not.