By Sharon Brannan Lasselle

     The title of a flyer struck at my heart on a September day in 2020 as I scanned a local community bulletin board, “Five Free Adult Wellness Equine-Assisted Therapy Sessions.” I saw ‘horses’ and ‘free.’ It had been forty years since I’d left the hunter-jumper life as a teen in Oklahoma, and yearnings to be with horses during my adulthood had intensified. A question materialized, “Did horses do something for me when I was growing up?” I decided the word ‘wellness’ on the poster implied that the program was for anyone, so I signed up as a participant. I was soon savoring weekly interactions with a small herd of horses in an indoor arena outside the city of Wasilla, Alaska. A mental health counselor and an equine professional facilitated a process by which each client was to discover next steps in their own health journey, fueled in part by engagement with horses. My “next step” was to follow the magnetic pull I felt toward horses; in December I entered a multi-discipline horseback riding program.

     After the New Year, a handsome palomino rodeo champion named “Buzz” became my steady at weekly lessons, under an English saddle. I especially enjoyed indulging myself and Buzz outside of instruction time: I chatted to him as I passed the soft brush over his body; I practiced a manual therapy method, watching for Buzz’s responses as I moved my fingers slowly from poll to tail; I walked beside or sat astride him bareback, getting to know him and learning from him. One winter day, I walked across the arena away from Buzz to take a photo of the beautiful frost patterns left on a window by the 20-below-zero cold. As I focused for the shot, I heard the almost imperceptible sound of breathing behind me, and there was warmth on my neck. Without moving, I tapped the button on my phone to reverse the camera view. There on the screen were Buzz’s pricked-ears and curious eyes looking over my shoulder; I snapped the picture. Buzz was an incomprehensible salve for me, especially as his trust in me grew. He came to his current owner with signs of past trauma, the primary manifestation being an often-strong startle response. Understanding the effects of trauma myself, my patience and constancy with him had no limits, and Buzz taught me about touch with permission to avoid activating his startle response.

     New dreams were awakened in me. I wanted to continue relational exploration with Buzz separately from performance riding, and I wanted to ride outside of the arena. In spring of 2022, a local trail-riding camp opened the way to the latter. I savored horseback time in the woods and meadows of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of Alaska, and subsequently joined the pleasure riding micro-community that put on and supported the camp. I was encouraged when I saw how the two distinct riding styles and the two trainers, of performance riding and of pleasure riding, complimented one another. This was an expansive and unexpected discovery! Arena riding produces fitness and skills that make open rides safer, and it led me to the fun of riding competitions again. Pleasure trail riding sates my deep desire to explore a horse and myself together in often-slower, often-relaxed adventuring. Negotiating encounters with wildlife, people and pets, changing terrain, and natural obstacles uniquely trains my brain and nervous system for riding skill.  Revitalized from the trail, I found myself more available to invest in and enjoy the specific complexities of arena-based performance riding.

     Back now to the question my mind asked almost two years ago: Did horses do something for me when I was a child? Memories that were stored in my body surfaced during that first riding lesson in 2020. As I smelled leather, felt reins in my hands, kissed the softness of a muzzle, and paused to allow a horse’s investigative breath warm my face, I re-experienced the ponies of my childhood. In my mind I heard the words and voices of various trainers from my past when the current instructor gave me directions during lessons. The movement of the horse beneath and with me, was nourishing in a way that language couldn’t express, and that also awakened my past. Hours after the lesson, nostalgia surfaced as I remembered leisurely days at the barn with my sister and friends; sorrow struck as I registered that the equine companions I once had, are gone. I could not see them, could not touch them, could never make up for irrational behaviors they tolerated while they were in the care of a broken child.

Over the months which followed that first lesson in four decades, I realized that my years with horses began following a family tragedy. Shortly after my ninth birthday, my father was killed in a plane crash. We packed up our belongings six months later to relocate across the country, leaving behind every member of our extended family and never speaking of the devastation. I began taking riding lessons after our arrival at our new home, in Oklahoma. The surrogate family I gained - a blend of animals and humans, ministered to my woundedness in ways I will never fully know but am now glimpsing, through memories and through my current interactions with horses and their people. The structure of horse ownership had also protected me during this inherently vulnerable time of grief and upheaval. I was in awe upon realizing, in my mid-50’s, how foundational “the barn” had been during tumultuous years. I recognized too that in 2018, when I began to seek out horses in earnest, I was coming out of a life crisis. This is fascinating. My body knew where to go for help though I was not consciously aware of the role my relationship with horses had had upon my well-being as a child.

Another question surfaced, and the answer motivated me to write this story: Why had I left such an enjoyable, therapeutic activity?

         When I was a teen, my primary riding instructor recognized a waning commitment in me and asked about my intentions. My younger sister and I were sharing penny-copper “Chevy Chase” at the time, and our trainer was poised to find Janice a pony of her own. I confessed that I had lost interest in the performance-training schedule. The practical solution was immediately decided: My sister would continue her training with our pony, and without me. The severing of my connection to the barn life happened suddenly and completely. The first time I grieved this loss was after that initial riding lesson at age 56, with all its sensory, cognitive and emotional awakenings. I climbed into bed that night and wept. For most of my life I did not understand that at fifteen I had lacked the self-awareness and autonomy that I needed in order to recognize shifting desires for how to spend time with my pony, and to assert change rather than quit the sport.

  ‘Knowledge is power,’ or it is a potent opportunity. My time with Buzz came to a close in spring of 2022, and in August I sought hunter-jumper training to pursue a new aspiration, cross-country jumping. In September, I enrolled in a training course which introduces professionals in the fields of mental health, education and horsemanship to the practice of partnering people with horses for mental health services. The coursework includes the time-suspended and mutual relationship-building with horses that I had been seeking and pursuing. I am creating a dynamic collage of equestrian pursuits, and my sense is that with each proactive choice in my riding and groundwork I am forging an enduring horsemanship. Each piece answers a seemingly bottomless longing that is a wonder to me- and I am having a ball! My wish is that someone who is flagging in equestrian zeal will find and follow a flexibility that sustains a life with equine companionship. Maybe too, someone who gave up horses will find the spark that never left, and return- on their own terms.