Equine Leadership
OVERCOMING FEAR By: Kasey Thompson, U.S.A.
There she was, my dear wife of 20 years, Jennifer staring straight into the flared nostrils of an animal she had feared nearly her whole life. My 7-year-old bay quarter horse, who moments earlier was bucking and running with all the excitement of the whole wild west, ran right at her, slowed from a gallop to a trot, to a walk, and stopped cold only a few inches from Jennifer’s nose. It was then that something magical happened that changed her life and mine. Moment’s earlier the bay became spooked by a hose, that in his mind was a venomous snake, and he wanted nothing to do with me or anything that resembled captivity. His triggered selfpreservation instinct was pumping adrenaline through his huge muscles as he ran from what he believed to be a life-threatening situation. The most interesting and inexplicable event was that my wife, with her fear intact, decided to walk out towards the charging horse due to what she explains as, an urge to help another scared and troubled soul. There was an emotional, burning call for help sent from the bay’s heart and mind to Jennifer’s that translated loosely to, “Help me and I’ll help you!” How did these two beautiful creatures compartmentalize their fears and find each other in an exquisite moment of
February 2021
compassionate concern? That was something I had to know. My horse reached deeper inside my wife’s psyche than any human effort had reached in her previous 37 years of life. Where did the untapped strength and courage to approach a charging animal originate - and why? Jennifer had been through it all as she was abused as a child, a victim of multiple sexual attacks in college, and a life long sufferer of depression. These events and others caused her to live her life in fear. Horses were just one more terrifying thing in her life. But that day she felt empathy for this previously frightening animal and reached out, because she knew the pain caused by fear and wanted to help.
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