Horses on my Bucket List

People of all ages often develop a “bucket list” of things they’d like to do some time in their life. I’ve noticed the older we get, the more likely we are to have a bucket list, and yes, horses are on my list! But before I tell you why, I want to share some thoughts about this whole topic. As I began to write this post, I discovered Stanford Medicine has a wonderful resource about the value of bucket lists at their “letter project” micro-site. You might want to start reading at the section called “I Matter Too” where I encourage you to watch a really wonderful short video (3 min.) about one woman’s bucket list.

Now, back to the horses. Some years ago, I was pondering what to put on a bucket list and realized I couldn’t remember ever riding a horse! It seems to me that I’d love to spend some time around horses and to take a slow trail ride on a horse with friends, so I added it to my bucket list. Have I done that yet? Nope, not yet.

In the meantime, my cousin who has a horse (not one that I can ride) gave me a book called Getting in T-Touch: Understand and Influence Your Horse’s Personality. Although the book was published several years ago (1995), it’s a lovely way to learn more about horse personalities and, if you’re looking to get a horse, maybe it will help you learn how to pick one that’s right for you. I enjoyed reading some of the author’s experiences with people and their horses.

She discusses how she connected the work of Dr. Feldenkrais’ method of “awareness through movement” to her work with horses in order to better understand horse behavior, eventually developing her TTouch method. In the book, she describes how horses reflexively respond to misunderstanding, fear, or pain when a trainer is working with them and how often trainers will misinterpret a horse’s reflex and will be harsher with them. There’s lots more in the book, of course. If you’re a horse person, maybe you’ve already read the book or have used this approach. And if you’re a cat or dog person, check out the TTouch website because apparently this is used for more than horses!

Now that I’ve shared that horse riding is on my bucket list, I suppose I need to go find a horse to ride! 🙂