I’d like to introduce you to Sophie – she is a thoroughbred. What this means, is she was trained hard and fast at a very young age in the hopes that she would win big races. She was pushed to her limits, and this started taking place when she was just a year and a half old. To give some context – a horse’s knees aren’t fully formed at that time. Even horse trainers in the UK and Europe will wait to run a horse at full steam until they are 3.
When it became clear that Sophie wasn’t going to win the Kentucky Derby, she would have been put down – but a nice family took her in, and she was ridden by a young girl for a few years. Sophie had a job, and she was good at it. After a few years, that girl became a teenager, and she lost interest in horses, and in Sophie.
Because of this, Sophie became depressed. Without her "person", she developed a fear of abandonment. When I first met her, she wouldn’t even let me touch her. Grooming with a brush would cause her to take her front hoof and dig into the ground – a nervous “twitch” she does whenever she feels threatened. She’s difficult to ride, and often bucks people with the stress. Lynn Diettrich, who owns the farm where Sophie is boarded, said all horses need to know they have a “purpose.”
“When a horse knows their purpose, they show up with pride,” she said. “They know they are helpful and useful. Sophie needs a routine. She needs to know she matters.”
I’m a very inexperienced rider, but I’ve been making a point to go and visit Sophie whenever I’m at the farm. As a trained reiki practitioner, I perform energy work on her whenever I get the chance. Now, when I show up in her pen, she not only lets me touch her with my hands, she leans into me as if she’s saying “Thank you.” Her trust in me builds with each visit.
On a recent day, I spent a lot of time sending energy to Sophie before I even went out to see her in the field. I pictured beautiful healing light all around her and as I saw myself looking into her eyes, and I said with my mind, “I love you. You are safe.” When I walked out to the field and approached her, she trotted towards me, and put her nose right up to my face with enthusiasm. (A very unusual move for most horses, but especially Sophie.) She then took her cheek and leaned it up against mine. I could hear her breathing into my ear. Her mouth was in my neck and her head was pressed into the side of my face. We sat like this for a full minute, which seemed like an eternity. It literally brought me to tears. She then let me hug her neck and I proceeded to do more energy work on her before leaving for the day.
