Learning from Horses: Why Are Horses So Powerful?

06/27/2023
By: Wendy Millet
Reading time: about 2.5 minutes

There are many kinds of programs around the world where people interact with horses—from riding and participating in sports events to programs that emphasize physical and mental rehabilitation, help people learn mindfulness, heal from trauma, or increase leadership and teamwork skills.

At TomKat Ranch, our herd of equine friends has a range of ways they partner with our team. They graze areas that need their particular grazing style to reduce fuel loads for fire protection. They take us on rides and help us move cattle from one pasture to another.  They help our staff and visitors learn “horse sense” from basic horsemanship to patience and clarity to leadership and teamwork.

In our leadership and teamwork programs, no riding is required. Rather we use a series of on-the-ground exercises to facilitate learning and awareness. The horses are experts at reading body language, a skill they learned over thousands of years in the wild. It allows them to pick up on emotions, intentions and words as each manifests as energy in the body, i.e., body language. The horses read intentions and actions from a human just as they read the intention of a herdmate or mammal around them. 

Though people may initially feel uncomfortable being close to a horse due to its size and power, within a short time their tone typically changes. Participants report a range of positive feelings including a greater sense of confidence. Others thank the horses for helping them re-discover connection and purpose, or celebrate new levels of insight, clarity, and well-being. Many joke about taking a horse home to their office or backyard, as visitors have been deeply affected by their interactions.

How does Horse time impact us so much?  

Thanks to studies by the Heart-Math Institute, we are starting to understand intellectually this phenomenon which horse people have known intuitively for as long as horses and humans have worked as partners. According to scientists, a human’s heart rate pattern, blood pressure and stress level may decrease in the presence of horses thanks to the electromagnetic field of the horse’s heart, a field five times larger than that of a human’s heart.

The “coherent” heart rate that emanates from a horse’s heart influences the oscillations of our human heart rhythm. In the presence of a horse, our heart rate becomes more consistent as our heart matches theirs.

In last fall’s newsletter we shared our goal to expand our equine programs as we believe the lessons from the horses have so many applications for the human “herds” who visit us. This year, we (and the horses) have worked with climate & food system advocates, funder networks, health care providers, indigenous leaders, impact investors, ecopsychology researchers, and even an ag-tech company.

“Horse Time” always provides rich content for the groups to discuss, including subjects such as teamwork, connection, attunement, mindfulness, and how the horses react to us as fellow mammals on this precious planet.

For more information, check out:

The Human Herd
The Power of the Herd
Science of Coherence | HeartMath Institute
Heart-to-Heart Communication With Horses | HeartMath Institute