Horses have helped Louisa Andrew through some dark times. Now she is giving back to the creatures she credits with making her a better person.
After many years of working with the animals, she recently held two workshops teaching others how to establish better communication and a stronger connection with their horses. Another is being held this weekend.
Andrew says the horsemanship she practises involves understanding what motivates horses and communicating with them effectively. But don't ask if she is a horse whisperer.
"The term's a wee bit of a cliche," she says, standing on the steep but picturesque Otago Peninsula property on which she lives with her partner. "People got that name because they understood horses and that working with them was about body language. So I guess you could say yes. But it doesn't really describe what it is. You're just a good communicator. And you can always get better."
Presenting herself to horses in a calm, relaxed way is crucial because moving abruptly or approaching them too "busily" makes them uncomfortable, she says.
"It's like what they tell you when you go to a yoga class, to be mindful about your energy. It sounds a bit airy fairy and hippyish, but it really is how it is.
"How you present yourself to them comes back in how they react to you. Horses are an emotional mirror."
Buck Brannaman, the inspiration for Robert Redford's 1998 movie, The Horse Whisperer, has told how his perspective on difficult horses could in many ways be understood by his own childhood growing up with an abusive father.
Andrew also had a troubled upbringing. The Dunedin woman was sexually abused between the ages of 10 and 14, embarrassment and shame preventing her telling anyone until she was in her 20s and it became necessary to protect someone else.
The offender went to prison, but not before robbing her of her confidence. Horses, the consistent influence in her life, got her through: "That's where I spent all my time. That's where I was most happy."
At 15, she became a stablehand in the harness racing industry, discovering that she had to harden up to fit in.
"I did love it but there were things I didn't love, being an animal lover," she says, explaining these included young horses that were not fast enough being sent to a Gore abattoir, and horses being given "hidings".
She also witnessed her boss and several other men gelding a horse by dropping it to the ground, tying its legs up and, without administering pain relief, cutting the skin around its testicles with a scalpel.
Although she loved driving at workouts and trials and made some good friends, the last straw was seeing one of New Zealand's greatest racehorses living out its final years in misery.
Kept in a small yard, the horse had become scrawny and aggressive. Leading it to a paddock took two men, one armed with a whip in case it started biting. It would then return to its "dingy" box, hiding there for days on end and tearing hunks of flesh from its shoulders. Andrew suggested it would be more humane to put the horse down, but learned the owner would not allow it.
The 44-year-old says the trainers she worked for were "not bad people". Like her at the time, they did not know to do things differently.
But the "information age" has made knowledge about horses much more accessible and as far as she is aware, little in the industry has changed.
"I've always been open to learning and changing. Some people just don't want to know because it's too hard. I guess that says a lot about them on the inside."
American Pat Parelli practised "natural horsemanship", a philosophy of working with horses based on the animals' natural instincts and the understanding that they do not learn from fear or pain.
After attending a clinic with one of his trainers, she immediately knew it was "the way to go" and that despite the financial implications, she had to close her business.
Twenty years on, she still attends clinics run by a variety of people while making a living from teaching horsemanship, and performing hoof trimming and equine dentistry. Recently she has been competing in a new equine sport, the cowboy challenge, which tests the horse and rider partnership over obstacles. She is also a successful road and cross-country runner, having won seven New Zealand age-group titles, at least as many Otago titles, the Three Peaks Mountain Race and the Luxmore Grunt.
However, immediately after closing her riding school - lacking qualifications and self-assurance - Andrew struggled to find work. The financial toll caused a temporary rift with her mother. She began living with a man she describes as psychologically abusive. Then her 16-year-old brother committed suicide.
"All my friends evaporated because they were threats to [my partner], but my horse wasn't so I spent an awful lot of time with him ... He was really the thing that kept me alive, because life was so awful."
Rains had been weaned too early and this had damaged him emotionally, she says.
"We came together at this time when I was scattered and a complete mess and he was scattered and a complete mess. We were a disaster together. But somehow we kept at it and came through it."
Still with her 27 years later, the horse is only one of 18 on Andrew's Sandymount property. There are also sheep, ducks and magpies - all of them pets - numerous once-feral cats and a blackbird with a damaged wing. She "can't go past things that need a hand".
Jazz, an anxious horse that did not cope well with pressure, spent the first four years bolting whenever she saw Andrew approaching with a halter.
Koha, a wild Kaimanawa horse, would have been slaughtered if she could not be re-homed. The mare had lived eight years without human contact and was suffering from "post traumatic stress" after being separated from its herd and placed into a foreign world of of yards, dogs and humans. Four years on, it will allow itself to be caught and have its hooves trimmed, but Andrew feels it would be unfair to try to ride it.
In contrast, Zefir arrived as a foal and was a "clean slate": the pair share a connection so strong that Andrew can ride her without a bridle or neck rein.
Horses, like humans, can be introverted or extroverted, she says. Some are fearful and reactive. Others seem quiet but have shut people out. Most want to get along.
"If they can stay relaxed and it's not unpleasant for them, they'll pretty much do whatever you ask."
While humans' body language can be abrupt and "loud", horses are much more subtle in the way they communicate with each other. The smallest amount of pressure can seem like they are "literally being screamed at", so riders need to have good emotional control to get the best from them.
The training method she uses involves applying a gradual increase in pressure until the horse responds and when it has done as she has asked, releasing the pressure so it comes to understand what it was she wanted.
"If the horse understands the request, then the amount of pressure you use as you repeat the exercise decreases to a point that it is almost invisible to someone watching."
"With traditional methods - what I [used] before - no real consideration is given to the horse. It's very much `my way or the highway', and if the horse isn't able to understand the request, he is often punished for it."
Before applying any physical cues, she raises her energy by breathing in and "lifting" herself up, she says. Horses respond to the raising and lowering of energy and to the application and release of pressure because that is how they operate around each other.
Andrew adds horses have guided her through difficult times and it is rewarding to now be able to help them.
Working with them has restored her confidence and taught her to be calm and consistent.
"If you're invested in getting better with horses, which I was, you learn that you have to be balanced and centred. So, over time, wanting to be better with horses has made me a whole person."
