About Kailie

I do not know how I came to be a horse fanatic. I grew up on the fringe, overlooking bush, orchards and houses, not horses. My parents were not interested in horses, so perhaps my passion was due to the clever bay pony behind the paling fence neighbouring my primary school playground. My friends and I would kick the fence until the pony arrived. He would then climb the bottom rail with his forelegs and reach over the top with his head to take our offerings of grass.

As  the youngest in the class, I observed without comprehension the fascination for horses of the older girls. Then it struck. The obsession. I began developing the personal skills no class could teach, which would help me as rider: a goal (to own a horse), determination (to own a horse), persistence, (my parent’s ears ringing with the monotonous request, “Can I please have a horse?”) and to push on in the face of rejection.

Eventually, on my tenth birthday, I got a bike.

Three months later, I got the furry, opinionated, spirited vehicle I really wanted. The bike lacked key features that made my pony so captivating; the sense of falling when he decided my riding time was up, and the sense of flying that I had when we jumped. He had the ability to cover great distances with speed, power and freedom and always knew the way home. Despite some of his methods of giving me his opinions, he was all the while cute and cuddly.

I did not know I was learning to be independent, courageous, resourceful, considerate, and a trespasser. My riding friends and I thought nothing of taking shortcuts through people’s properties, or exploring the inside framework of a new house from the vantage point of our mounts. Lawn-like nature strips made lovely riding surfaces worth the verbal abuse and we thought nothing of riding down the middle of the road to protect our dog from traffic.

Pony Club added extra diversity, with its mix of activities and theory, to my weekly lessons, trail rides and horse-based play. Diversity at Pony Club was not just in the form of activities, but also instructors, who were all successful in their own fields, but whose methods sometimes diverged. This would create a scandal among the parents, but set me on the path of finding the universal laws that underlie all great horsemanship.

In trying to understand the basis of true unity with horses, I have followed a labyrinth of related, and seemingly unrelated, fields ranging from sciences, teaching, psychology, alternative thinking and therapies, and, of course, different equestrian fields. It also set me on the path of helping to make life better for horses and their people by becoming a professional instructor.

The quest for true partnership with the horse turns out to be a quest to understand oneself. As such sensitive, expressive and honest beings, I allow horses to tell me about myself. They also tell me about themselves, and show me what exists in other people, providing valuable information to guide the lessons I give.

I have found horses to be a window into the world, a way to understand nature through the embodiment of the horse, and at the centre of all equestrians worth aspiring to, is the understanding of self and the nature of the horse.