Taos Equestrian Center
Where Horses are Healers
By Jai Cross
Published: Thursday, November 15, 2007 10:33 AM MST
Located in Des Montes, the Taos Equestrian Center hosts many exciting and instructional horse-related activities to the residents of Taos County. It offers riding lessons, boarding facilities, training programs and an innovative new equine-assisted psychotherapy program. Here, participants can learn, practice and enjoy jumping, cross-country riding, trail riding and Western-style riding.
Katherine Pettus has owned and operated the Taos Equestrian Center for the past four years. “We are the only local barn that provides teaching and training in addition to boarding,” she said. “We have several well-trained lesson horses and offer classes to children through adults, beginners through advanced riders. Last summer was our best season ever, and this year might be even better.”
Summer is the center’s busiest time, although some of its hard-core young, female students ride year-round. Many of its regular clientele are returning riders who rode as children and then waited for decades to get back in the saddle. People tend to retain their basic skills, although they often benefit from help in refining their techniques.
The teaching method that Pettus most often employs is a synthesis of yoga, breath work and classical training, which is especially successful in regaining former riders’ confidence. Her former instructors reflect her current approach, including a former Peruvian cavalry officer and Linda Benedick who has authored three books on yoga and riding.
“I was blessed with fine teachers,” Pettus recalled. “I rode constantly until I was 17 and then sold my horses when I attended an Australian university. I went as far as I could go with graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in political science, writing an academic text on the disenfranchisement of felons in America, working several jobs and raising kids. I returned to riding in my 40s, finally doing what I wanted to do my whole life.”
The Taos Equestrian Center contains several large and well-maintained facilities on 4.7 acres. The main barn has six large stalls, but the resident horses and boarders are usually turned out during the day in the spacious paddocks. Pettus built her house adjacent to the barn, a testimony to her commitment to the horses in her care.
The dressage arena is a covered, all-weather open-riding area. Dressage is a gymnastic training method for horses, which improves their suppleness, balance and willingness to perform. It is an increasingly popular sport in New Mexico and is an Olympic event. The Taos Equestrian Center will host a New Mexico Dressage Association schooling show on April 15, which is expected to foster even greater local interest.
The center’s latest specialized activity is equine-assisted psychotherapy, an internationally recognized short-term, solution-focused intervention. A therapy team conducts this experiential, interactive therapy: a licensed mental health professional and an equine specialist. Specialized activities on the ground serve as the foundation for the therapeutic experience. During these activities, the therapy team helps clients to understand their communication patterns and relationship dynamics. Each session allows for direct observation of behaviors and patterns, and can be a powerful adjunct to traditional counseling. As intelligent social animals, horses are honest, which makes them especially powerful messengers.
Pettus explained, “The reactions of the client to the horses and the horses’ reactions to the client demonstrate problems in relationship as well as in thought patterns, feelings and behaviors. Clients discover new, more effective solutions to the challenges they face in each session and in life.”
Recent research suggests that equine-assisted psychotherapy is an evidence-based, mental health intervention that demonstrates clinically significant changes in decreasing negative behaviors, while also increasing positive behaviors with at-risk children and adolescents.
Taos Equestrian Center primarily works with two local licensed therapists in its equine-assisted psychotherapy sessions. DeAnn Hall, MA, LMHC, is an equine specialist who has worked with drug addiction, adolescents, grief, and child-centered play therapy. Sally Warnick, MSW, LISW, has more than 15 years of clinical experience working with individuals, couples and groups.
“This therapy brings up buried feelings that are not easily accessible,” said Pettus. “It is especially effective for difficulties in articulation, as may occur in victims of physical and sexual abuse or in children dealing with grief or bereavement. I want to be able to provide this healing modality to veterans and their families. Coming home from war can produce post-traumatic stress disorder that impacts the veteran, their spouse and their children.”
“The center received a grant from a private foundation for trainings to become qualified and then to offer sample sessions to individuals and couples,” she continued. “At this point, we are looking for a benefactor or individuals who believe in equine therapy and can support it monetarily. I would love to see the Taos Equestrian Center help to heal the wounds of war.”