Girl on the edge

Im breaking my wordpress hiatus to share a incredibly moving and true story based on a teenager who through the powerful intervention of equine assisted therapy overcome abuse and exploitation through social media. It demonstrates how equine therapy reaches people on so many levels.

The trailer can be viewed here:

www.girlontheedgethemovie.com

Film Review:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-i-sederer-md/girl-on-the-edge-a-film-review_b_9684160.html

Girl on the Edge, was written by  Joey Curtis (“Blue Valentine”) and Directed by  Jay Silverman (Co-Creator of A&E’s “The Cleaner” with Benjamin Bratt).  The film stars  Taylor Sprietler,Peter Coyote, Gil Bellows,  Elizabeth Pena, Amy Davidson, Mackenzie Phillips and Amy Price-Francis.

SYNOPSIS:

GIRL ON THE EDGE is the powerful true story of HANNAH GREEN, a teenager struggling with the aftermath of a horrific trauma caused in part by social media, and the old wounds from her childhood that it reopens. Despite her resistance, she is sent away to an oasis of healing called “Maheo” that uses innovative techniques like equine therapy to empower its troubled girls. 

With the help of an eclectic group of mentors, peers, and a bond with her horse Betsy, she starts to invest in her own recovery and overcome this powerful rite of passage.

In the UK the film can be purchased on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06W53BRX1/ref=dp_mv_of_dp_1/261-9892319-8823522

Now I don’t ever share things like this, well there haven’t been any mainstream ones, apart from the “Horse whisper” which was a story of strength, struggle and healing but for horse and human. But this movie parallels so many girls stories of how they came about equine therapy and powerful it was for them in their own journey of healing.

 

 

 

Biscuit and team Horse Resource

So its been a long time since we posted on here, as we have been busy developing the business and building the website ready for the now completed move to our new home in Devon. Bye bye London hello country life! We are super excited now that our website is fully working and the link is http://www.horse-resource.com. Find out all the information on our retreats, holistic horse rides and kids unicorn parties as well as our personalised special needs programmes which is the core of what we do but is helped funded by the parties and horseshoes!!

The MEDIA section on our website is directly linked to our instagram, now “horse resource” but previously “biteofbiscuit” and is updated several times a week with all the action from team HR. The team now consists of 4 horses, 3 of which are rescues/projects who were in need of rehabilitation and some TLC. Jay and Biscuit predominately do the ridden therapeutic horsemanship with the new girl Florrie 9year old (14’3 cob x Coloured) and Rocko 7year old (16’1 ID x WB Bay) who is for me to develop to Event as well as use in the ground work and grooming sessions.

Biscuit has been a busy boy and had his 1st “Unicorn party” at our new site last week with great success. This has followed on from a busy year for him between therapeutic horsemanship programmes for his private disabled clients, visiting the Learning Through Horses Equine Assisted learning centre to partake in there groundwork programmes and having lots of adventures with the HR team. We have loved our time in London and working for Learning Through Horses and Strength in Horses, and have been very excited to take on all the knowledge shared by the empowering team of ladies who were qualified in fields such as psychotherapy, art psychotherapy to osteopaths; seeing how they each utilised their own brand of equine therapy.

Biscuit is an absolute joy to work with, always engaged in whatever activity you do. He makes us smile on a daily basis with his funny quirks and cheeky nature. He especially loves a tickle and rub and is so perfect for the therapeutic horsemanship work as he is genuinely interested in all the people who meet him and has such a knowing nature. His schooling has progressed to him strutting around like a show pony on the flat, popping around a 2’9′ SJ courses and flying around the XC field up to 3″!! His next step is to be used for driving of disabled people in wheelchairs, his training for which is coming along brilliantly, he loves to strut up front on the long lines so its just a case of waiting for a suitable trap to come along so we can get going!!

Last of the september sun

So it has been about a year since the beautiful Biscuit came into my life, and what an awesome year it has been.

I have loved every second of working with him. He brings a smile to my face no matter what. He has also made sooo much progress that I couldn’t be prouder of how he is turning out- from a feeble, scared, scarred and nervous pony to a content, calm and cheeky little man.

We have had a year of many ups, the odd down but more importantly he has been making progress the whole time.

A year after beginning work with him from scratch, he was petrified of being touched let alone anything else- I now have an all rounder who has been able to brighten up the lives of many children and adults all ready. I love the fact that he loves people so much, he wants to be involved in everything and loves a good old scratch.

Most importantly he has the easiest nature to work with, apart from getting quite frisky in the field with the ladies he is a pleasure to work with in hand and ridden.

He has already taught 2 children how to trot and been able to participate in lessons at other stables and settle right in. I am able to hack him out alone or in company which when I think of how nervous he was of cars, lorries and bikes its an incredible achievement. I also love how well he gets on with my big boy and how easy they are to work together on the ground.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have Biscuit in my life and cant wait to see where we will be in another years time! Hopefully he will have a competent little jockey to enjoy taking him out for PC activities as well as being in equine therapy and THR lessons.

School Holiday madness

Apologies for the long period of inactivity- I have had a wonderfully busy, diverse school holiday period.

Bath time

We ran our 1st Social horse camp for adolescents with Autism at the “Edge Stables’ ran by Strength in Horses and Learning Through Horses charities. I am a program co-ordinator for Learning Through Horses and had a brilliant time helping with the summer programs.

The social camp was a success, with a markable improvement in confidence, self esteem and decision making by the end of the week. The course involved a mixture of horsemanship skills, equine therapy ran by Dr Jemma Hockley and instruction based activities as part of equine assisted learning all designed to benefit the participants cognitive, emotional and behavioural functioning.

I have also been really busy with Biscuit who has come on leaps and bounds. He has had a busy summer with lots of friends and their children doing different activities on him. I am also super proud of him as I took him to his 1st show yesterday- Barnet Lane- to do clear round jumping.

He was such a star and took the show environment in his stride and was great in the jumping ring. He was slightly nervous when Jay left him, as we had hacked them down together, but soon got the hang of it.

It was quite a tight course and he still struggles to collect and work round the corners so we missed a few jumps the 1st time but he wasn’t spooked by any of the jumps and went round clear the 2nd time : )

He was responsive and listen well to my aids, coming back to trot in the corners so we had straight lines- he tends to lead with his shoulder round corners so it can be easy for him to drift past a jump unless he is brought back to trot and rebalanced on the corners. He was really so easy to get round though and should be a perfect pony for a child to do pony club activities on as well as equine therapy!

I am trying to give him as many experiences as possible so that new situations and people don’t effect his performance. I look forward to getting him out to XC training soon to!

Whats your desire?

Wise words by the awesome Alan Watts, with a fittingly horsey theme!

Click on the image for the full comic strip… which brilliantly depicts my desires.

Source (The spirit science)

Whats the point in doing something for the sake of it, for the sake of money. Spending your whole life chasing something when you could have it all along. If you take the leap of faith, everything will work out and you will be immensely happier than if you didn’t even try.

The wonderful month of July

Apologies for the online inactivity- July has been super busy with the children I work with now on school holidays and me being on holiday at the beginning of the month : )

Biscuit had a gentle two weeks whilst I was away apart from a few schooling sessions with my instructor and gentle hacks with my mum. He has been pretty full on since then though…

July with its warm weather and light evenings have meant all my friends suddenly want to come and ride the boys!!

So they have had lots of beginners or friends who used to ride tootling around and out for hacks with me!

Both Jay and Biscuit are always so gentle with beginners not doing more than they are asked.

Biscuit has had two little jockeys who had their 1st trots on him this week which was sooo nice to see!!

Since my holiday both the horses have been spoilt with new saddles and all new tack in Jays case!

He had the same 2nd hand saddle for 10 years which I get re-flocked every 6 months and is great for jumping but makes me slouchy when schooling! It now feels like I am riding a new horse and I cant wait to get him out to some competitions! I am also super excited by my sparkly new hat!!

Here are a few photos of Jaybe looking smart in his new tack!

I never manage to get any good photos whilst riding so was really happy to have a friend who was snapping whilst on Biscuit!!

London pride

Who’s a pretty boy? 

Biscuit has been getting into the swing of things in support of Gay pride 2015… its London pride today with the parades heading through central London starting now!! I look forward to joining in the celebrations later in full fancy dress in support of the LGBT community… Love and Light ❤