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Commentary from MomCat Hurst
Cathleen Jeanne Hurst • March 21, 2010
A MomCat Story
I'm not completely sure when Christianna (aka at the time “Tina”) saw her first real horse. She played on the bouncy horses in the yard at University of Colorado student housing complex. We had received a new member of our family, a Labrador puppy we named Rufus, and were invited to find other housing as a result. So while her father was away on a football trip for the University, I found a new, dog-friendly home in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado. There were two hundred people living in Jimtown, lots of dogs and lots of horses, ponies and a donkey named Jennie. We also made the acquaintance of Moses, a wild burro who lived in the mountains and was fond of sticking his shaggy head inside our window and announcing his presence with a hearty hello.
Tina met Eyeore, a little pony just her size. Her babysitter would take her riding on Shotzie, a large and powerful Morgan/Quarterhorse. We were celebrities of a sort as Tina's dad was a well-known and successful defensive tackle at the University of Colorado. The boys of the town would come by and see if, "Dave could come out and play football in the street."
Tina decided that it would be more fun to be a horse than a human. She opted for the four-legged even then! We created a horse-house in the corner cupboard area of our large kitchen. We spread straw for bedding, oats and hay for munching, and water for drinking. Later, when her brother David was born she outfitted them both with horse tails from my hairpiece and pinned them on their jammies. One day we went to the post office for an outing and forgot to take the tails off. Two golden-haired, rosy-cheeked children in their parkas were standing at the candy counter with a few inches of tails sprouting below the parka hems. People just looked and smiled.
Every day I heard the same refrain: "Mommy, please get me a horse? I want a horse!" We read the unabridged print of Black Beauty everyday. Cover to cover. I believe she learned to read sitting in my lap as we read, and I'm quite sure she memorized the text. Soon, Tina would put on plays about Black Beauty, feeding me lines as I nursed her brother.
"Oh Black Beauty, you're the most beautiful horse in the world with a tail that touches the ground!" Grammy Capra would be enlisted to repeat the lines, as well as Uncle R and anyone else who happened into our horse fantasy kingdom.
One day, our neighbor Mary Ann gave me some horse magazines for Tina. I said to Tina, "Pick out a horse." She carefully turned each page and then said, "I want this one." She chose Secretariat.
Believe it or not, it is massively difficult to find a farm home that will allow our EAGALA model work in the arena (private use of an arena with horses and clients loose at the same time), and it is even more difficult to find a farm lord that is welcoming or tolerant of the populations served by our organization to be on the property. Maybe this will change as EAP becomes more known and its efficacy more proven, but as of yet not the case. In 2008 when we first started Spring Reins of Hope and were searching for a location to work out of, it took 47 farm visits to find HPEC in Pittstown, so there is was a bit of an improvement because in 2013 we only had to go and scout out 22 farms to find one that would welcome it all. Facility Needed 2013.
The genesis of Spring Reins of Hope, like many dreams, began with a notion, a yearning, and a desire to fulfill one’s destiny. Officially launched in 2009, the road traveled from conception to inception included a few years of researching, training, planning, strategizing, and just plain leaping. As a result experiences developed which produced amazing breakthroughs, synchronicities, and several lessons on faith. No mistaking it, there have been obstacles to face and overcome. Yet there has always been a series of consistent signs, or clues guiding toward the visionary goals ahead. When the road became adverse, there did appear a path that may have seemed out of the way, yet yielded another light at the end of the tunnel. The main driver always came back to the work. The witnessing of how Horses help us to navigate life from a deep inner wisdom of knowing what is right for us, or not. In 2006, founder Christianna Capra (“CC”) discovered Eagala (Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association) through her beloved retired event horse, Spring Thaw, who had become chronically ill with Lyme disease. After two years of conventional drug therapy, this slippery illness led us to the internationally respected holistic veterinarian Judith M. Shoemaker, DVM of Always Helpful Veterinary Services in Nottingham, PA. Indeed after 8 months of a regimented sequence of herbs, homeopathic tinctures, oxygen therapy, acupuncture, and immune supports we did cure our Lyme disease problem! Dr. Shoemaker also pointed CC in the direction of The Eagala Model by indicating that this horse (once he was well) had another career ahead of him, he wanted to become a healer and a teacher.
