A10 The SpokeSman • TueSday, auguST 16, 2022
Horse gentler teaches students to train young
horses rescued from Warm Springs Reservation
BY JOE SIESS
CO Media Group
A
group of ten students from
around the country and from
different walks of life, traveled
to a ranch in Redmond last week to at-
tend a weeklong horse training work-
shop from Anna Twinney, a renowned
horse gentler from North Carolina.
The class took place from Satur-
day to Friday, at Safe Acres Sanctuary
in Redmond and involved training,
or gentling, feral horses rescued from
the Warm Springs Reservation by the
Warm Springs Horse Network.
Most of the young foals came to
Redmond terrified, and had never
been touched by a human. The train-
ing will ensure they adjust to humans,
acclimate to domesticated life and
eventually find their forever homes.
The method of training taught by
Twinney is about connecting with the
horse in the horse’s own language, as
opposed to more conventional meth-
ods of horse training which tend to be
rougher and perhaps more traumatic
on the horses.
A flick of the ear, a slight bending of
the leg, a lowering of the head, and a
gentle approach, are some of the ways
horses communicate. It takes time to
gain a horse’s trust, but for Twinney
and her students, it’s all about learning
to communicate with the horse on the
horse’s terms.
“We’ve misunderstood them, we’ve
misinterpreted them, and we’ve taken
away their freedom,” Twinney said of
the rescued horses. “What drives me is
that interpretation, what drives me is
to show the truth of how they’re feeling
physically, mentally, emotionally.”
Twinney, who is originally from En-
gland, has dedicated her life to work-
ing with horses and teaching others
how to properly interact with them.
She has traveled the world teaching her
methods, in places like Singapore, New
Zealand, China and Morocco.
In Redmond, the progress the young
horses have shown in the course of
the one week class is admirable, and it
was clear that Twinney’s students were
profoundly moved by the connections
they had developed with the foals.
When Diane Holmes of California
first started the class on Aug. 6, the
closest she could get to young Peaches,
a four-month old foal, was eating
lunch outside of her pen.
Then, nearly a week later, on Aug.
12, when Holmes enters Peaches’
pen, the horse dips her head and ap-
proaches slowly. With eyes welling,
Holmes sings softly and rubs the
horses head. A powerful connection
has been made.
“Anna’s way of gentling is so beauti-
ful. It is a dance that we learn to do to
the rhythm of the foal,” Holmes said.
“We learn their language, and we re-
spond to them, we thank them over
and over, any time they do the least lit-
tle thing we close our eyes and thank
them.”
“It’s cracked open my heart, I spent
half the time here crying,” Holmes
added of her time in Redmond.
Vicki Bennett of Safe Acres Sanc-
tuary, a nonprofit dedicated to rescu-
ing horses in need of sanctuary from
abuse, neglect, or facing the slaughter-
house, said part of the purpose of the
class is introducing the young horses,
all of which are untouched mustangs,
to humans, and training them for do-
mesticated life.
“It’s hard in the beginning of the
dean guernsey/Bulletin photos
CLOCKWISE, FROM ABOVE: Anna Twinney, horse gentler, praises Hawk, a wild mustang at Safe Acres Ranch in Redmond;
building a strong bond is critical while training wild mustangs; Peaches, a wild mustang, plays with Twinney’s hat during a training session;
Twinney and Katie Dixon prepare Peaches, a wild mustang, for the farrier.
week, most of these babies couldn’t
even look at us. They were terrified.
They had lost their herd and lost
their mother. Some of them are three
months old,” Bennett said. “And now
they’re going to come up and greet you
at the gate and be curious to meet you.
And so that’s our goal is to help them
transition from all of the loss to finding
value in their new life and in domesti-
cation and where they’re headed.”
Emily Sabatella, an elementary
school teacher from New York, said
working with horses and learning from
Twinney has improved her ability to
teach children, as she is more in tune
with herself and others. For Sabatella,
it is about entering into a partnership
with the horse, but first that trust must
be earned.
“There’s this understanding that
these horses are so intuitive and so sen-
sitive, and so willing to be partners if
we can listen to them, and understand
their language,” Sabatella said. “And
when we take that time to really hear
them and know their language, they
partner with us in this profound and
intense way.”
Britt Keele, a contractor from North
Carolina, drove across the country to
Redmond for Twinney’s class.
Keele said he came to the class after
he adopted two mustangs from the Ce-
dar Mountains in Utah and realized he
needed to learn more about them.
“I thought I knew something about
horses, and I realized I really don’t
know anything,” Keele said.
“I started from scratch and started
searching for who would be a good
trainer/mentor.”
That’s when his search led to Twin-
ney and her methods which attracted
him given their gentler approach to-
ward training horses.
“That’s what she teaches, that’s what
drew me to her. It’s not a training mo-
dality, it’s a growth model. It’s a growth
mindset,” Keele said.
Keele spent the week working with
Annabelle, a highly intelligent horse he
said took a lot of time to gain her trust.
He said when he took his first class
from Twinney in October, he found
that working with horses helped him
develop his emotional intelligence.
“I told her at the end of the month
that I went there to work on my horse-
manship and I ended up working on
my humanship,” he said, “You learn a
lot about yourself standing in front of a
horse…learning with them.”
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jsiess@bendbulletin.com, 541-617-7820