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Article published in the Borrego Sun, 25 Mar. 2004, by Tom Gorton.

"Horses are therapists in equine-encounters program"

    Blaze, a young gelding that was abused as a colt, is working out some of his problems in life at Sandra Thorpe’s Smoketree Institute and Ranch in Borrego Springs. Despite his own difficulties, however, Blaze isn’t too busy to give a little love or sympathy to one of the three coeds who stop by regularly from Borrego Springs High School. They come here every Monday morning as part of Thorpe’s new “equine encounters” therapy project. The program is designed to help students understand themselves and how their thoughts and actions affect others. The horses are the therapists. “Today’s lesson is sending out loving, kind energy,” Thorpe tells the students as they sit in a circle discussing their assignment.

    Mary, who bred and trained horses in Romania and is now working with Thorpe, also attends the morning briefing, along with a school-based counselor who occasionally helps with the project. “The horses pick up the energy you send out, and give something back,” Thorpe explains to the girls. “They want to help and will if you give them a chance.” Today’s lesson is a visualization exercise. Thorpe wants each girl to sit alone on a barrel in an open corral with five geldings and try to visualize love. Briefly explaining the seven spiritual charkas in yoga philosophy, Thorpe describes love as having a white or purple aura. With the students hopefully sending out an intuitive message of love, it will be up to the horses to respond. The girls are instructed not to physically contact the horses until the geldings make a move toward them. “Let’s see if it works,” Thorpe says, and the students take seats in the large corral.

    The kids are participating in this program because they are facing adjustments, domestic or personal challenges, according to the counselor. One student, for example, is having trouble adjusting to her recent move to California. Blaze responds to her almost immediately, approaching with some apprehension and then nuzzling and playing with her. “So far, this program has been really cool,” the student said after her third encounter. “I don’t have a horse of my own anymore, and this reminds me of being home in Washington. Today, it has helped me forget the bad morning I was having.”

    Another student who has worked at Smoketree as a volunteer, has done some trail riding and has gotten close to one of the stable’s mares, Ember. “It gets me away from the house and gives me a place where I can escape,” she said. “I think it is helping me get more focused.” 

   
    The third student appears to have the most problems connecting intuitively with the horses. Perhaps picking up her worries about her handicapped baby sister, the geldings refrain from approaching her. But after a few minutes, one of them approaches, then another. Having befriended a mare named Dolly, the student admits “there is something that goes on psychically with the horses. “This is a place where I can escape from everything. It helps me cope.”

    In an earlier encounter using “Horse Whisperer” Monte Roberts’ “join-up” approach, each girl sat in a small pen with Dolly or Ember and attempted to become a herd of two. The students were introduced to the program by bonding with the horses through grooming and touching. Thorpe, a veteran teacher and administrator who helped launch an arts-based charter school in the San Diego Unified School District before moving to Borrego, said her basic goal is to teach the three “C’s”: creativity, communication, and compassion through equine encounters. After developing the pilot program this year, she said she wants to make Equine Encounters available to the entire Borrego Springs Unified School District. Thorpe said she is also trying to develop a sponsorship program so that financial aid can be offered to students who would benefit from this kind of therapy.

    "I think this program is incredible,” Mary said. “I think it’s going to break new ground in therapy and help a lot of kids.” Thorpe also plans to make other educational experiences available at her Smoketree Institute, including equine encounters for seniors 50 and older.

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