The Art of Therapeutic Horsemanship: Communication, Choreography, and Collaboration in Equine Therapy

ABSTRACT:This article questions the idea of "equine therapy" and explores the communication occurring between horses and humans in the equine therapy encounter. The choreography performed by horses, riders, as well as the staff and volunteers who facilitate lessons often appears to simply happen, with human-horse partnerships occluding the layers of trust and collaboration that go into the functioning of an equine therapy facility. I argue that horsemanship, particularly "therapeutic horsemanship," is the foundation of what makes the therapy space a safe and productive environment for both horses and humans. Through fieldwork conducted at an equine therapy facility in eastern Pennsylvania, this article asks: How do horses participate in the equine therapy encounter? How can equine therapy be used to think anthropologically beyond the human? And what happens when non-human animals like horses inhabit the position of ethnographic informant? Through the breakdown of therapeutic horsemanship at a high-profile international horseshow, this article draws attention to the successes and failures of horse-human communication in equine therapy. Attending to therapeutic horsemanship as a form of communication provides new ways to imagine the work of thinking together, across species and beyond words.