Over the years we have had horse people come from quite a distance to spend a little time with our program to learn how we do things. Last week was different from all of those visits. Dashka Otgon, who grew up in a nomadic herding family in Mongolia came down to share her culture, and her culture's horsemanship, with my riders.
She is a brilliant young lady. She teaches English in Mongolia. She wants to bring American tourists to Mongolia to experience the lifestyle of one of the few horse cultures that still exists on this planet. The nomadic herdsman of Mongolia must rank among the most accomplished riders in the world. However, such great riders do not require well trained, gentled horses.
Dashka had never seen horses as gentle as ours. She had never seen horses that had such a strong need to be with people.
She had never seen natural horsemanship in action.
She watched as we despooked nervous horses and got in the round pen with Ta Sunka Witco, our great Colonial Spanish horse of Karma Farms breeding who is the grandson of Choctaw Sundance. She is excited to share what she saw with her brother who has about sixty horses.
She stumbled onto something that will make her plans of a tourist experience for Americans easier to achieve. She saw how much safer natural horsemanship training can make horses.
This caught me by complete surprise. When we arranged for Dashka to visit I thought about all of the things that our program participants could learn from her. I never envisioned her bringing something as important as natural horsemanship home to Mongolia.
1 comment:
Wow!I have been fascinated by the people and horses of Mongolia
ever since I read The Horse Boy and worked with Rupert Isaacson in a clinic. This is a wonderful exchange of learning. Janice Camp
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