Battling cabin fever - with "Finding Pegasus"

Good thing I love to read - otherwise I’d be crawling up the walls by now. Actually, this is a perfect time to slow down, and really take the time to spend with books that require more attention and focus than say a murder mystery. I had read “Finding Pegasus” by Terry Church years ago, but at the time I was too distracted to really do it justice. Being housebound due to ice and snow this weekend I finally had the time and the right frame of mind to truly appreciate it.

“Finding Pegasus” is based on true events. It is the story of Tara Beacon, a very ambitious FEI competitor and trainer, that also struggles to overcome some serious childhood trauma. After spending a year in Germany with a ‘Reitlehrer vom alten Schlag’ (meaning he had the mindset of ‘the horse must obey at all times by means of force if needed’), she came back to the States with her sensitive TB so disturbed from the experience that she contemplated to retire him.

Through a friend Tara meets Tom Dorrance, an octogenarian cowboy. Tom is considered “the true father of horsemanship”, he mentored numerous well-known ‘horsemanship gurus’, most notably Buck Brannaman, Ray Hunt, and many more. First Tara is confused by Tom’s approach, he doesn’t consider himself a teacher, he never explains what he does, and progress seems to come in sometimes invisible steps to the untrained eye. Tom often uses paths that seem to have nothing to do with the task at hand; for example, Tara is asking for help with the canter pirouette, and Tom has her work on what appear to be completely unrelated exercises on the trail. Slowly, though, Tara recognizes Tom’s wisdom in dealing with horses and humans, and by that he eventually helps her healing, too.

The book really makes you pause and think about our relationships with our horses; and Tom’s wisdom is liberally sprinkled throughout the book. I noted with interest that Tom is quoted in saying “I don’t help people with horse problems, I help horses with people problems” – and that’s exactly what Buck states at a clinic in the film ‘Buck’. Another quote I really liked concerned a horse with quite a few ‘people problems’: “You see”, Tom said, “he doesn’t want to buck or run off any more than you want him to. It’s just that he doesn’t know what else to do in a situation where he perceives danger.”  

It is a very gripping, extremely well written, and sometimes disturbing book (abusive situations). It clearly shows that Dressage and Natural Horsemanship are not mutually exclusive. Au contraire, they are complementary and it shows how combining both will lead to the greatest success.

The story will stay a long time with me, I’m sure. And now of course, I’m on to “True Unity” by Tom Dorrance.