03/21/2025
Respect for the mare!! My farm is 2/3 mares, and I LOVE it that way!
The vitriol that mares experience in the horse world is disgusting to me.
Folks with conscious or unconscious misogyny take their contempt for women, disrespect for their mothers, sisters, cousins, aunties, grandmothers and mutate it into a vile set of principles directed at mares. The the worst part is, that it is accepted in many circles to do so. Even "funny" to some.
It is not funny. Its revolting. Its poor horsemanship. At the risk of being harsh, I will happily say that I think it may put one into a category of bad behaviour. Maybe even a character flaw.
Every horse has a mother. Though horses are not born with innate emotions universally, their first experiences of life become their first feelings, their first emotional states.
It is these first experiences that have formed the backbone of how I train horses, and how I coach kind and respectful horse people to care for, handle and train their horses. We study the FIRST experiences in a horses life, their interactions with their mother after birth. Then, we formulate a very simple but difficult to do and detailed body language sequence exaptating this phenomena into horsemanship. It is almost like regression therapy for a horse. It allows us to understand what is at the ROOT of their life, what is the seed that was planted first? It also allows us to develop a deeply rooted sense of care and nurturance between us and our horses. Before I took it public it was my secrete sauce. I am convinced it has saved me and my horses serious bodily harm more than once. And is the reason I enjoy excellent rapport with my horses.
But then I look behind me, and to my left and right, outside this nurturant bubble and I see people treating mares with the most blatant disregard for their intelligence, power, strength and well-being.
A sexually entire being like a stallion, yet rarely treated with the discernment and focus that stallions are treated with. Many people believe stallions need specialised and competent handling. What about Mare People? Good Mare People have tact, they have communication skills that could bring peace to the middle east, and they have respect and humility in their bones, safe kept there by the mares they love.
They say, a stallion would go to war for you, but a mare would lay her life down in battle for you. I have found this to be absolutely true. And though below my farm window I have a very chilled sausage party mooching around my track system, it is absolutely my dream to introduce mares here in the future. And, I must humbly admit, that until I started owning horses myself, the vast majority of my education with horses was not with stallions or geldings. It was mares. Over and over again. I was raised by mares. If I am good with the dudes it is only because a mare taught me how to.
I want to introduce mareS. Not a mare. Because it is my firm belief that mares need the companionship of other mares to thrive. Keeping a line of stinky geldings in shape is a heavy burden and She needs a Co-Captain in that task. Also, during their seasons, I think they need the support of an equine sister to pass through with dignity.
But I am not ready to have mares on my farm. Not only because my Spanish horse keeping license is limited to 4 horses with the space I have (Very sensible), but because I need special set up to support a mare properly. During her season my mares that are in the future coming to me will have a special mare palace. Not a dark stable of isolation and confinement. A veritable Mt Olympus on my farm where the Stinky Geldings (Her charges) and her second in command are in full view. Her palace will have a deep fresh wood chip bed to rest in. Wind breakers. Ample coverage from sun and rain. An open spot to receive the sun or rain if her body needs those elements. Plenty of open hay. Fresh water, and raspberry leaf tinctured water to support her seasonal pain. She will be offered supplements with naturopathic pain control, and gentle touch massage around her sore spots as her body cycles. If her seasons are so hard that they attack her body and she doesn't know why, she will be offered carefully prescribed and offered anti-inflammatories from my vet until the clouds of pain clear. There she will stand, glorified in dignity and care, in full command of the farm we run for her, but safely ensconced in a locale where she is relieved of duty without being isolated.
That is what she will deserve.
And maybe, just maybe, here on my farm in the future we will see if our mares will want to bring life into this world, and we can walk our talk together with our mares, and raise well-adjusted horses for our students to love. A bit like my c**t Oki, who was weaned at 2 years and 3 months, and is well adjusted, healthy and smart, we owe it to our mares in the future, if they bare life for us, that we take our lead from them, and allow them to raise their offspring properly and fully. Stewarded by our care and support as much as she wants.
I have been blessed in my life to be in touch with the most spectacular women and mares. It has been a revolving door of kick-ass women who have presented themselves as my teachers, friends, colleagues over and over again. And though, I have by pure accident stumbled across toxic women and their bitchiness too, I know that the Patriarchy as we know it hurts EVERYONE. And I set a boundary without holding this against them, and move on.
From my mum, who is actually a genius, to the first friend I made at 3 years old, Ellen, to my girlfriends in high school who loved me even though I was different, to the women who stand with me today, I could never bring myself to disrespect a mare. After feminine energy has shown me only the pathway to happiness from the beginning until now.
Holding contempt or bias against mares just doesn't make sense to me. I have to wonder how far off track someone got to paint their mares with such a disrespectful brush.
They have so much to teach us, so much for us to be grateful for.
