Equine Learning Munster

Equine Assisted learning can facilitate you or your child or team to focus on developing these key competencies which are vital for socialization and development.

Emotional Intelligence Core Competencies;

Self-Management: Managing emotions and behaviors to achieve ones goals ; including learning the signs of stress and developing appropriate stress management strategies, increasing patience and perseverance and positive regard for self -care

Self-Awareness: Recognizing ones emotions and values as well as ones strengths and weaknesses. We ask participants to reflect on the pony’s behaviours in the arena in order to facilitate a conversation on what self-awareness means to the participant.

Responsible Decision making; Making ethical constructive choices about personal and social behaviors; we also refer this as risk management as we are seeing an increase in children who are unable to manage real risk due to virtual reality games and over exposure to technology ; i.e. walking up to a horses in a video game in a dangerous manner has no consequences for the child playing the game .In the arena, we teach responsible risk management personal safety and boundaries where risk is tangible. For safety of participants, risk is monitored by a personnel designated to manage the equine(s) and the equine learning facilitator.

Relationship Skills; Forming positive relationships working in teams, communication , give and take ,compromise and so on are key life skills that all persons need to develop and they cannot be attained in a real manner on face book , snap chat etc because there is no opportunity for real tangible interactions . In the arena we set team tasks with the participant and their EAL pony so issues that emerge in relation to non-verbal communication , assertiveness , confidence etc. can be addressed in a experiential facilitated manner


Equine Assisted Learning originates from Animal Assisted Therapy. In the 1970’s research showed that war veterans working with horses helped the recovery process from trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Interest peaked in its benefits and further research showed that Horses, being a herd animal are highly sensitive to picking up on human emotions.Recent research by Hannah Louise Burgon ( 2011)confirmed its benefits. In effect, horses mirror human emotions with their behaviors.

In an Equine Assisted Session ground work is completed by the participant and the horse (s)..there is no horse -back riding involved.Basic horse safety is taught prior to working with the horses.



Safety in the Arena and working with horses ;

We expect all participants to wear regulation head gear , which we will provide you with and to dress appropriately for sessions including wearing durable outdoor footwear and clothing , wearing suitable gloves for leading exercises , wearing no jewellery and following staff instruction. We reserve the right to stop a session at any time if the participant or horses welfare is at risk.
In advance of all planned sessions, a meeting is held with the designated Equine Handler and the Equine Facilitator to discuss the selection of a suitable equine for the participants with respect to their age and level of ability. We only select horses and ponies that are older and or retired from mainstream equestrian activities. For more information, please phone us on 087 1525956