Dusk’s lavender shadows dimmed the wintry day. Women from a local domestic abuse shelter crept inside a small barn brandished with sign that read Medicine Horse Center. The women formed a circle along with two horses, a therapist, and Lynne Howarth, founder and Executive Director of Medicine Horse.
“They started telling their stories. Heinous stories,” Howarth recalls. The women spoke of abusive relationships fraught with violence. The horses listened, ears swiveling. Steamy breath plumed from their nostrils. Their massive bodies loaned solidity and strength to a sore, vulnerable moment.
Years later, Howarth ran into one of the women from that night. Once shattered, she was now radiant and healthy. “I’m so glad to see you,” the woman said. “I need to tell you that my time at Medicine Horse was so powerful for me that I had the courage to step out of the relationship totally.”
Since its founding in 1999, Medicine Horse Center has helped thousands of adults and young people discover their best selves by developing a relationship with horses. Individuals who visit the ranch (now in Mancos) will spend 70% of their time with a horse or horses; however, they will not spend any time riding a horse.
“So one of the reasons we don’t ride is that you have all the power and control and the horse has no choice,” explains Karen Finch, one of two full-time therapists employed at the ranch. “To me, connection is the energy when you feel valued, heard, and seen and you get to decide for yourself and control yourself. Here what we try to focus on is can you try to groom that horse, can you halter that horse, without any power and control; it’s all at the horse’s choice.”
School trips swarm the Center for much of the year. Staff witness how, in a two-hour visit, children who struggle to regulate their emotions blossom. Drug addiction. Corporate team building. The ranch plays host to diverse groups, big and small, as well as individuals in need of trauma or addiction recovery. In 2023, Medicine Horse served 648 people—with a scrappy nonprofit crew of five people, five horses, and one mini-Shetland pony named Bronco.
Goldie, Disco, Chitsa, Indi, and Quinn—the horses have their own backstories and traumas. Some had to be surrendered when their prior owners fell on hard times. Others were rescued from pharmaceutical laboratories. However, their current sanctuary is under threat. By 2028, Medicine Horse Center must purchase the 14 acres where its facilities have grown over many decades. The Center’s annual golf tournament fundraiser in Cortez is scheduled for August 24th, 2024 and anyone can contribute the ongoing capital campaign anytime. Howarth hopes the community will give back in big ways to these horses that give their whole hearts to healing people.
“The human heart weighs anywhere from one half to three quarters of a pound, but it projects a measurable electromagnet field about three feet out from the body,” Finch says. “The horse’s heart is nine to 11 pounds—ten times bigger than ours—so they are projecting this incredible electromagnetic field. When those two fields collide, that’s the energy part. That’s why standing in a horse’s presence can have a calming effect.”
“It’s that kind of magical connection that makes this Center unique,” Howarth adds. “And it’s not really magic. It’s how horses connect. We’re the ones who have to learn that process.”