Following up on the Which Chinese Element is your horse? blog series, The 5 Elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, And Water. So far I have covered my experiences with my Fire, and Wood Horses in the previous two blogs. In the photo you see Dean enjoying the beach on our annual beach ride clinic. When I first bought Ohana Farm I had made an agreement to adopt a quarter horse named Dean. Dean is about 19 now and needed some help getting his health back in balance. His body showed signs of discomfort and he didn’t really seek people out. However I found him to be a fairly agreeable horse with a good work ethic once he understood what the request was.
After about a year and a half, Dean has come out quite a bit. He learned to express himself a bit more and learned that we want to get to know him and who he is. He is not a particularly social horse and tends to prefer the company of other horses. Part of our work with him has been allowing him to choose interaction with us to build trust and instill in him that he has options and choices.
Once Dean unfolded his character to us. We found our metal horse. A very dutiful horse that isn’t particularly desiring of human contact. He likes to know what his task is and then finds security in that. He has a playful side which came out gradually as we interacted with him. He is basically calm and quiet until his routine is disturbed. Then he can get quite un-grounded and anxious otherwise he is a rock. He likes routine. He also internalizes his anxiety until he can’t anymore at which point he will show it on the surface. Otherwise he is a basically calm, gentle horse when he is balanced and happy with his world.
If you have a Metal horse, know that he can get upset with changes of routine and can internalize stress which can lead to stomach upset and stress. Metal horses process small bits of information easier in baby steps then too much too fast. They can shut down and seem like they can’t connect. They can also be very stiff in their joints and bodies. I helped Dean by adding Turmeric, Higher amounts of Flax, and Ginger to his diet. He also loves Barley Grass and Moringa. They can be a some what difficult keepers sometimes.
Metal horses can find peace in repetitive training and patterns and need quite a bit of suppleness work to help them stay soft in body and mind. They are good horses for people who like to do more repetitive exercises in the arena and patterns. Who’s got a Metal Horse?
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