Landy Peek (00:34)
I've been drawn to wild horses since I was a little kid. I think a lot of humans are. There's something about them that taps into something deep inside people. Perhaps it's the freedom, the power, the beauty, the instinct. From as a kid watching the Brumbies and the Man from Snowy River to watching Spirit with my own kids.
Wild horses have always carried this feeling of an untamed aliveness. And I think part of why they fascinate people so much is because most humans spend a good part of their lives trying to tame themselves. Welcome back to the Landy Peak Podcast. I'm your host, Landy Peak.
And first of all, excuse the voice, I'm getting over a cold, so I sound a little bit rough today.
This summer, my daughter Tegan and I have joined together and signed up to train a wild Mustang yearling. So a yearling is a horse that's about a year old.
I am documenting our journey through the podcast. I will also be sharing videos and pictures on social media so you can join me as we go through this experience. So I've never trained.
a wild horse before. I've never trained a horse from untouched to being able to be haltered, lead, groomed, feet picked up, all of that. So this is a really new experience for me, as well as it's feeling like it's really stretching me in new and hopefully fun ways. As long as I can remember, horses been woven into my
I grew up in a teeny tiny town in Montana. My dad was a veterinarian. I think there are pictures somewhere of me where my mom is holding me, bottle feeding me while she's on horseback. I spent years growing up on horses and riding.
And in my 20s, I became a therapeutic horseback riding instructor working with humans with disabilities on horseback. And I really saw and understood the relationship between horses and humans at a deeper level. I watched the magic in other people that I had felt for years. Horses help regulate people. There's this connection and...
non-verbal communication that goes through. Horses can soften people and challenge people and 100 % they mirror people. And I felt this my whole life, but as a therapy and a course back writing instructor, really got to see the magic in so many other people. But then life happened, kids happens, moves happened, careers happened, and somewhere along the way, horses slowly faded into the background for a season of my life.
Now being back in Colorado, reconnecting with horses, I'm volunteering with horse rescues and getting my kids into the horse world, it's been really a fun thing for me to see. And my daughter especially has fallen in love with horses. So if you were a horse girl and you fell in love with horses when you were little,
And I love that I have a horse girl ⁓ because it feels really special because it is such a huge part of my life. This summer, we're doing a mustang challenge through the Wild Rose Mustang Advocacy Group here in Colorado. And about two weeks ago, 10 yearling mustangs from Devil's Garden, California arrived here in Colorado. They're currently in quarantine before being paired with trainers for the summer.
Now the really cool thing about this program is that the trainers, none of us are professional trainers. There's youth trainers, there's adults who have very limited experience with horses, adults like me who have a lot of experience with horses but have never really trained. And so really excited to be able to have this experience.
Tegan and I got to be there as they came off the trailer from California. So I will share that video on Instagram and Facebook. And some of these horses were born wilds and they were born out on the range in Devil's Garden. they were rounded up in and around fall of 2025.
Others in this group were born to wild mares who were already in holding facilities and they're essentially untouched. These horses have not grown up around people. Typical domestic horses have moms that know people and grow up around people. They've been touched from an early age. These are truly wild yearlings. And there's something that's really fascinating to me about
wild mustangs with my nervous system lens. Because as I have loved horses and felt horses and seen the magic with horses, I'm now coming into horse experience in my midlife with a different lens where I am a trauma therapist and I have done a lot of nervous system work. And it really is my focus.
to support people around the stresses and struggles that we have in life.
These particular yearlings come from Devil's Garden, California. And so they were born into survival-based environments. And if not them, their mamas were born into survival-based environments. It's high desert terrain, it's harsh winters, horses live in herd dynamics, they need constant environmental awareness.
Their nervous systems are incredibly adaptive because they have to be. A wild horse survives by staying connected to their instincts, their awareness, watching their herd mates,
Those relationships, trusting someone else to also be aware so they can keep the entire herd safe, allowing at times some of the herd to be very vigilant while others of the herd could actually rest. And so it's an interesting space. And as I really work with the human nervous system, I have seen how disconnected so many
People have become from those very same things within us. Our nervous systems and a horse's nervous system are not that different. But in humans, we've learned to override our exhaustion, the tension, our intuition, and what our body is trying to say in order to keep functioning in our existing life. But wild horses don't do that. They respond, they move, they pay attention.
and you cannot fake a presence around a horse, especially not a wild one. They're watching our subtle cues, changes in our breath, tension in our body, looking at pressure, how close we are, how far we are, where our attention is. And while we may say we are calm, they know the truth.
And one of the things I found so magical about working with wild horses through Wild Rose Advocacy Group is that they are a true mirror. And when somebody is tense and somebody has stress, they pick it up and you see their reactions to it. Now, domestic horses also have this ability, but a lot of times domestic horses have been taught to override just like humans override.
wild horses respond to what is actually happening inside of our bodies, not what we are pretending. And it's incredibly humbling when I'm working with a horse, especially we had the opportunity to work with a wild horse who was very, very sensitive to see the feedback in real time and what's going on in my system, in the other systems that are around that horse, in my daughter's system.
And I think part of why horses can feel so incredibly grounding for people is because they are raw and real. We don't have to perform. Horses attune to us and we have the opportunity to attune to them. It's really connection based, which is where we are as humans too. But often we let our own stories get in the way of
Is it okay to attune with somebody else? Attune meaning that we are connected. We are seeing and reading accurately each other's responses and we are honoring those. And so many times we put pressures on ourselves to kind of turn down or ignore what we may see or feel. And horses are really honest with us. A horse does not care.
productive you are, how successful you are, how articulate you are, how good you are at appearing calm while internally spiraling. They care whether you're actually present and it makes a big difference. Their behavior is different when you're present and when you're not. It's that automatic mirror. This has really been coming up for me especially in a world that feels
and moves so fast. And in a world that people feel very disconnected from themselves, from nature, and from that relational presence. Horses, I think, started as an escape.
for me in midlife is something that I really craved in bringing back. And it was a way that I felt my truest is when I'm with the horse. So it's something that I really wanted to bring back in my life and in my kids' lives. And really watching them with the horse is magical because that is where they are feeling their most authentic selves as well. And
The opportunity to join the Mustang Challenge through Wild Boat Advocacy Group presented itself, and it was something that I didn't even have to think about for myself. It was an automatic, yes, I want to do this, and I will figure out how. Because when you're filling out the application and it has like, where are you going to keep your horse? And I'm like, I don't know. I live in the city. Can't live in my backyard.
All of the different things that felt like little barriers were things that I was really willing to work through and aligned so quickly and easily for me. I was a little bit more hesitant to bring in my daughter. And while she has volunteered with me and she's been around wild horses, ⁓ it was a little bit scarier to say, okay, we're going to do this together. But she was persistent and did her own work to be able to join in this challenge. And I'm extremely proud of her.
for the work that she's done to get here. So the challenge actually begins in June.
Now the challenge itself runs through the summer and ends with a showcase where each trainer demonstrate what their mustangs have learned before they become available for adoption. And I think one of the coolest things with the wild rose challenge is most of the people doing this are not professionals. There's a youth division for kids 10 to 17, which I absolutely love because kids can learn so much through horses.
that cannot be taught any other way. There's such, and just watching my daughter and working with horses, learning confidence, patience, awareness, body awareness and other awareness, emotional regulation, trust, connection, there's so many things that a horse just naturally teaches us. Tegan and I are doing this together as a duo team. She's 11 and I'm excited to be able to really pair it with her.
And I think it's going to be stretching for both of us in really good ways. And we're going to be spending a lot of time together because this is time intensive. I'll have her on the podcast throughout the summer so that we can share what this experience is actually like in real time. And because we're working with a wild horse and this is new for both of us, I'm sure there's going to be highs, setbacks, moments that humble us moments that surprise us.
And I know this is going to be a lot more than just training a horse. It really is an honesty that's gonna teach us and as we're learning about our own systems.
I'm really excited to see how this experience changes both Tegan and I and the progress that we can make with a horse. I think horses have a lot to teach humans right now. And so this summer, I'm taking you along for the journey, for the ride with me and my daughter Tegan, as we dive into training a wild Mustang.
So each week's episode we'll talk about what we've learned, what we've done, how we've managed things, and bringing in kind of that nervous system perspective and life perspective. And so for me, being my more type A personality, it is pushing me to be a little bit more
comfortable with the unknown because as I'm committing to doing this at the get-go, I don't know how it's gonna go and I don't know what's gonna come up but we're gonna share it all with you. So you can follow along here on the podcast. Next week I will have Tegan on. We're gonna talk about what it's like to be in and around the whole herd of horses.
the 10 horses, and I are lucky that we also are volunteering and so we get to go in with the horses and muck and feed. So we got a little snapshot around the personalities. Now with part of the challenge is that we put in our top three pecs each trainer.
put in our top three picks for which horses that we want. And then we are assigned a horse. So we don't get to just pick the one that we want. And so next week I'll have Tegan on and we'll talk about the experience of being around them, the experience of watching them come off the trailer for her and I, and which horses that we are crossing our fingers that we get. And then the following week I'll let you know who we get.
Each week I will share the goods, the bads and the uglies around training a wild horse in Colorado. So I am so glad that you're here.
I hope you join us for this incredible journey as we train a wild Mustang. I want to thank you for being here, for showing up, for doing something good for you, I want to wish you all the happiness that today can bring, and I will talk to you on the next episode.
Speaker 2 (16:10)
Hey, before you go, just a little bit of legal. This podcast is designed for educational purposes only. It is not to replace any expert advice from your doctors, therapists, coaches, or any other professional that you would work with. It's just a chat with a friend, me, where we get curious about ideas, thoughts, and things that are going on in our lives.
As we're talking about friends, if you know someone who would benefit from a conversation today, please share because I think the more that we open up these conversations, the more benefit we all get. So until next time, give yourself a big hug from me and stay curious because that's the fun in this world.
