hearts at a gallop… minds at rest
smiles in the saddle
Noelle Al Yagout (above) has been providing a service for autistic children and young adults, significantly enhancing their quality of life through horseback riding. With her specially-trained mare, Busy Bee, she transforms often withdrawn and unresponsive individuals into smiling,
confident riders.
or thirteen years Noelle Al Yagout has been providing a service for autistic ildren and young adults, significantly hancing their quality of life through rseback riding. With her speciallyined mare, Busy Bee, she transforms ten withdrawn and unresponsive indiduals into smiling, confident riders. The ining on horseback doesn’t just bring out better balance and posture, it also eatly improves social and communican skills. Noelle points out that this is a rect result of the very special relationip between the horse and her riders. mily members invariably report on how e riders’ personalities blossom and ove all, how they learn to have fun. That’s why Noelle turns up at the unting and Equestrian Club four times a eek, in the winter cold and summer heat, d leads her riders around the quiet back ea of the club’s premises, in the shade of sty tamarisk and eucalyptus trees and ross an open sandy field. She knows om experience that with every hoof-print the sand, the rider’s condition is proving. Early on this sunny April morning there still a pleasant tinge of coolness in the r. Noelle allows Busy Bee to graze on a tch of grass and tiny yellow wildflowers fore leading her over to a small corral. he riders and their teachers have arrived. hey are from Abeer 2, a voluntary team r the mentally disabled. Most of the enagers are now experienced riders and ve been coming to her for the last eight ten years. Only Hamed is here for the ry first time and he’s looking a bit prehensive. Noelle notices this right away and reasres him, “Don’t worry, you just watch e others first.” Sixteen year-old Essa steps onto the ounting block and quickly swings himlf up into the saddle with Noelle and a acher standing on either side of Busy ee. Essa is one of her best riders and is ger to go outside the corral. “Do you ant to go to the mountain?” Noelle asks m. The “mountain” is a big sandy hill on e far side of the grounds. Riding up and wn its fairly steep sides is good for proving balance and is an interesting allenge for a rider like Essa who is quite comfortable in a sitting trot.
As we walk briskly towards the “mountain” Noelle explains that Busy Bee can sense how much each rider can do, intuitively going into a nice easy trot with Essa but taking it more slowly with less accomplished riders. “Busy Bee used to be a professional show jumping horse,” says Noelle. “Sometimes when I ride her she really likes to show she has her own mind, but with the children she is always gentle and well-behaved. She has a great connection with each individual child. She also used to be a bit of an introvert but now she loves people.”
Giving Busy Bee plenty of loose rope, Noelle runs up the slope, makes a wide turn and runs down again. She does this several times with Essa clearly enjoying the horse’s faster pace. “You like the trotting?” Noelle asks Essa. He answers with a big smile, making the V for victory sign with two raised fingers.
Noelle lets Essa and Busy Bee trot in wide circles, then slows down and walks back across the field to the coral. Nineteen-year old Ammar, the next rider, is already waiting eagerly for his turn. Noticing the camera, he happily poses while Noelle fastens the chin strap on his helmet. Up in the saddle, he poses again, giving the thumbs up sign with both hands. “Ammar is very outgoing, quite extroverted, and very bright,” Noelle notes.
This time she takes a different direction upon exiting the corral with Busy Bee and her rider. As Noelle leads them up and down a shady lane, Ammar chatters away in a language of gibberish only he, and perhaps Busy Bee, can understand. But it’s not necessary to decipher any words in order to know he’s happy. When Noelle pauses for photographs Ammar hams it up for the camera, repeatedly giving the thumbs up sign and looking very pleased with himself.
According to Noelle, the horse and her autistic riders established an immediate and very beneficial connection. “Autistic children usually get on very well with animals. Since they have trouble communicating with words and animals express themselves without words, they’re somehow able to understand each other. And the surprising thing is, all my autistic riders develop riding skills very quickly.
Within two months maximum of coming once a week you can see a huge improvement. Since I started the program I have also witnessed amazing behavioral changes in the children, some more spectacular than others, but all for the better.”
As Noelle leads each of the boys around the spacious grounds of the club, her method of therapy looks deceptively simple. But you can’t just put a disabled child on the back of a horse and expect positive results she explains.
“First of all, you need a very special horse, one that has learned to be absolutely calm and completely trustworthy, as the safety aspect is paramount when dealing with the children,” she says.
This is where the unique method of equestrian training practiced by Noelle plays such an important part. Back in the summer of 2000, she came across the Parelli Method of Natural Horsemanship Education while surfing the Internet. Developed by a man named Pat Parelli who lives in Colorado, it is a holistic approach to horse training based on developing a natural relationship with one’s horse through understanding his or her nature and looking at the world from a horse’s point of view. The aim is to achieve success without force, partnership without dominance, and harmony without coercion. With this gentle method, the horse wears a rope halter rather than a painful bit and behavioural problems are solved naturally, without punishment.
An experienced rider, Noelle is the veteran of several local endurance races. Riding in a sixty-kilometer race, the mother of four grown up children beat most of the younger riders to finish second. But throughout her long equestrian experience she always felt there must be a better method of training than the conventional horse and master method. There must be a way to create a relationship with these intelligent creatures based on trust, safety, and mutual respect.
While on holiday in her native Switzerland, Noelle was able to take a course in the Parelli Method of Natural Horsemanship and realised this was exactly the type of horse training for which she had been searching. When she returned to Kuwait she began practicing it with a mare she had at that time named Ginelli, and she found it made perfect sense to both of them.
“We developed a language between us that enables her to feel completely comfortable with me and to easily understand and heed any requests,” Noelle says.
The next summer Noelle returned to Switzerland and completed the next level of Parelli training . Back in Kuwait she continued working and making progress with Ginelli. One day she met a group of autistic children from Abeer 2 who were on a field trip to the club. After seeing how happy they were when they had a short horseback ride she knew immediately that providing rides for special needs children was something she had to do.
When she contacted the directors of Abeer 2, Noelle received an enthusiastic response. She told them she would get in touch when she was ready. For the next two years, the minimum time suggested by Parelli to prepare a horse for such a program, Noelle and her mare trained diligently. Finally the head trainer from the Hunting and Equestrian Club checked Noelle and Ginelli’s skills and gave them his approval.
When the Director of the club, Sheikh Thari Al-Sabah, gave Noelle the green light for the project she called the ladies from Abeer 2 and her long-awaited project began. “I’m very grateful to Sheikh Thari for his steadfast support in this venture. I really appreciate him giving me this opportunity,” Noelle says.
Like Busy Bee, Ginelli and the children made an immediate connection in spirit. Always gentle and intuitively responsive, she was the perfect horse for the project. But tragedy struck in 2011 when Ginelli was kicked by another horse while they were in the paddock together. Noelle spent nearly a year of intensive effort trying to rehabilitate her but Ginelli never recovered from her broken patella. When Ginelli began to be able to lay down again, she suffered a secondary injury due to her condition. She fractured another bone in her leg while trying to get back up. This necessitated a swift decision to have her put to sleep as there was no hope of treating this injury.
“I sat next to her for a few hours, talking to her and telling her what a wonderful horse she was and what an amazing job she had done. I told her that now it was time for her to rest, to go to a better place. I had called the vet but I asked him to come later in the day, when the club was quiet. By the time he arrived I could feel that Ginelli was ready and she went very peacefully. She was 23 years old and had a good life,” Noelle says.
In the beginning, when Noelle began training Busy Bee, she could often feel Ginelli’s presence, as if the gentle mare wanted her legacy to continue. “Busy Bee wasn’t quite sure of what was expected of her at first and she was sometimes a bit hyper, but then she would suddenly become really good and it felt like Ginelli was there in spirit, telling her what to do. Now she’s capable of doing everything all on her own,” Noelle says.
Back at the corral, the teachers tell Noelle that Hamed wants to try riding Busy Bee. But when they put the helmet on him he begins to tense up. “Just touch the horse,” Noelle tells him, stroking Busy Bee herself. He pats the horse’s neck but won’t get onto the mounting block. “Afraid,” he says looking down at the ground.
“Never mind,” Noelle tells him. “That was good, you touched the horse. Maybe next time you can ride.”
He goes back to sit on a chair in the shade and the next rider, Abdullah, approaches. “One thing we never, ever do is push them. We always let them do things at their own pace,” Noelle says.
Abdullah, at 35, is her oldest rider. He walks with his shoulders hunched and his eyes downcast but when he mounts the horse his movement is smooth and graceful. “Abdullah is slow but he is a good rider. When he’s on the horse he has a confident demeanor,” Noelle says.
Yusef, in his late teens, is the next rider. “Yusef has been coming for many years and was a very good rider from the beginning. He is also very smart,” Noelle says as she leads the horse and rider down the shady path.
When the boys first come to Noelle for horseback riding, some of them have bad habits, like spitting or kicking and shouting, but she is easily able to discipline them by stopping the horse. “When we stop the ride then they realize they’re doing something wrong and they soon stop doing it because they want to continue riding,” she says. “The staff from Abeer 2 always say that the kids are so happy when they tell them it’s horse riding day. That’s really nice to hear.
“Well I guess we’re done for today,” Noelle says as she leads Busy Bee and Yusef back to the corral. But Hamed is standing at the mounting block with one of the teachers and he’s indicating he wants to ride. Noelle smiles. “I was wondering if that might happen.”
“You want to get on the horse?” Noelle asks him. Hamed nods and Noelle and the teacher give him a gentle push into the saddle. He sits up straight and smiles for the camera. His teacher tells him he’ll be able to show the picture to his mother who will be so proud. Hamed looks very proud himself. But then Busy Bee takes a step backwards and Hamed is obviously unsettled.
“It’s ok, you did a great job Hamed!” Noelle says. “That’s enough for the first time. Next time you’ll ride more.”
Noelle and the teacher help Hamed off the horse. He has regained his composure and walks back to the other riders with a huge smile on his face. “Those few minutes sitting on the horse were an enormous achievement for Hamed,” Noelle says.
“A lot of the boys have some fear but they force themselves to overcome it because they know that riding is a wonderful accomplishment. It takes courage but it’s a good feeling and they want to do it again and again.”