Horse Spotlight: Skye, Our First Therapy Horse

Every herd has a matriarch, and at Zenhorse®, her name is Skye—or, more formally, Scotland’s Midnight Skye.

She’s the only full-sized horse here who isn’t a mustang—and we get asked about that sometimes. But the answer is simple: you don’t leave behind your first partner in healing. Before Zenhorse® had a name or a mission, there was Skye. Wise, loving, and just the right amount of sassy.

Skye is a striking black Quarter Horse with a calm presence and a deep, knowing gaze. She came into my life when she was about five years old. I bought her from the woman who bred and raised her, and it was love at first sight. We had a bond from the start—one of those rare, easy connections where you just know. She was meant to be my riding horse, and we did that for a while, but her hocks were never quite sound. So we adapted. The rides became less frequent, and the companionship more soulful.

When I began training in Equus Coaching, of course, Skye was the first horse I turned to. She had never done anything like it, but it didn’t matter. She was a natural. She met each person with patience, kindness, and an uncanny ability to sense what was needed. To this day, I jokingly call her the Walmart greeter of Zenhorse®—the first to walk over, the first to say hello.

But Skye is more than a greeter. She’s a quiet Master in our Meditation Circles—reading the energy of the group, choosing where to go, who to spend time with, and how long to stay. There was one circle where she spent the entire twenty minutes standing beside a single person. Later, that participant shared they had been carrying something heavy—grief, fear, a knot of emotion they hadn’t been able to release. And Skye just stood there with them, soft and steady, like she’d known all along.

She always knows.

These days, Skye might be the only non-mustang in the pasture, but she is every bit a teacher, every bit a healer. She’s the bridge between where we started and where we’re going. She’s a reminder that some horses choose us long before we know what we’ll need from them—and that the most important partnerships don’t always begin with a plan.

Sometimes, they begin with a look, a breath, and a knowing.

Photography by Michelle Huelsman of Unbridled Focus Photography