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Hello, this is 6 Minute English
from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.
And I'm Georgie.
Neil, have you ever ridden a horse?
Yes, I have.
I can't say that I enjoyed it much.
I was a bit scared to be honest.
How about you?
I used to ride horses a lot actually.
My favourite thing was to ride
a horse through the countryside.
I love horses.
They're so majestic and lovely.
The relationship between
humans and horses
has been close throughout history,
but recently this has gone beyond
riding horses for fun
or using them for work.
Equine Assisted Services,
sometimes called horse therapy,
is a health trend
where caring
and interacting with horses is used
to heal physical and mental illness.
Here's Datshiane
Navanayaga, presenter
of BBC World Service programme
The Conversation, to explain:
Equine Assisted Services is now
an umbrella term which encompasses
a whole range of treatments,
involving activities and interactions
with horses to promote
better human wellbeing.
Equine Assisted Services is an umbrella
term – a term for a large number
of different things which all belong
to a single common category.
So, horse therapy includes
many activities,
from feeling the horse's movement,
which can help children
with muscle disorders
like cerebral palsy,
to simply grooming the horse,
which can help calm anxiety.
Grooming a horse means cleaning and
brushing the horse's coat of hair.
Various animals can be used in therapy,
but horses are particularly suitable
as they're very sensitive
to human emotions.
Being in contact with them
affects the limbic area of the brain,
dealing with stress.
In this episode, we'll hear more
about the horses helping people
work through mental,
emotional and physical challenges.
And, as usual, we'll learn
some useful new vocabulary.
And remember, you'll find all the
words and phrases from this episode
on our website,
bbclearningenglish.com.
But now I have a question
for you, Neil.
We've heard some of
the special qualities horses possess,
but which of the following
about horses is also true?
Is it: a) horses always sleep standing up,
b) horses can make over 100 sounds,
or c) horses have
almost 360-degree vision?
Well, I'm sure
I've seen a horse lying down so...
I don't know about its vision though,
so I'm going to say
b) a horse can make over 100 sounds.
OK. Well, we'll find out the answer
later in the programme.
Horse therapist Claudia Nicholson
first felt the healing power
of horses as a child.
She now runs her own centre
for Equine Assisted Learning
in the south of England,
where she spoke with BBC World
Service programme The Conversation.
I would spend hours on end
sitting in a stable with my pony.
I was going through puberty,
my parents had separated,
I had a lot of unanswered questions,
and I would feel met and safe and
held with the connection of the pony.
As a child, Claudia spent hours
on end with her pony.
Phrases like days
or hours on end
mean days or hours
doing something continuously,
without stopping.
Spending time with her pony
helped Claudia through puberty –
the stage of life
when a child grows into an adult
because of changes in their body
which allow them to have children.
It was her teenage experiences
that led Claudia to start
her own horse therapy centre.
She works a lot with teenage girls
and children in care.
A child in care is a child who's being
looked after by the local authorities
because they cannot be cared
for by their parents or family.
Here, Claudia talks more about
her work with children and horses
to BBC World Service's
The Conversation:
It will take maybe a few sessions for
a relationship of trust to be formed,
and it's quite extraordinary to see
a child that's experienced a lot
of trauma,
especially these children in care.
They can be brushing the pony's body.
They might want to have a cry
which they've been holding on to.
The horse regulates them.
Many of the children
Claudia works with suffer trauma.
It takes time for them to build
a bond of trust with their horse.
The phrase, bond of trust,
is a strong feeling of reliance
and confidence between two people.
Horses really are special animals.
They sense human feelings like fear
or sadness
through breath,
heart rate and movement,
and respond with gentleness and calm.
This makes
them perfect animal therapists.
And that's not all!
Right, Georgie?
Let's find out the answer
to your question.
Yes, Neil. Well, I asked you
which sentence about horses was true,
and you said that horses can make
over 100 sounds...
Sadly, that was the wrong answer.
The correct answer was c) horses have
near 360-degree vision,
which is surprising.
Wow. That's amazing!
OK. Let's recap the vocabulary we've
learned, starting with umbrella term –
a term used to describe many
different things which all belong
to a single common category.
Grooming an animal,
like a horse or a dog, means brushing
and cleaning its coat of hair.
If you do something for hours on end,
you do it continuously,
without stopping.
Puberty is the stage of life
when a child grows into an adult
because of changes in their body
which allow them to have children.
A child who is in care is being
looked after by the local authorities
because they cannot be cared
for by their parents.
And finally, a bond of trust is
a strong feeling of reliance
and confidence between two people.
Once again, our six minutes are up,
but remember you'll find a quiz
and worksheet for this episode over
on our website,
bbclearningenglish.com.
See you there soon,
but for now it's goodbye.
Goodbye!
Vocabulary
Word 1 of 15majestic
word
0:29
"beautiful, impressive and dignified."
More Listening Practice
About this lesson
Find out how equine therapy is being used to help people with physical and mental health conditions in this 6 Minute English episode.