“In some ranches, horses are treated like a bike you pulled off the rack,” laments Mike Christensen. He’s wearing a dog-eared cowboy hat and has a salt-and-pepper beard. “They don’t even know the horse’s name and degrade it to a vessel of transport,” he adds, shaking his head. “Here, we teach you how to build trust.”
Standing beside him is Monty, a horse the brown colour of autumn leaves. With the bridle hanging in his palm, Mike makes gentle clicking noises with his tongue and a barely discernible beckoning motion with his fingers towards Monty’s flank. He’s not touching the horse at all and yet, slowly, the steed starts to tip-toe in a circle around him. “Riding the horse is the least important thing. It’s connecting with them that’s key,” he explains. “I don’t want to sound too ‘hoodoo voodoo’, but it’s as much about energy as any physical pressure.”
Mike is the wrangler at Echo Valley Ranch & Spa, a 160- acre ranch with 30 head of cattle on British Columbia’s Cariboo Chilcotin Coast. The area is home
