Susan Glick

Heartsong EquineParadise, PA -

Age 21

Susan Regina Glick was born and raised in a large Amish community in Paradise, Pennsylvania. Her childhood is filled with memories of family and community but her favorites are the ones involving horses and ponies of all kinds. She fondly remembers the many rides she enjoyed on her aunt Susie’s ponies, or the times her daddy let her help drive the buggy horse home from her grandparents. Susan says “I can’t remember a time when horses weren’t a part of my life,” and smiles as she brings up the photo they have of her sitting on a pony as a toddler, before she could even walk. “I have so many people in my life who have a love for horses, and nurtured mine, that definitely helped,” she laughs. “I don’t know if they expected me to go quite this far with it, though.”

How far does she want to go? Not actually that far from her roots, as it turns out. Her passion for all things horse has grown into something bigger than she ever imagined, and although she left the Amish way of life last year, one of her goals is to bring more horsemanship education to the Amish community. “It’s an interesting situation, because horses are the main mode of transportation in the community,” she says. “My family’s horses were always like a part of the family, but not everyone sees it that way. The horses have a job to do. They don’t treat them badly but the general horsemanship and understanding of equine nutrition isn’t what it could be. I’d like to see that improve, and I want to help where I can.”

Susan believes the foundation for all relationships should be connecting by LISTENING, which was the inspiration for her new podcast “LISTEN” -the connection conversations- launching this year!

You can find Susan on Facebook and Instagram under her full name or under her business name, Heartsong Equine.

Get to know Susan and where you can find her!

Equine nutrition and rehabilitation is another area Susan cares deeply about, and plans to complete her Holistic Equine Nutritionist Certification this year. “I’ve had so many horses brought to me as “problem horses” who ended up having some kind of health issue, usually minor, at the root cause of the problem,” she says. “I really want to help bring more awareness to proper equine nutrition, and this will help fill in the gaps in my own education, as well as give me the credibility I need to help in that area.” Even more than learning all she can about equine nutrition and biomechanics, Susan’s biggest passion is learning to connect with horses at liberty. “We’ve all heard that “horses are mirrors” and “horses never lie,” she smiles. “But liberty to me is putting that into real action in our relationship with our horses and accepting the feedback they give us.” Her liberty journey is coming full circle the past few years, as she goes back to perform with Sundance, her heart horse, at the same expos and shows where she was introduced to liberty as a young girl. Susan now enjoys teaching liberty lessons and clinics in her community, as well as traveling around Pennsylvania and surrounding states to teach and perform. mastering the art of open communication in horsemanship

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of horsemanship and horse training? Maybe it’s groundwork, maybe you think of proper care and nutrition, or maybe your mind turns to all the things that happen behind the scenes of preparing for a busy show season. All of these, and more, are a big part of a lot of our lives as horsemen and women. When I think of horsemanship, my first thought is relationship. Any good horse person will focus first and foremost on the relationship they have with their equine partner. To have a good relationship, you’ve got to have communication. Communication only happens when both parties are willing to listen. So much of the time, in training, we focus on what we are telling the horse, what signals are we giving, what can we change so they understand us better. These thoughts are all a good, necessary part of training. But if we focus only on this one part of the equation, the relationship and communication will start to suffer. We NEED to take into much consideration the feedback that our horses are giving us and apply it. If they are telling us we need to change something, and we ignore it, pretty soon one of two things will happen. They will start to shut down and become robotic, or they will react in a much larger more exaggerated way than if we had just accepted the feedback early on.

The exciting part is, once our horses realize that we are being so present and aware that we notice the tiniest details about where they’re at mentally, pretty soon they start to give us a lot more awareness in return. So what does it mean to listen? For me, listening is usually in the smallest things. When I meet a horse for the first time, there is immediately a feeling of mutual respect, and an understanding of basic space and boundaries. For example, the way I approach them needs to be very calm and respectful. If I reach out to pet them and they turn their head away, I take a step back and wait until they initiate contact. Listening to their preferences and respecting boundaries is step one of establishing trust and understanding in a relationship. Once a horse starts to understand that they have a voice and you are aware of, and will respect, their boundaries, they will be much more respectful and aware of yours. A horse who knows what the expectations are is a calm horse and a calm horse is a teachable horse.