She’s internationally renowned for her work as an animal behaviorist, with special focus on horse and human interactions. She has lectured in Japan, Canada, Europe and the United States while consulting in countries from Australia to South Africa and the Middle East. She currently directs the Equine Science Institute. Mary Ann has spent more than thirty years working with equines from mustangs to race horses.
An excerpt from the Inventing Your Horse Career CD Series
Mary Ann Simmonds in response to the comment:
It’s amazing how much horses could teach some humans, if they were open to it.
“Isn’t that the truth? Just about how we live in social structures, how we get along. And you know what’s interesting, Nanette, is that the functional qualities of horses, or any social creature, are the same functional social parameters that we look at in humans. How good are you at forming functional relationships and friendships? The horse that has the most friends and is the most functional is usually the leader or the facilitator that keeps the herd together. There are dominant horses, just like there are dominant people, but the social facilitators are the glue in structured society. I think there’s a lot of similarities, which I think is probably why people feel such an affinity for horses. Maybe we’ll talk about it a little later.
“Bringing up the whole women and horse connection, you know I am one of the horse women and work around the globe trying to inspire young girls and women to be empowered and work with horses in a feminine model, a horse woman model as opposed to a masculine model. We relate very different to horses. Back in the old days, when all the round pen boys were chasing horses around in a circle, I was standing out there, doing nose bumps with them. Totally different approach.”