Patsy Devine teaches natural horsemanship without fear or intimidation, writes Shirley le Guern.
In worldly terms, it’s hard to work out exactly what the vibrant and inspiring Patsy Devine, founder of the Triple-H Horsemanship Centre, does. “I’m an artist and a horseman,” she replies. But you sense there is so much more.
“I teach people to teach horses, dealing with them completely holistically in the truest sense of the word, seeing to their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. People generally leave out about three of the four. They deal with horses physically, but they forget about the rest,” she explains. People come to her usually when there’s a problem – a performance or behavioural issue. For example, recently she helped a horse that was too terrified to get into a horse box.
Whereas many would consider force or even drugging a non-complaint animal, thankfully more and more people are looking for better solutions.
Patsy’s mantra is to teach horsemanship without fear or intimidation. Although, for the most part she does include equipment, her ultimate ideal is to embrace what in true horsemanship is known as Liberty – training a horse with no physical connection between horse and rider. This hinges on the human’s “inner picture, inner feeling”, which is a very powerful tool.
Closely linked to this is helping people who are mentally, physically and emotionally impaired. It is widely known as equine facilitated therapy (EFT) and closely linked to equine facilitated learning (EFL).
“I have a lovely workshop menu available to the corporate world to improve teambuilding and communication skills. I pair people with specific horses. It is fascinating to watch the transformation,” says Patsy. She also mentors and coaches people who compete, and is presently working with the KZN Equestrian Federation developing a program for advancing equestrians’ skills sets.
“One family with which I have been working has progressed from never riding in any competition to the point where one member came ninth in her category nationally. Both sisters are competing this month in the KZN dressage championships after only four shows. This is despite the fact that they only ride once a week,” explains Patsy.
Another example is Cape Town art student, Dina Frey, who is excelling at her Liberty training despite the fact that she only gets to ride her horse during holidays. Patsy describes the connection between her and her horse as “mind-blowing.”
When not working directly with her own horses or with clients and their horses, Patsy is an accomplished painter. She accepts commissions for human and animal portraits as well as murals from across the world. As part of a highly creative family, art has always been in her life. So it was a natural progression for her to go to art school and build her career as a graphic designer and illustrator.
Ultimately she moved away from her career in the corporate world to pursue her passion for horses, which had begun at the age of three during her childhood in the Zambian bush. “By that time, I was competing quite a lot in show jumping and dressage. I loved the dressage terminology where they used words that described horses as ‘happy athletes’. I was doing well, but I still couldn’t agree with some of the things that I saw happening,” she says.
Looking down from her home that is perched on a green hillside in Drummond to where her horses gather at the dam for a drink, she recalls how her sister, who she describes as “the wind beneath her wings”, sent her a video of the very beginning of what is now known as Parelli natural horsemanship. A buzz word in the mid-90s, this softer and kinder way of training horses was pioneered by American horseman Pat Parelli.
It was something of an ah-ha moment for both. “I realised that this was what I needed to do, and that I had to bring it back to South Africa. So I started learning. During my second year, I realised that I needed to qualify as an instructor. We were doing things through a fax machine. If you wanted them to see your work with a horse you had to video it, put it on a whopping cassette, keep one copy and send one in the post. It was really hard,” she recalls.
Patsy qualified as the first Horsemanship Australia instructor outside of that country and went on to expand her knowledge across the world.
But there was a great deal of change in the world of natural horsemanship and, together with many of her teachers, she broke away to add more to her skillset.
Now, years later, she remains in touch with her Australian, French, American and Spanish instructors and mentors. She says that her influencers – Karen Rohlf, Frédéderic Pignon and Magali Delgado from the south of France, Philip Nye in Tasmania, Mark and Debbie Rodney and Minolo Mendez – have transformed her life and are now part of her moral fibre.
“For instance, when helping the horse that is terrified of getting into a horse box, I ended up talking to the owners, telling them not to be afraid. I heard Philip’s voice saying, when fear subsides, curiosity takes its place and I shared this with them,” she explains.
The name for the brand that she has developed – the Triple-H Horsemanship Centre – comes from a book she read and loved as a child, known as Horse Heaven Hill. “My maiden name is Hill. When we bought this hillside property and built here, we realised that it had a very special energy about it. Horses get well here and their people get healed here,” she smiles.