About Susan Mishal

Susan started riding in a western saddle at the age of nine, renting horses by the hour at a stable on the Air Force base where her father was stationed. When her father was transferred to Spain, she began taking English riding lessons, first at a stable in downtown Madrid, then at the famous Casa de Campo where many of the mounted bullfighters trained, and finally at La Florida, a small stable in the countryside where the atmosphere was casual and this American girl and her siblings and friends were allowed to hang out and mess with the horses as much as they wanted to. By that time she was reading everything about horses that she could get my hands on, from Walter Farley’s Black Stallion and Island Stallion books, to Vladimir S. Littauer’s Commonsense Horsemanship and Margaret Cabell Self’s Horseman’s Encyclopedia. Littauer’s emphasis on communication, kindness and unity with the horse started Susan on a life-long path of seeking first the fundamental relationship with the horse. Reading diverse ideas at that early stage of her development laid the foundation for later seeing that all true systems of horsemanship are based on the same principles. Excited about what she was reading and experiencing in her own riding, she taught her first riding lessons at age 11, to her friends and siblings.

Through her teens and twenties she rode and took lessons sporadically, at one point getting a few lessons from a member of the Cadre Noir of Saumur, France. She started her own barn in 1975, boarding, training, teaching and even renting horses to the public; feeding, cleaning stalls and cleaning tack. She taught both English and western riding, all levels, and had three instructors who worked for her. She organized shows, playdays, clinics and workshops at her barn. She competed in shows in dressage, hunter/jumper and combined training, and judged schooling shows in those disciplines. Here she watched the herd of up to 30 horses that were turned out together, and learned much about herd dynamics and the nature of horses.

During this 10-year period, and later as a free-lance instructor, she traveled and studied with many different instructors, from all the major schools of dressage. She studied the modern natural horsemanship trainers; she studied many alternative modalities. She also studied many disciplines for personal development, including yoga.

Through all this study and practical experience, she came to see what many horsemen have seen – that all good riding is based on the same principles, no matter what the discipline or system. She also came to understand, again as have many others, that correct movement for all horses is based on the same biomechanics, the same coordination of the horse’s muscle groups, the same basics. Though the goals of the various disciplines are vastly different, no matter how complex the movement, it is always built on the same foundation. She saw that correct biomechanics can be taught through a series of simple exercises, most of which have been around for a long time, if they are done with the appropriate attention to detail. By the late 90’s this evolved into the Yoga for Horses program. The program stresses the theoretical foundation, so that riders come to understand the underlying principles of all good horsemanship; and the practical application, so that riders learn what correct movement looks, what it feels like and how to ask for it. Riders in any discipline, at any level, can use the program, and it complements any other system.

Currently Susan teaches in the central Texas area, and conducts clinics. If you would like information on lessons or how to book a clinic, click here.

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