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When the Equines Hear What You Don't Say: Suzanne's Conversation with Scott McLean

Updated: May 4


Our founder sat down with VetsConnection Podcast host Scott McLean — a 10-year Air Force veteran and the founder of One Man One Mic Foundation — to talk about how horses, donkeys, and ground-based work change the lives of the people who walk into the paddock


Suzanne MacPhail has spent more than thirty years sitting with people in some of the hardest moments of their lives. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, an EAGALA-certified equine-assisted learning practitioner, and the founder of Hands for Healing Equine. She has watched the work she does change people in ways that traditional talk therapy sometimes cannot reach.


In April, she sat down with Scott McLean — host of the VetsConnection Podcast and founder of One Man One Mic Foundation — to talk about why.


"Horses can hear your heartbeat from four feet away," Suzanne told Scott. "They know when you're kind. They will actually seek you out when you're kind."

This is not a metaphor. It's biology. As prey animals, horses and donkeys evolved to detect threats at a distance — long before a predator is close enough to engage. Their entire sensory system is tuned to read posture, breathing, micro-shifts in muscle tone, and yes, the rhythm of a human heart.


What that means in practice: when you walk up to one of our equines, they already know more about your nervous system than you do. They aren't judging it. They're just responding to it.


Why ground-based, not riding?

Suzanne is a Massachusetts-licensed riding instructor with fifteen years of teaching under saddle. She knows the value of being on a horse. But the work she does at Hands for Healing Equine takes place entirely on the ground.


"As a trauma specialist," she explained, "I wouldn't be able to talk to somebody who was trying to figure out how to ride a horse."

Riding adds a layer of skill, attention, and physical risk that pulls focus away from the relationship between human and equine. Ground-based experiences strip it back to what matters: presence, communication, and trust. It's also more accessible — no athletic ability required, no fear of falling, no learning curve to overcome before the work can begin.


The student who hadn't said the words out loud

On the podcast, Suzanne shared a story with Scott about teaching a graduate-level trauma class. She would bring her students to the farm. She would put them in the paddock with the horses. And the horses would do what they do — read what was actually present, regardless of what was being said.


"I had a student disclose sexual abuse for the first time in her life," Suzanne said. "It wasn't a therapy role. It was an equine-assisted learning situation where these students could go out and realize that maybe they should sit on the other side and see a therapist."

Equine-assisted learning is not therapy. But it is, frequently, the thing that helps a person realize they need it — or that they're ready for it.


Meet the herd

Suzanne walked Scott through the four equine partners at Hands for Healing Equine. Each came to the work through a different door, and each teaches differently.



Momma

Momma is a 12-year-old retired standardbred — a former cart racer with a steady, patient presence that makes her ideal for first-time visitors.

Sophie

Sophie is a retired Argentine polo pony who came to the program when her owners decided she'd earned her retirement. She's elegant, attentive, and quick to read the room.

Poe

Poe is a six-year-old donkey, born on Easter Sunday in 2020. He's verbal, expressive, and — like all donkeys — exceptionally intelligent. Together, he and Suzanne help clients work on patience, focus, and slowing down.

Autumn

Autumn is a 13-year-old hinny — a horse father, a donkey mother — who shares paddock time with her BFF Poe and brings a steady, observant presence to the herd.

What's coming next

Suzanne and Scott also discussed Hands for Healing Equine's future 8-week veterans pilot program — a ground-based equine-assisted learning experience. Scott, a veteran himself, is now the president of our board and is helping us shape the program from a perspective that no facilitator alone could provide.


Their full conversation covers Suzanne's path into this work, the science of how horses respond to humans, the role of donkeys in equine-assisted learning, and what's ahead for Hands for Healing Equine.


Listen to the full conversation

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