The Herd

The most important members of the team here at Firehorse are the herd of horses who form the core of our teaching team. Without their participation and guidance we could not offer our unique learning and development experiences.

Edward, George, Walker and Chex live together as a family and each bring different talents to help their human students…

Edward

Standing 17.2 hands high, Edward the warmblood can seem intimidating at first sight. But don’t be fooled – Edward is quite aware of his size and the effect it can have on people who don’t know him very well. He’s a very expressive and playful man and loves to be admired and praised.

George

A 10 year old quarter horse originally bred and trained for cutting and reining, George is a truly curious boy and loves to interact with people whenever he can. A quick learner, George’s beautiful chestnut coat and payful nature mean that he always has plenty of admirers.

Walker

Leader of the herd, our thoroughbred Walker is a truly remarkable horse who has grown in strength, wisdom and resilience though difficult times. Walker loves people and while he is gentle and friendly he also likes nothing more than to gallop through his paddocks with Edward and George or hang out under the trees with Katarina.

Chex

A 10 year old quarter horse born and bred in the Yarra Valley, Chex is always happy to make new friends and explore your pockets. Chex likes to play with his pal Walker and enjoys a gallop through the paddocks on a sunny day followed by a good scratch and a roll in the mud.

Katarina

A white Andalusian mare and a mother of two, Katarina provided a calming female influence to the herd. Quiet and reserved by nature, people were constantly drawn to her beautiful face and dark eyes. Katarina could set and maintain boundaries extraordinarily well – a skill she frequently needed around the 3 boys. Katarina moved on peacefully to non-physical adventures in August 2015 but continues to share her wisdom in her signature workshop White Mare Wisdom.

The Human Teaching Team

Karen Curnow

Karen is a highly experienced trainer, facilitator, coach and public speaker whose own experiences of surviving and thriving after abrupt personal change enable her to bring an unique perspective to her work with people and horses. She has over 20 years experience consulting in organisational change and adaptive leadership and has worked with a broad range of people in both corporate and government organisations. A horse-lover for as long as she can remember, Karen has been around horses since she was 6 years old, including a period spent teaching riding. She is therefore perfectly placed to help people translate their experience with horses into a personal and professional learning context.

The author of The Flipside of Misfortune – a book she wrote after surviving the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires, Karen has been a speaker on both national and local radio and for a range of corporate and not-for-profit organisations. See her talk about her experiences in a short film accompanying the 2019 ABC documentary Aftermath: Beyond Black Saturday. Click here.

Karen is also an accredited Eponaquest Instructor (please see www.eponaquest.com) – the organisation founded by Linda Kohanov, author of The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds, The Way of the Horse and The Power of the Herd. Eponaquest is one of the most recognised and respected organisations operating worldwide in the field of Equine Facilitated Learning.

Guest Facilitators

We work with other experienced Eponaquest instructors during some of our workshops. Each of our guest facilitators brings a range of complementary life and work experiences which add to the breadth of the learning and development opportunities available to participants. We post bios on our workshops page when a guest facilitator is working with us.