100 Children, No Bookings—and Nobody Turned Away | Helen Picha | EAW 60
Equine Assisted World with Rupert IsaacsonShow Notes
✨ "It's not about the job or the wages. You have to love it with absolute passion." – Helen Picha
Helen Picha manages Liskennett Farm, a groundbreaking equine-assisted therapy center for children and adults with autism and intellectual disabilities in Granagh, County Limerick, Ireland, on the border of Limerick and Cork. She took over as manager two years ago after eleven years working alongside founder David Doyle, and now runs the 80-acre center — home to 23 horses across residential, day, and equine programs — that Rupert calls the cutting edge of best practice in equine-assisted therapy. What sets Liskennett apart is scale paired with radical openness. Every Saturday, the farm runs a booking-free, fee-free open day that draws between 80 and 100 children, no appointment required, no family turned away. Its indoor arena, originally built for riding, has been repurposed entirely into a music, movement, and play space, because the horses and children preferred being outdoors. And many of Liskennett's horses are retired Thoroughbred racehorses, some placed at Cheltenham, brought down from the racing circuit through a careful, months-long retraining process before ever carrying a child. In this conversation, Helen and Rupert trace Liskennett's origin story — from a 2012 Horse Boy demo, a young woman's tragic death, and a €3 million donation to a modern therapy campus — and dig into how the farm actually runs day to day: horse selection and retraining, staff burnout prevention, community integration through an inclusive fox hunt and horse show, and Liskennett's expansion into new satellite centers backed by €6 million in Irish government funding. If you want to support the show, you can do so at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LongRideHome 🔍 What You'll Learn in This Episode How Liskennett Farm evolved from an 80-acre burned-out stud farm into a state-of-the-art residential, day, and equine therapy hub serving hundreds of children and adults with autism and intellectual disabilities Why founder David Doyle built a "step in, step down, step out" model, letting families in crisis access residential support without being permanently separated What Liskennett's booking-free Saturday open days look like, welcoming 80 to 100 children with no appointment, no fee, and no rush How the farm's Christmas open day scaled to 300 children in a single day, all riding and meeting Santa, with zero bookings and zero meltdowns Why Liskennett retired the original purpose of its indoor arena entirely, turning it into a music, movement, and play space instead How retired racehorses, many connected to the McManus racing family, are systematically retrained over six to twelve months before ever carrying a child What the "MMM Room" (Movement Method to Music) is, and how a chance visit from founder David Doyle's daughter Caroline inspired its creation How Liskennett integrates families into local community life through an inclusive fox hunt, agricultural show classes, and an annual fundraising concert Why Helen believes horsemanship fundamentals — temperament, soundness, and long, slow conditioning work — are the foundation of safe therapeutic riding How the farm is expanding with new satellite hubs in Charleville and Kanturk, backed by €6 million in HSE funding What Helen learned from an early personal loss that quietly shaped her approach to working with families years before she ever set foot in Liskennett How Helen and her team plan for staff burnout with rotating schedules, an open culture around asking for help, and regular team celebrations 🎤 Memorable Moments from the Episode [00:04:50] Rupert traces how Liskennett came to exist: a 2012 Horse Boy demo organized by Shelley Murtagh, who died of a brain tumor three months later — and three years after that, an email from David Doyle leading to €3 million raised for the center [00:09:02] Helen shares that at age 20 she had a daughter, Danielle, born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, who lived 11 m
More from Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson
Rupert Isaacson speaks with Dr. Amanda Minervini, founder of EGLHE (Equine Guided Learning And Healing Experience), a nonprofit equine program in Colorado Springs, and professor at Colorado College. EGLHE began taking shape during the pandemic, in response to a worsening mental health crisis. It was built around the preferences of one horse: Jimmy, an off-the-track Thoroughbred who raced as a stallion, was not gelded until after age nine, and was labeled dangerous. Originally intended for Amanda's college students, the program is now open to everyone. It brings together consent-based horsemanship, classical in-hand work, liberty, scent work, and good management, with a core belief that horses have a voice and that humans don't have to be in charge. The conversation walks through how Amanda layers a session so that a horse can safely run free through the woods with people who have never been near a horse, how scent work for horses can build confidence in a spooky horse, and why a horse must always be regulated enough to learn. Amanda also shares what she observed with the medicine paint horses at a Lakota Sun Dance, and she and Rupert explore the sacred in equine-assisted work, consciousness, Saint Francis of Assisi, and how zooanthropology helps her bridge methods rather than choose just one.
✨ "I think the horse and the animal is kind of an anchor that keeps you in the present." – Krisztina Molnar Deep in the forest near Debrecen in eastern Hungary, a six-year-old foundation has become a home for animal-assisted therapy of every kind: clinical equine-assisted psychotherapy, work with neurodivergent children, family therapy, group therapy for children, adolescents and parents, and sessions for adults, alongside a small riding school, dressage and a vaulting team. Clinical psychologist Krisztina Molnar leads its clinical work with children and parents, supported by a team, 14 horses and three therapy dogs. The original plan was four to six horses and a quiet life in her "fairy forest." Instead, the foundation grew one family, one colleague and one need at a time, guided by a single principle: keep running something only as long as it serves everyone in the story, meaning the clients, the animals and the therapists. Along the way the forest itself became a therapeutic tool, complete with a wishing forest, a mound where problems can be blown away, and a transparent indoor arena that clients describe as a safety bubble inside nature. Rupert and Krisztina explore why nature can take clients deep very quickly, and why that is both a chance and a danger. They discuss how a classic "three wishes" diagnostic task becomes a fairy tale, what Winnicott's transitional space and the "wise mode" of schema therapy have to do with the forest, Hungary's relationship with mental health and transgenerational trauma, the difference between healthy fantasy and delusion, and why the horse is the anchor that keeps a person in the present moment. If you want to support the show, you can do so at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LongRideHome 🔍 What You'll Learn in This Episode How a foundation planned for four to six horses grew into a multi-program center with 14 horses, three dogs and a full team Why the guiding rule is to run something only as long as it serves clients, animals and therapists alike Why mentally healthy therapy horses need a natural environment, and how that shapes therapy before a session even starts Why the forest can take clients deep very quickly, and why that brings both a chance to grow and a risk of falling apart Why children who are overloaded by impressions may fear the forest, and what they are really afraid of How having a forest, an arena, a small indoor and an inside room lets the therapist tune the setting to each client's safety needs How a transparent indoor arena, chosen because it was the cheapest option, works as a "safety bubble" and a transitional space How magical places in the forest, like the wishing forest and the mound where problems are blown away, are built around clients' psychological needs How the diagnostic "three wishes" task becomes a fairy tale, and how to translate a child's wish into an underlying need What schema therapy is, and how the forest may help clients connect to their inner "wise mode" How to tell healthy fantasy from delusion: does it connect you to yourself and others, or disconnect you? Why the horse acts as an anchor to the present moment How Krisztina sees dressage as maintaining harmony through constant rebalancing, and why training of any kind helps therapy horses handle more situations 🎤 Memorable Moments from the Episode 00:03:40 Krisztina introduces herself as a clinical psychologist specializing in children and parents, certified to include her therapy dogs in sessions 00:07:10 She reveals the original plan: four to six horses and a peaceful, quiet life in her fairy forest, which is not what happened 00:08:50 Krisztina shares the one principle that guides every program: it runs only as long as it serves clients, animals and therapists 00:22:50 She explains that frightened clients are not afraid of nature itself but of their own impulses projected onto the forest 00:41:50 Krisztina describes nature as a model of resilience: a tree meeting an obstacle grows around it
✨ "Well, I'm an engineer. I collect data." – Laila Rahmatian Laila Rahmatian is an autism mom and former NASA engineer, originally from Houston and living in Indianapolis, Indiana when her son Donatello was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in October 2024 — now based near Frankfurt, Germany. Unlike most guests on this show, Laila isn't a practitioner — she's a service user. After her son's diagnosis, she brought her engineering background to bear on his care, systematically tracking data across a comparison of therapy approaches and, eventually, more than 70 Horse Boy Method sessions. This conversation covers Laila's diagnosis journey, why she walked away from a well-regarded autism center within minutes of touring it, the chance referral that led her family to Horse Boy Method after relocating to Germany, and the session-by-session developmental milestones her data captured — from a son who could barely stay on a horse for a minute to one making spontaneous eye contact, sleeping through the night, and initiating speech. If you want to support the show, you can do so at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LongRideHome
✨ "It's not that I gave up. I switched." – Carolina Lockwood Carolina Lockwood joins Rupert Isaacson from Bariloche, in the Patagonia region of Argentina, where she has spent more than 30 years building equine-assisted work from the ground up — first blending art therapy with horses, then training directly with Rupert in Texas, then running an intensive Horse Boy–style program, then coaching, and now facilitating horse-based energy healing. What makes Carolina's story distinctive is the environment she's built it in. In the areas around Bariloche, horse theft for meat is a real and recurring danger — over the years Carolina has lost five horses to thieves, including cases where stolen horses were found slaughtered. She talks candidly about tracking horses down with the police, the informal social protections that eventually stabilized her herd's safety, and the anxiety that never fully goes away even after 30 years without an incident. The conversation traces her full arc: building a team of six staff and 30 kids a week at the height of her program, learning to read burnout in both horses and herself, closing that chapter deliberately rather than abandoning the work altogether, and evolving into equine coaching (trained through Kathy Pike and the Linda Kohanov lineage), liberty work (with Jean-François Pignon and Celeste Solzenne), and now a year-plus training in horse-facilitated energy healing with Saskia Marroquin of Caballo Cósmico. Along the way, Rupert and Carolina dig into what "energy work" actually means in practical terms, and why practitioners shouldn't feel locked into one rigid model for life. If you want to support the show, you can do so at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LongRideHome 🔍 What You'll Learn in This Episode How Carolina moved from art therapy and ceramics work with special-needs kids into equine-assisted work in Bariloche, Patagonia Why she traveled to Texas to train directly with Rupert after discovering the Horse Boy film What it's actually like running horses in a region where theft and slaughter for meat is a recurring, organized threat — and how she and her family tracked down stolen horses with the police Why gauchos' and polo horses are rarely stolen while therapy and pleasure horses are the ones targeted How Carolina rebuilt her herd's security by relocating and relying on informal community protection rather than fences or guns What her own "non-structure structure" for horse welfare looks like, built around free roaming, herd life, and trust — and how it differs from the fitness-and-conditioning approach used in Horse Boy Method How she learned to read burnout in a horse, including a beloved therapy horse who started biting handlers when he was "done" Why she eventually closed her intensive riding-based program on purpose, and how she thinks about that decision now How she transitioned into equine coaching, training with Kathy Pike and the lineage of Linda Kohanov in Colorado What liberty work with Jean-François Pignon and his student Celeste Solzenne taught her about horses reflecting a person's inner state How she began training in horse-facilitated energy healing with Saskia Marroquin of Caballo Cósmico, and what that work looks like in practice The story of a terminally ill client whose final wish involved Carolina's horses, and what it revealed to her about this kind of healing What Carolina's dream is for a future retreat and rescue sanctuary in Patagonia, and why she's decided to say it out loud
✨ "I think the worst thing that people can do is say no." – Nicola Hepburn