Lauren slowed her chestnut gelding to a walk and turned to look at me. She had to squint because of the glare. Behind her were 100 acres of rolling grassy hills with jumps, banks and ditches scattered around. Behind me the sun was beginning its descent, tired after a morning of baking the already brown grass.

The horses had just finished a quiet training gallop on the hill behind the barn. It was a bit more restrained than I was expecting, but the neck of Lauren’s horse was still covered in a sweat that resembled thick white ocean foam. We were talking about everything except horses.

“So you don’t believe in evolution?” I asked again, trying to keep my voice neutral.

Lauren answered without sounding defensive at all: “If you are asking me if I believe that humans descended from monkeys, then no.”

Lauren is one of David and Karen O’Connor’s two full-time riders; she’s been with them almost four years. Lauren comes from the Midwest. At her high school they had drive-your-tractor-to-school day. Classes were scheduled to begin a week after the start of deer season. Lauren is intelligent and articulate, and she sure knows how to ride. She was recently chosen to be part of the U.S. Developing Riders team coached by the English eventing icon Capt. Mark Philips. And Lauren is a Catholic.

I recently heard that fundamentalist Christians have a derogatory term for more moderate Christians. They call them Cafeteria Christians, meaning they pick and choose what they like as they go down the line with their blue tray. They take a little of this and a little of that—a portion of forgiveness, a scoop of love thy neighbour. They take whatever quenches their hunger and their thirst. Sensible really. Instead of being an insult, Cafeteria Christian should be a compliment.

I was surprised when Lauren told me she was a creationist. I’d always thought evolution was not a matter of faith but a matter of fact. Before I met Lauren, creationists were like caricatures—alive only in my imagination. They lived in a different place—a land where they might speak a different language or have three eyes. And they existed in an earlier era, or at least before the age of mass government sponsored education.

I asked Lauren, “How can you not believe in evolution? Do you believe dogs evolved from wolves? Do you believe that horse you are sitting on and zebras share a common ancestor? It’s not such a big leap to believe all creatures have the same origins, is it?”

“But it’s also not such a big leap to believe God created Heaven and Earth? To me that makes a lot more sense. Really it’s all about faith. Not everything we are taught makes sense right away. But when you are ready, you understand,” she answered.

Lauren has faith. It’s something all religions share, a belief in something greater than themselves. No matter how ridiculous it may seem to me. I guess that’s why they call it faith. And a belief in the creation of man on the seventh day is just one part of her faith.

There is a lot to adjust to here, even more so than in Germany. Everything from religion to the small nuances in the way the barn is run and the horses are ridden. It quickly became obvious to me that in Florida I am the different one, the one with a third eye.

A few days later Lauren decided it was time I learned some natural horsemanship. The O’Connors start all their horses using methods similar to the Parelli school of horsemanship. We took Mick, a giant gentle grey—who was only 5 and still dark—to the round pen. I stood on the outside, leaning on the rail, and I was quickly covered in dust, but I didn’t take my eyes off Lauren and Mick. First Mick was sent around the edge of the round pen, where he loped lazily and kept one eye on Lauren. He would change direction when Lauren stepped back and pointed in the new direction. Sometimes Mick was allowed to come into the center of the ring, the neutral zone, where Lauren would do some other work as well.

She showed me the four yields: moving the hindquarters away from pressure, moving the shoulder away from pressure, lowering the head into a position of trust, and backing up at a signal. Each yield begins with pressure, but as the horse becomes more sensitive, the aids become more subtle. She showed me how Mick will either stand while she walks around, or follow her, depending on the signal. Whatever she did, Mick was always aware of where she was and what she was doing. I learned about body language, the horses’ and mine, and how the horse interprets everything I do.

Lauren said, “People say that when they are learning a new language and they start to dream in that language, then they know they’re really getting it. It’s the same thing with this. Once you get it, you start to see everything in terms of yields and lines of influence. It changes the whole way you look at every situation with a horse.”

At the end, Mick stood attentively in the center of the ring. Lauren turned to me (Mick stayed still, only following her with his eyes) and said, “A lot of people don’t believe in this. They think it’s hokey.” And then she paused. It was my turn to say something.

“How can people not believe in it? It’s right there in front of me. It’s amazing! Of course it works! I just saw you do it. If anybody just opens their eyes they will see it.”

And then I added “…like evolution.”

She just smiled.

Lauren also gave me my first dressage lesson. I was riding Danny, another grey gelding, who was used in the 2008 Paralympics in Hong Kong.

Ingrid Klimke had taught me her warm-up sequence only a month ago, and it was still fresh and exciting in my mind. Now I had a chance to put it into practice. Maybe show off my new knowledge a little. This is how I understood Ingrid’s system:

Step 1 – A forward walk on a loose rein.

Step 2 – Long and low at the trot and then canter, asking the horse to stretch down and use his back without ever coming behind the vertical. The canter can be in a forward seat in order to help the back be as free and relaxed as possible.

Step 3 – A short walk break, always forward and on a loose rein.

And then the real work begins.

But right away I found out that things are done a little differently here. Lauren asked me to start in a frame right away. The idea was that the horse should first step quicker behind, thus engaging the hindquarters. And then, from that position, the horse will start to use his back. The back will not relax until the horse is in front of the leg and through. And then, later on in the ride, the horse can be allowed to trot long and low.

I was defensive. I thought why should it be different? Ingrid Klimke gets great results with her system, and she wrote the book (literally) on correct training of the young horse. I believe in her system wholeheartedly, and although I had a hard time explaining why I thought it works, I was still in no doubt that it did.

But I did what I was told. And it worked. Danny was softening up and starting to engage more.   

Of course, I wished I had Ingrid’s book at hand from which to quote. She explains: “The most important aim at the beginning of a ridden session is loosening up the horse. It is only possible for a horse to remain in a correct outline with flowing movement while responding to the rider’s aids if he is loose.” 

And then Lauren, who was standing in the middle of the sand ring, said something that really struck me.

“All good trainers are trying to achieve the same thing. There are different paths to that goal. There are many ways to accomplish the same thing. My advice to you is not to forget what you learned before, but instead to throw yourself whole-heartedly into the system in which you find yourself. Only with that total immersion can you hope to really figure out what they are trying to teach you. And then, when you are home again, you can pick and chose what you liked about each trainer’s methods.”

She is right. I came here to learn, and if I’m holding on to another system, than there is no point in being here. I have to, at least while I’m here, learn to let go and just have faith in this system. I love Lauren’s idea of taking what appeals to me from each system. I will call it Cafeteria Riding.