#85 Infusing Humour into Empathy for Horses with Sarah-Katrin Bourdeaux

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:00:02-00:00:08]
In this episode, we're talking with Sarah Katrin Bourdeaux, author of Do Puddles Eat Ponies?

[SPEAKER 1]
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When you describe this funny situation, at the same time, you transport the message Think about their point of view. He has never seen this. Don't be that strict. Don't force them. Explain to them what it is. Let them have a look and be nice to them. Even if they make a mistake, they just try to survive and try to make everything right.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:00:33-00:01:19]
Welcome to the Equestrian Connection podcast from Wehorse. My name is Danielle Crowell and I'm your host. Sarah Katrin Bordeaux lives near Munich, Germany. After completing a degree in art history and archaeology, she first worked in event management before moving into freelance marketing. The idea for her first book, Do Puddles Eat Ponies, came after years of writing a blog about her two horses and their experiences with day-to-day training, dressage, and horse shows. Blending humor, creativity, and an eye for detail makes her writing unique and authentic and adored by fans all over the world. Sarah Ketrin also shares her knowledge as a self-publisher with other aspiring authors in her online courses, which you can find on her website.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Let's dive in.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Sarah, welcome to the We Horse podcast. We're so excited to have you.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

[SPEAKER 2]
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So before we discuss your book, which I'm really excited to chat about, we'll go back to the beginning of it. So it originally started from an Instagram account. What inspired you to start writing about your horses, especially from their point of view? And what did that Instagram post and all of the posts, what did they include?

[SPEAKER 1]
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So the reason I started riding was my first horse. I got him in 2015. His name is Bueschi and he was my first ever horse. I always wished for a horse and then this was the time. But I didn't have any friends that are interested in horses. And I thought... Back then, Facebook pages about horses were a thing in Germany. And I thought maybe it's nice to share some points of our journey and some of our achievements with people who are interested in horses and have kind of the same experiences. And so I decided to start a Facebook page. Later, it went on to Instagram. And yeah, most people wrote stories. about that day at the stable, like we went for a hack. It was nice. The horse was nice. And I thought that was pretty boring. So I was thinking, let's try it from the horse's point of view. Let's tell... my horse, how his day went in a funny kind of way. And it turned out really funny. People loved it. And the site grew pretty nicely. Not like a very, very big one. But today it has like over 2000 followers. It's in German. So people are limited that can read the text. Yeah, and it was a nice hobby. I was having two children by that time and I was staying at home as a mom. So it was my project to do something creative and fill my time and share my hobby with people.

[SPEAKER 2]
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I love that. And the nice thing about social media now is you can click on the caption, see translation, and it'll like change it. So if I'm like used to reading in English and I see German text, I can hit see translation and it'll change it to English for me. So that's really nice. It makes a lot of like global accounts more accessible for wherever the like the person is living in whatever language that they're speaking.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Yeah, that's true.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Yeah, yeah. But I mean, back in 2015, I don't that was the case.

[SPEAKER 1]
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I don't think I had that function. So I had a kind of little diary from our days. I wrote a text nearly every day I went to the Sable. And so I had all these little adventures the horse spoke about. And this was a great base for the book I could get back to forever.

[SPEAKER 2]
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And I feel like it would keep you so much more present at this table too. Like, you know, having that knowledge that in the back of your mind, okay, I'm going to be creating a post about this. As you're there, you know, while you're riding, while you're grooming, all of the different things, you're constantly thinking, how is my horse experiencing this? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? So you're being so much more present than if you were just focused on yourself.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Yeah, maybe. It can be a good thing, but it also can be a bad thing to constantly think about, oh, what can I make out of this later? Because you're not always in the moment.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Right, yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
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But the good thing is, if the day was really bad and something like really... I was angry and the horse was really bad. Those were the most funny texts. People love those texts the most. So I was able to get something good out of it. In the end, I came home, I was angry and frustrated and I knew, okay, at least this will make a funny story.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So what shifted it from posting on social media to a book idea? Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
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People constantly told me over the years that I did this to write a book. I think I did it for six or seven years. The page is still there. But with all the writing for my books, I got a little inactive with those daily texts. so it changed a bit but back then I wrote a lot and people told me oh you have to write a book it's so funny so I thought okay maybe if I ever have time in my life like five years of time I will do it and then COVID came and there was a big lockdown here in Germany we had four months of no school the children were at home and I thought, okay, let's do something with this year that will be a positive thing in the end. That you don't think, okay, let's delete this out of my life. Nothing happened, no friends, no holiday, whatever. Let's find a project that will make this year memorable. And so it was really like on New Year's Eve, I thought, okay, what can I do? I have a lot of time now. I'm at home. Nothing happens in my life. So I decided I will do this book idea now. And yeah, then I started thinking about thinking about a story and a fictional horse because I didn't want to use my own horses. I had two by then.

[SPEAKER 2]
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um i wanted to merge them in one fictional horse person so that i could invent a life story that isn't true yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense and and that way you're able to um maybe keep it more light or maybe not so good. Like it's so focused on, um, like the vulnerability of, of like your life, your horse's life, things like that. You can kind of keep it a little bit more, um, broad maybe, or, or like imaginative and creative and those sorts of things. I'm sure. And this horse, his name is, and correct me if I'm mispronouncing sharp sheriff.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Um, Sharif.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Sharif, okay.

[SPEAKER 1]
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So that's the book's main character.

[SPEAKER 2]
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And he, like, sees the world as, like, a scary place. There's lots of strange things. How did you know you wanted to tell it through that way of seeing? Is that from what you feel that your horses were seeing things like?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:08:33-00:10:15]
Yes, kind of. My first horse, Burschi, is a very... Spooky horse. He was kind of crazy when I got him. He was only four years old and barely ridden. So the first year was hard. And my second horse, Monty, is really chilled. Um, but the, I tried to merge them both in Sharif. Um, when he was, when Sharif is still a stallion in the book, there's a lot of Monty, my second horse in him because he was a show off and like, look at me, I am so pretty. Um, but the main point of his character are from my first horse, the spooky one. Um, um, That's the way he sees the world. He always jumps. He's always like, oh, the grass is different than yesterday. And what's that? And in other situations, he's like a hero. Big machines take over and he says nothing. And he just walks and does nothing. But as horses are flight animals, I think it's really the way they see the world. Just that some horses learned... that all those human-made stuff around them isn't dangerous. But I think when they are born, their instincts are, oh, what's all that? And could it potentially kill me? So I think that's... like the base of everything that they check out their surroundings and think, could it kill me or not? So that was the way I wanted to approach this whole, um, point of view of the book.

[SPEAKER 2]
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I love that. And it's so funny. They're different personalities. I have two horses as well. One is a mare, one's a gelding and, um, my mare is, she's very confident. She's very sure of herself. Nothing phases her. If, if something's going on, she wants to go investigate it. Um, whereas my gelding is more like your horse there. Uh, the one that's more like what's going on, what's happening that wasn't there yesterday. Like what is in the driveway? Like if you, you put something there, that's different. Um, And it's really interesting how they work together, like their personalities work well because my gelding will be like, oh my God, the sky is falling. And he looks at my mare and she's like, it's fine.

[SPEAKER 1]
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And he's like, oh, okay, we're good.

[SPEAKER 2]
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So it's so lovely that they have that like yin and yang. And it sounds like your horses have that balance as well.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Yes, definitely. Yeah, so funny.

[SPEAKER 2]
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One of the things I love is that in your book, you describe people or the horse describes people as hoofless beings who wave their tiny tentacles like the fingers. And I just I thought that was so funny, such a funny way of describing it, because I'm sure horses look at us like, what what is this thing? And like, I speak out loud to my horses. I have full conversations with them. And I often think they probably just hear all these like sounds coming out of this hairless creature in front of them.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
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And so hearing the way that you described it was just so funny. And so how did you find that mix?

[SPEAKER 1]
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between being so funny in the book and in your writing and still like showing what a horse might really think because it is it's like oh ha ha ha that's really funny and then you're like but they might actually think of us like that so how did you find that kind of balance between like the comedy and then also bringing home the point that a horse doesn't immediately just know what a human is And it wasn't like a conscious process where I sat down and thought about, oh, how can I do that? How can I transport my message and be funny at the same time? It was just something that developed in the text on Instagram over the years. It's really like the way I think that. they experienced the day. Like, what on earth did this girl do with me today? What was that? What a shitty idea, you know? And all those monsters in the forest. Why do we go there? What is she doing? Yeah. So when I, like, try to make a whole story, a life story of a horse out of it, it's like, a coming-of-age novel, more or less. The foal is born, and he conquers the world and discovers everything. So I thought, okay, if a horse has never seen anything, what would he probably think? And, of course, this turns out funny. As you said, we are naked, like... Things that walk on two legs. The horse maybe thinks, how do they do that? I can only walk on two legs if I rear and for a very short time. So how do they do that? And no hooves. That's why they are called hoofless, of course. Yeah. those naked little snakes that come, they want to touch you. So I thought about every aspect that the horse will see in his first days or earth and what he could potentially think about that.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:14:18-00:15:06]
And I, yeah, it's just, it's, it's so, it's so well done because again, like you're laughing along with it. And then at the same time, it is still bringing home that point of being like, okay, um, this is so right that maybe like it is about having more patience or having more understanding or empathy in the fact that if, if a horse is unsure or nervous, it's like, well, that's just because we know what we're going to do, but they don't know what we're going to do. We are used to, you know, all of these human things. They're not like it does. It really puts you in a little bit more of an empathetic space. And at the same time, having a laugh at our silly humanness. So you just do a really, really good job of that.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:15:07-00:16:37]
Thank you so much. My intention with the book was not... like educating people or telling them what to do. The first intention was just being funny, but on the way, and especially with the feedbacks from readers that I got, I realized that this was really a way of getting people to reflect more what they are doing. Because when I write about a funny situation, like the foal has to go somewhere, into the riding arena for the first time. You know, you open this big door and there's a black hole and the horse is like, oh my God, what's escaping more? Do they want to get rid of me or whatever? And the human is used to this side and it's like, oh, what's the problem? Just get in there and follow me. So... it's funny if you just describe the situation and then the horse jumps on his foot and he's like angry and hitting the horse. But when you describe this funny situation at the same time, you transport the message. Um, think about their point of view. He has never seen this. Don't be that strict. Don't, don't force them, explain to them what it is. Let them have a look. And, um, Yeah, be nice to them. Even if they make a mistake, they just try to survive and try to make everything right.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:16:38-00:17:01]
Yeah, you're so right. I love that. Was there anything that you enjoyed like poking fun at the most? So you referenced like bringing them into the riding arena and the horses like, where are we going? Like, what is this? I mean, you're bringing into a cave of doom. Is there anything else that you enjoyed kind of poking fun at from the horse's perspective that us humans just think of as normal?

[SPEAKER 1]
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A lot of stuff. It was really funny to change the perspective that first thing that comes to my mind is that we always collect their poo. We know why, but the horse in the book is like, what is this strange fetish they have? They always collect it and put it to a certain place and they have to really laugh at it, right? Because as soon as I drop something, they run there and get it and save it. So that's one small thing that I... like kind of blew up to a big thing that Sharif constantly thinks about. What is this obsession with poo?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:17:46-00:18:44]
That is so funny. It's so funny. I, yeah, my husband, um, so we have our horses here at home and, um, We go out and we pick the paddocks because I don't keep my horses in stalls unless it's like a storm. So they have free choice of going in and out of the barn. And so, of course, they're mainly out in the paddocks. And so for us, rather than cleaning stalls, we're always cleaning the grass, basically. And so we're out there with our... our trailer and our rakes and we're picking the poop. And my husband always jokes about how the horses are probably thinking like, why, what are they doing? You know? And it's, it is so funny that when you think of those little things like that, I love the way you described it as like, again, these little like hoofless beings running around as soon as they, as soon as they poop and we're like grabbing it and they're thinking like, What is this obsession?

[SPEAKER 1]
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Is it something precious?

[SPEAKER 2]
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I don't know. Yeah, it's so funny to think of it that way.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:18:49-00:19:59]
Yeah, I try to make fun of everything so that it would be fair in the end, like every kind of equestrian sport, every kind of person, because the book should just entertain and not judge anyone. So I try to... hit everybody and nobody like really hard. It should be funny and entertaining. But the most fun when I was writing were those parts that separate the story of Harif. There are always every few chapters there's a text in between where grown-up Sharif comments on the horse world. He guides a bit through the story, but he always comments on one topic of the horse world in those texts. And that was especially a lot of fun because there was one chapter about different kinds of stable, like the barracks or the grass sanctuary or the high-tech stable or different kinds of stable stuff, the grump.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:19:60-00:21:34]
the psycho or the sociopath so I thought okay what have I experienced in my life with horses and what have I read on social media what have I heard from others and I tried to connect this and make some like really stereotypic categories out of it and describe them in the most funny way I love that I love that you said too that you kind of tried to poke fun at all of the disciplines all of the aspects of the horse world rather than just focusing like on one Um, which makes it, cause it is one of those things where, um, let's say you are poking fun at dressage and it's like, if you only did that, then the dressage world might be kind of like, geez, you know, like that's a lot on us. But if it's also poking fun at, you know, the hunter jumper show jumping world. And you're also poking fun at like the Western pleasure world and, you know, the endurance world and all of these different disciplines. Then it's kind of like, Oh, it's so, I got made fun of too. That's so funny. Like, you know, then it kind of feels like, We're all just in on the joke, and it's less about, like you said, judging anybody or anything like that, and it's more just looking at the stereotypes within the horse world and the disciplines within the horse world and being able to all kind of laugh at each other and some of the silliness that we all do.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:21:35-00:22:32]
Yeah. And this was especially also very funny to think of the horse's point of view. Why on earth do they force us to move with no aim for surviving or getting food or whatever? Right. polo is speed dating or uh chill jumping is breakneck airlines and sharif says why on earth would you like use a survival skill 10 times in a row and force a horse to go um to an obstacle that you put in the way on purpose why so every horse board has a very funny aspect. If you try to see it from the horse's point of view, maybe apart from racing, because they understand this the best. That's like the instinct to run away.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:22:32-00:23:30]
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so funny. Yeah. There's so many things when you look at it and you're like, yeah, that is true. Like that is kind of silly that we do that. I want to talk a little bit now about the book itself, the publishing aspect, all of those kind of the behind the scenes. now hopefully we've painted enough of a picture for our listeners to be like, I need to read this book. I need to get this book. So let's talk a little bit about how this book came to be. So first of all, the book itself is, it's colorful. There's illustrations. Like you really made sure that not only was the book enjoyable to read, but it was also enjoyable to look at. How did you decide to, That aspect, how, you know, how did you envision it? How did you work with an illustrator? All of those different things for character development and stuff.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:23:31-00:26:51]
I envisioned the book very clearly in my mind, how I imagine it. And it always had pictures, even if it's not a children's book, which is very unusual for like a grown up book. But I wanted it to have pictures and they should be funny. That was the plan. So I did a design competition with different illustrators with a platform. There are online platforms where you can do that. And I was looking for someone who drew it not like too childish. It wasn't supposed to look like a children's book, of course, so that people would see on the first glance, okay, this is something different and not for my child, right? I didn't want it too clean. So I was looking for a style with a kind of artsy touch where you could still see the drawing behind and not everything clean up. So, yeah, there was a Turkish guy, Can Yücel. He I had the best draft and I really fell in love with it on first sight. He was one of the last entries after a week or something like that. And he was like, OK, maybe I'm too late, but I just try because I love to draw horses. And then that was it. And we worked, I think. two or three months with this platform. And I sent him a briefing, how I imagined the picture. I told him a bit about what happens in the chapter and how this horse should look, which was a bit tricky because I, it was very important for me to show all the equipment very correctly, like every little thing on the halter and the saddle that, um, I knew that riders would read that book and that they have like sharp vision when it comes to mistake at the body of the horse or the equipment. But I was really lucky that my illustrator drew horses locally. for like 20 years so he had a lot of experience and the anatomy was never a problem sometimes I had to have a look at the equipment or like special things the horse Sharif was in the show world first where they like shave the first bit of the mane and for the Arabians, and then he gets to a private owner, and this starts to regrow. So we had to see that we have this chronological order where this mane gets longer and longer, then it starts to fall, and that was a bit tricky sometimes. So I had to give him really detailed briefings. He sent me a draft, like a quick sketch, Then I gave feedback. Then he sent me like the finished drawing without colors. And I gave feedback again. And then he sent the colored version. This was the process for every picture. And we have over 40 in my first book.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:26:52-00:27:39]
Wow. Yeah, it's such an in-depth project. It's such a passion project of yours. And so you did all this work. You spent all these years collecting. basically information for this book based like from your social media posts and thinking, okay, so I can take all this and, you know, what I've written and created into a book. And then, you know, you, you then change the story and created it all on this, in this like wonderful, um, fictional story. And then you worked with this illustrator and through all of that, you self published it, uh, you know, yourself, can you talk a little bit about, um, your decision to self-publish, how you went about that process, and any insight that you can kind of give our listeners.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:27:41-00:29:33]
Yeah, the decision to self-publish came very quickly because I wanted to do this book in this COVID time period. So that was maybe a year or something. I didn't know, like everyone, how long this would take. But I knew that if you write to a In Germany, you have to wait for like a year to get an answer. And most of the time they say no. So I thought to like make this whole process quicker, I would do it myself. And I wanted to have those pictures. And I knew that pictures will be expensive. And it's not usual to have pictures in a grown-up book, novel. So maybe the publisher would have said no, no. to how I imagined this book to look. And it was very important for me to have it the way I imagined it in my head and the quality I imagined it, like a hardcover with color pictures through the whole book. And I didn't want anyone to say, okay, we have to save money here and we want to do it differently. So I decided right at the start, I would do it myself. I had no idea how this... I never worked in the book market or never published anything. So next to writing this whole thing and making the illustrations like develop, I had to do research how this works, how you distribute a book, how you print it, what people you need on your team to make this like a really high quality product. I wanted it to work. read and look like it would be from a publisher.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:29:35-00:29:36]
Well, you did a great job.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:29:37-00:29:38]
Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:29:39-00:30:24]
And so what I love with this is you've now gone on to create a course in that. So there's so many people that want to write books and the want and the desire to write a book gets stopped because by the fear of having no idea what they're doing and feeling overwhelmed. And your course is exactly for that. It's to help people, like yourself, publish their own books. Can you talk a little bit about your course and what's included and what people can expect from that? Because it's just so needed in this world that has so much creativity and creativity It just it seems like such an overwhelming project.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:30:26-00:31:48]
Yeah, I decided to make an online course out of my knowledge because I did research over a year and then I had all these questions. practical experience that I collected during the launch of the book and the marketing and everything. And I knew that there are many self-publishers or people who want to publish themselves in Germany. And there are also people a handful of platforms where you can do that very easily. Like you send your, your text and then when somebody orders your book, they print, they send it out, but the quality is, not very good most of the time, of course, because there are reasons why there are different techniques for printing like digital printing or offset printing and why publishers use offset printing. There are reasons for that. It's a much, much better quality. And I wanted to have this. So I decided to print, um, a stack of books myself and not use some platform where you have somebody just distribute your book for you and do the marketing and get most of the money, you know?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:31:48-00:32:48]
So I wanted to show people who have the same aim as i did like make a real high quality product out of it um how they could do that without the help of someone who gets all the money and delivers not so good quality so um Speaking of which, you know, speaking of like the cost of things and trying to keep as much money as possible in your pocket or not only for the process of publishing, but then also to get money back from the sale of the book. That is another overwhelming thing is a lot of people will look at what it takes to self-publish and they think, oh, my gosh, like I'm going to have to take out a loan for this or I'm going to go in debt for this. Can you share some examples of how authors and self-publishers can save money but still make a nice book?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:32:50-00:35:13]
Yeah, of course you need money to self-publish if you want to do it the way I did before. You have to take some money in your hand and spend it for like a proofreader and for the whole layout, for the cover, stuff like that. You need a whole team of professionals to work with you. Because everyone will see if you did the cover with paint by yourself. And everyone will realize that your grandma did the proofreading once and no other people were involved. You realize that very quickly as a reader. It's not a professional product. You have to use some money but there are some little tricks how you can save something. For example, there are people who offer cover premades. So that is a cover that is already layouted, but with blank text, like... you can purchase this cover and say this is my title this is my name and they insert it and then the cover is yours and if you have some minor changes that's um maybe also included most of the time so um it's worth having a look if you wrote a fantasy book or a love story it's all Pretty much the same scheme, how this looks at the moment in the bookstores and what's selling good. This would be a typical cover pre-made situation, I would say. Just have a look at different cover designers, what they offer, and maybe you find something where you say, wow, that was exactly what I was imagining. So that would be a little trick. I would also recommend to not work with agencies because whenever... I asked for prices from anyone. Agencies were always much more expensive, of course, because the whole company behind this price. It's always better to look for people who are self-dependent and just work on their own.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:35:14-00:35:15]
Absolutely.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:35:15-00:35:38]
Yeah. Another thing I did was crowdfunding. So if you don't have any money to get this started, this would be a possibility to collect money, describe your project, get people involved. And if they say, oh, that's a great idea and I want to read this in the end, you could maybe get them to buy the book themselves.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:35:38-00:36:40]
before it's it's even existing and so you can collect a bit of money to get started you see more and more people doing that now it's like um pre-order like purchase like yeah pre-order and then often it's like um It comes with a little extra something where you can pre-order and then when the book is ready or when the product is ready, you'll also get this because you pre-ordered. Maybe it's like an additional audio clip or maybe it's like a small snippet of something or a little gift with purchase or something like that. And it just... it's helpful for influencing people to make the pre-order. And then that way, like you said, you have that startup money that you can then create the product or create the book or whatever it may be with that money in hand rather than trying to, you know, dig around in your coach cushions and find that extra spare change elsewhere. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:36:41-00:37:09]
Yeah, that's correct. I also did crowdfunding for my first book and I made little packages, like two books were reduced in price or with one package you got a stack of Sharif cards with the book, stuff like that. And there also was one package where you got like an insight in the illustration process and a little behind the scenes kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:37:09-00:37:21]
I love that. You keep referencing your first book, which makes me think it is not the only book. Do you have any other books planned for the future?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:37:22-00:37:27]
Yes, I already published my second book in Germany last year.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:37:27-00:37:28]
Congratulations.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:37:28-00:38:52]
And also a coloring book for children. Thank you so much. Awesome. Awesome. The coloring book is a bit of a side project because I already have those illustrations in an uncolored way. So I just use them to create something for the children of my readers, maybe, or for the readers themselves. Because some adults also get the coloring book and... like coloring. Yeah. Yeah. My second book is also about Sharif. It's not like a second part. It's more like a mock handbook about the hoofless from the Sharif's point of view. And yeah, it turned out really funny. It has a lot more illustration over 80 and, I work with the same illustrator and it was even more like getting into this different perspective and having a look at us humans, not just the way we look, but in our, like, how do we live? What do we do? Um, when we are at the staple that we look in our phones all the time or, um, what about, um, I don't know the English word, that somebody is the boss and the rest of the herd is like sorted underneath him.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:38:53-00:38:54]
Like a leadership style?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:38:55-00:40:04]
I mean like the hierarchy that horses have in their herd. Yeah. So Dr. Sharif analyzes this for us humans. Do we have like a hierarchy? And first I thought like, hmm, not really. But then I thought more about it. And it was really interesting to get more insights about ourselves because our world is very much like dominated by hierarchy. And wherever you go as a human, you may be the top or the bottom. Maybe you're good at tennis and you're the king when you go to the tennis club. But then you go somewhere else and you're the beginner or maybe you have a job where people look down on you, something like that. So it was interesting to get into those different aspects of our life and see them from the horse's point of view. And, of course, a lot of tips how to maintain us, how to handle us, how to train us to give them more treats. And also something like an SOS, how to get rid of him in 10 days.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:40:04-00:40:07]
That's so funny.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:40:07-00:40:18]
Yeah, so it's really funny. I don't know if this book will be published in English yet, but maybe. Let's see how the first one is doing internationally, and then we'll see.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:40:19-00:40:58]
Absolutely. Well, we'll hold out hope for that one as well. So because I've been asking a lot of our guests this question, and because you... what, you know, in the first book, whether it's intended or not, you do still have a lot of, um, like we had mentioned earlier, the empathy from the horse perspective and helping us to kind of think twice about our actions and, you know, those sorts of things. And then, especially in the second book, um, IQ had said, just really looking at what the horse can teach us. Um, what is your hope for the future of the equestrian industry?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:41:00-00:41:40]
I hope that the trend continues, that people who hit horses get called off and that they are not allowed to go on with what they are doing and that people will grow more empathy and start listening to their horses start seeing them as their their friends and not just sport partners yeah yeah i love that yeah for the future and yeah and the the great thing is that your books um speak to that so well and especially if that like wasn't your original intention.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:41:40-00:41:51]
And that's how they kind of ended up as well. The horses, they tend to sprinkle their wisdom, no matter what it is, they somehow find a way to be like, let me help these humans.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:41:52-00:42:22]
Yeah. And it was so nice to get all this feedback from people who said, I'm able to approach a situation different now. I've never thought about it this way. And Before I read the book, I was angry at my horse and I was reacting angry. And now I can just laugh it off. And I think of Farid and what he would say in this situation. And I'm just laughing in my head like, oh, my God, he's just trying to survive and to save me from the tiger in the bush.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:22-00:42:22]
Yes.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:23-00:42:25]
So good. And that's so cute. If I...

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:26-00:42:51]
was able to change that for like only one horse in the world that's already wonderful absolutely sarah we have four rapid fire questions that we ask every podcast guest it's kind of like the first thing that comes to mind so the first question is do you have a motto or favorite saying Not really.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:51-00:43:16]
I'm a very positive person, so I could say one of those cheesy mottos now, but I won't. I watched The Horse Whisperer yesterday, and there was a quote I really loved. Maybe people already know it. The main character, Annie, says, I've heard you have people with horse problems. And Tom, The Horse Whisperer, says, truth is, I have horses with people problems. And I like that a lot.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:43:17-00:43:24]
Yes, I like that a lot, too. The second one, who has been the most influential person in your equestrian journey?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:43:25-00:44:04]
There's not one person I could name, but I am always collecting inspiration with people who are very empathetic with the horses, a lot of liberty and groundwork, riding with a neck rope, stuff like that. I think the most amazing achievement is if you can ride a horse without anything or just this little neck rope, like dressage lessons or show jumping, just with this and it works. And that's enough to know that all the other stuff is necessary.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:44:04-00:44:18]
Yeah, it's like drawing the inspiration from all around you and the different things that you see. Yeah, absolutely. I do the same. If you could give equestrians one piece of advice, what would it be?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:44:19-00:44:27]
Listen to your horse. Look at their face. Look at their reactions. Just listen more closely if you don't understand them.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:44:29-00:44:34]
And then the last one, please complete this sentence. For me, horses are...

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:44:37-00:44:42]
The most gracious, elegant, and tolerant creatures on earth.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:44:43-00:44:44]
Yeah, you're so right.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:44:45-00:44:59]
They are so nice to us, even if we are not nice to them. They are still nice and so tolerant to everything we ask of them. And I think they are the most beautiful animals there are in the whole world.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:45:00-00:45:39]
I fully agree. I fully agree. There's so many times that I'm like, oh my gosh, you could just do away with us very easily and you don't. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Sarah, I have enjoyed this conversation with you so much. I'm so excited for our listeners to be introduced to your book if they don't already know it and for more people to be able to read it and get their hands on it. So can you tell us where they can find you, learn more about you, where they can find your book, to purchase your book, ideally for an international audience, all the things?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:45:42-00:46:27]
You can purchase the book wherever you purchase books. So internationally, it's published with Trafalgar Square Books, I think a very well-known publisher. So it should be everywhere in the online bookstores, of course, maybe even in the stationary bookstores. Yeah. Yeah, and if you want to follow, I made an English Instagram account. It's called Sarah Bordeaux Author. And I constantly write about the book and share little snippets from the text and pictures, something about my own horses, like, Little stuff to have a look behind the scenes.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:46:28-00:46:39]
Awesome. I'm going to link all that in the show notes. So we'll put the tropical square and then also your Instagram account. And you have a website as well. Did you want me to link that one for our listeners as well?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:46:40-00:46:51]
Yes, you can link that as well. It has an English speaking page as well, but it's not possible to buy the book there because I'm in Germany and it doesn't make sense for me to send out books internationally.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:46:52-00:47:04]
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So if you're listening to this podcast and you can just scroll down and get all the links to be able to find out more about Sarah and the book. So thank you so much for joining us today.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:47:04-00:47:06]
Thank you for having me.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:47:06-00:47:43]
Yeah, I can't wait for everybody to tune into this. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Equestrian Connection podcast by WeHorse. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a rating and review as well as share us on social media. You can find us on Instagram at WeHorse underscore USA and check out our free seven-day trial on WeHorse.com where you can access over 175 courses with top trainers from around the world in a variety of topics and disciplines. Until next time, be kind to yourself, your horses and others.

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