I was among the loneliest of creatures, a horsewoman without a horse. When I moved to horse country, I was ecstatic when my new neighbor called and asked if I would like to work with a rescue horse named Passion. Then I met her.

Passion was wild-eyed and frightened, distrustful and flighty. She wasn’t mean, she just tuned me out completely. Nobody knew whether or not she was rideable, and I shuddered to even imagine getting on her back. On top of this, the vet pronounced her “one high maintenance girl” because of a recurring sinus infection and a severe heart murmur. The heart murmur was so bad that the vet doubted that she would even survive.

When my neighbor offered me first dibs on Passion—because a fourteen-year-old girl wanted to look at her—I declined. I just didn’t want her. She was not the one! I quickly decided “I will work with her, groom her, and get her used to being handled, so that she will make a nice horse for someone else.”

Time passed, and I began to feel sorry for Passion. It wasn’t her fault she had been starved nearly to death before she was rescued by the Humane Society, nor were her misgivings regarding humans unfounded. There was also the matter of the fourteen-year-old girl. Passion was steadily gaining weight and becoming more lively and rambunctious by the day. I began to worry that Passion might act up with the girl and incur the wrath of a protective parent.

At about this time, a mutual friend told me that Sammie Lipscomb had just come back from Pennsylvania, where she worked with horses using the Body Code. It was worth a call.

Sammie graciously agreed to donate her work to this rescue animal. I could rest now. I had done the right thing. Passion could get some healing and go to the girl. I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

A few days went by and something strange happened. Passion started to acknowledge my presence. Her eyes changed; there was life in there! I found myself hugging her neck and crying into her mane, whispering, “Passion, I am so sorry I can’t keep you!” Every day brought change with this animal in tiny but recognizable increments.

Finally, I got it. Passion was my horse! She was the horse God had in mind for me! I called the Humane Society and adopted her. The vet came today and pronounced the heart murmur gone!

The work Sammie did on Passion produced what I can only call a miraculous change and I will be forever grateful. Sammie opened this horse’s locked-down heart so that she could receive love and a forever home.

– Susan D. Warner  (North Carolina, USA)

This testimonial was submitted by Sammie Lipscomb, CBCP