Captions by Glenna Casalme. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2014 COUNTRY MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUES I'm Josh Flannagan, 20 years old, and I work at Trinity Valley Farms. And at the moment, we've got around 21 horses that I have to look after and feed and take care of. Before I started there, I was just pretty much a bum, not doing anything. Then I just got this urge that I wanted to get a job. ENGINE HUMS Having Asperger's and struggling socially has helped strengthen my bond with horses, because they're not gonna judge me like humans do, and it's just that equalness. They may be an animal, but there's no expectation there for, like... Then they don't expect me to be a certain kind of person or... They just take me for who I am, unlike pe` some people. CHUCKLES: Greedy guts. LAZY MUSIC Um, when I'm in the paddock with horses are moments that I'm just there and equal and on the same level as the horses. Um, it just feels amazing and just so peaceful when you're just perfectly calm, the horses are calm and they're beginning to trust you. We got a call from his case manager, um, asked if we had any work. I said no. Uh, they asked if, uh, he could come and do work experience; again I said no. And so in a latch` last-ditch effort, uh, case manager asked if we could` if they could come out and just meet us so that they just put a face to the name, and I thought it would be rude to say no to that, so I said, 'Sure,' um, and he came out, and the case manager did all of the speaking for him, um, and tried to encourage him to say a few words, and he was just really shy and just looked at the ground and didn't wanna communicate at all. Um, and he just mumbled a couple of answers here and there, um, and, um, from that, I ended up allowing him just coming out one day a week, uh, for a bit of work experience on Fridays. 'My CCS case manager, she told me, "You've gotta show them that they can't do without you," 'so... that's exactly what I did. I just worked my butt off and did everything 'and even some stuff that... (CHUCKLES) I wasn't asked to do.' He just weaselled his way in, really. Eventually, he was working most of the week. I thought it was time I paid him instead of him just doing work experience. So, yeah, he's now got a job here and, uh, doing really well. I think he'll be firing me soon, um, and running the place himself. Is there any heat in that leg, Josh? Is there any heat in that leg, Josh? A tiny bit of heat. 'He, um, connects with the horses better than I do. 'If you just leave him out in the paddock with a horse, you'll look over there 15, 20 minutes later, 'and the two of them are just having a conversation together, and it's just really cool to watch.' He's just so focused on the relationship with the horse, and so he achieves so much through that. GENTLE COUNTRY MUSIC This is Gypsy. We're actually training her for a 8-year-old boy. So she's gotta be quite safe. LAZY MUSIC CONTINUES When she got close, I'd turn my back to her so she wasn't intimidated by me. Just walking with her, being calm, just staying calm, and then she was looking in to come to me but still wasn't sure. So I just carried on and did it again, and she decided to... walk up to me. So it showed that she... wasn't afraid of me... Good girl. ...or was ready to learn. GENTLE COUNTRY MUSIC Uh, when I'm working with horses, I do my best to stay perfectly calm so that they stay perfectly calm, and that's when I start trying to build their trust. But I still gotta be aware. It... If she was to get a fright, she could easily decide to come this way and jump on top of me. When a horse has been broken in ` and it obviously struggles with certain things ` so with how I was growing up and all my struggles, I feel I'm just like them. At the beginning, I was struggling. And I've just gotta support them through that. And so in a way, I know exactly how they're feeling even though they're horses and I'm a human. Go. I'm not sure why, but... I feel that... if I don't look directly into the horse's eyes, that they won't feel intimidated. But if I'm looking at them, I feel that would be like... as a challenge or you're trying to stand them off. All through school, I walked around with my head down, just never really acknowledged anyone, or when I was talking to them, I'd just still at the ground and talk to the ground more than them. I'm thinking it goes back to the Asperger's and just thinking that everyone was thinking I was an alien or there was wrong with me when they looked at me. So if I didn't look at them, then I wouldn't see them looking at me, so I wouldn't think that ` which didn't work, cos I still thought that. Horses are fight or flight. Some run, some turn around and fight you. She was trying to run from everything. So it's just teaching her that she doesn't need to run from everything and she doesn't need to totally freak out. Don't jump now, girl. HOOVES FALL SOFTLY It` It's all desensitizing. (SIGHS LOUDLY) BIRDS TWITTER Good girl. So it helps that I was like that, cos I know what` Well, I can half understand what they f` are like. Whoa there, Princess. Hey, Josh, how'd Gypsy go today? Hey, Josh, how'd Gypsy go today? Oh, pretty good. Everything went really nicely. What other areas do you need to work on? Where to from here? We'll do more with the stalk up and then put the saddle on and see how she goes. OK, then. Excellent. He's just got that rapport with horses. I` I suspect that part of that is from his own, uh, disabilities. Horses relate really well to that and that authenticity. UPBEAT MUSIC I know the things I do... I do struggle with, but to make me a better person, I push myself to give it a go every time. I just try not to let it affect me. I just made that choice to... live normally. But... what is normal, anyway? UPBEAT MUSIC ENDS I thought it would stop me doing things I wanted to do for the rest of my life. But then it got to the point that I was, like, 'No, I don't want to be that person 'that stops this little thing...' Well, it's not actually little, but stops this... letting me do what` what I want to do and enjoy in my life. So it's from that point that I started hiding it and doing things, trying to overcome it, even if it was out of my comfort zone. LAZY COUNTRY MUSIC I go to my mum's every weekend. Uh, on Friday night, she comes and picks me up and brings me down for the weekend. MUSIC CONTINUES She has had her moments of struggling, at times. Bringing us kids up as a solo mum from when I was 2 years old, I think she's done pretty well. She had full love for us kids and did not want to give up no matter what people thought. Psychiatrist said to me, 'Have you got any other children that have got similar signs?' And I says, 'Yeah ` the other three.' So he says, 'Well, bring them in.' So I took them in. They were all diagnosed with it as well. Josh was diagnosed with the... with the most. He was diagnosed with Asperger's, social anxiety disorder, adjustment disorder, separation anxiety disorder, ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder. So he's battled with those the whole way through his schooling and even now still battles with them. UPBEAT COUNTRY MUSIC You know, he'll come across as being confident, being successful. But it takes Josh a lot of energy out of a day to actually be able to do what he needs to do over and above his Asperger's. That Asperger's is still there, and he just deals with it each day. And I'm so proud of him ` so proud of him. She definitely, uh, put in the work and didn't listen to what a lot of people are saying, um, because she was determined to let us kids live a normal life, not let that label of autism or Asperger's affect us. I was actually bullied at school quite a lot. I used to think that somehow they picked up that I was different to them with my Asperger's and thought, 'Oh, there's something wrong with him. Let's bully him.' Never really knew fully why they did it. And I decided, yeah, I'm not putting up with this, so... (INHALES SHARPLY) ended up causing a lot of havoc. At primary, I just hated my teachers. Um, one teacher, cos I was struggling a bit and got a bit hyperactive, she threatened to get me injected to calm me down, which... I didn't like that. So I picked up the sick-bay bed and threw it into the wall. And another time, a teacher was having a go at me, so I picked up the netball hoop off the ground and threw it down the court. REFLECTIVE MUSIC I think if they actually took their time instead of looking at me and being, like, 'Oh, it's gonna be difficult,' and, 'We'll just ignore him and not take the time.' I did well when I had one-on-one teaching, but most of the time, they just never had enough teacher aides to do that. So I used to not do well. They just never had the systems for people like me. It felt like they never really actually cared. They're just, like, 'Oh, yeah, there's all these kids in this classroom. 'One's not gonna matter. I gotta... 'Don't really need to care about that one.' So... I just feel that they should... care about every student as equally as another ` which they don't. (SIGHS) These kids with Asperger's are quite often high IQ, but they still need support in the classroom environment. But because they are classified as high IQ, they're not there for the funding; they're actually outside it. And the minute` Cos you've gotta be functioning at only 3% to get the funding, to get a teacher aide, get the support you need in school. The minute you start achieving, they rip it from underneath you. How are the kids ever gonna reach their potential and achieve without the support? So there needs to be change in the education system to cater for these Asperger's kids. They need their own funding criteria, because you can't compare Josh to somebody with Down's syndrome. But the funding boxes them all together, and it's just not working. People don't understand it unless they've actually lived with it like we do. They need to live with it and know how it feels before they can actually say, 'Nah, you don't have it,' or, 'You're just playing.' If they've lived with it, they'd understand how difficult it is to deal with how I` like I tried doing. But you can do it, and I'm an example of it. When I look at my childhood, I was very similar to the kids ` I hated big crowds; I hated new people; um, I hated change. I liked everything just the way it was. I didn't succeed at school, and we definitely know their dad hadn't. So I think it's a combination of hereditary ` from me, from their dad. Their dad was ADHD. I'm ADHD. So when you've got both parents with it, the kids can't help but have it. But I still love 'em. I love them with all their warts. Yep. That'll do. Let's go. SLEEPY MUSIC Come here. Come here. No! Hey, Jacob, where's my bromance? Hey, Jacob, where's my bromance? Bromance? Hey, Jacob, where's my bromance? Bromance? Yeah, mate. I have... one sister and two brothers. My oldest brother, uh, he's possibly got worse Asperger's than me. Yeah, pretty much, he was stuck in his room all the time, gaming. Um, my sister, she's pretty much just got autism, but as Mum used to always say, the attention span of a goldfish ` which is three seconds. There were quite heated moments at times. We were always fighting. What was Uncle Josh like when he was little? A little shit! (LAUGHS) Yes, I was a little brat at times, but not any more. I've turned out to be a good boy. Couldn't understand each other, really. I couldn't understand how he was feeling or... he couldn't understand how I was feeling, so, yeah, we let it out with anger. (CHUCKLES) So on the whole, you had a pretty good week, then. Mm-hm. It would've been hard for her constantly getting people saying, 'Oh, they're not gonna be able to do this. Oh, they won't do that.' But her love for us kids is obviously stronger than what people are saying. GENTLE MUSIC HOOVES FALL SOFTLY SERENE MUSIC I have been riding for... two` two years and four months, I would think. I love it, the thrill of going fast. You feel so much freer. You can just go and just be so relaxed. You` You just feel so free. SERENE MUSIC (CLICKS) Breaking in horses is a difficult process. It's never easy. Good girl. A lot of the time, when I walk into the paddock, if a horse is stressed, automatically I become stressed. So it's like I'm feeling what they're feeling. It's like a link with that horse. You definitely have to read body language. But it's something more than body language; it-it` it's half sort of, um, spiritual ` that you understand them on a higher level than just them being a horse and you can read their body language. Thinking if I was the horse, it would be quite scary. If someone is riding the horse and a tarp or even the wind blew something in there that they wouldn't see it and jump sideways and take off. They'd be able to deal with it so it won't get their rider injured or them injured. Uh-uh-uh. > < Josh, when will you know it's safe to get on the horse? When I've got control of the front feet, back feet and the head. SHEET RUSTLES Cos if I don't have that on the ground, I'm definitely not gonna have it on her. (CLICKS) And that was the back feet right there. Asking her to move her back feet away from me... so that I don't get kicked if I do come off. Look, show me. (CLICKS) Just give it a moment. Just stop and rest. You're just... chasing a little too much. Good girl. One, two, three, up. COUNTRY MUSIC Oh. Very nicely done. Slide on. Good. < Feeling comfortable up there? Love and trust with a human is exactly the same to a horse. It's exactly the same. Just cos they're animals, doesn't mean they shouldn't have trust or shouldn't be able to love someone or something. < OK, turn her now. (SIGHS) Good. Send her forward calmly. Go on. Easy. Easy. Easy. Sit up. Hold on. Hold on. Send her forward. Send her forward. Hold on. Send her forward. Send her forward. (CLICKS) That's it. Grab the saddle with one hand. And I got her. Send her forward. Send her forward. Uh-uh-uh. Grab the saddle with one hand so you keep your balance. WHISPERS: That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. Attagirl. You're all good. I'd still hold the reins on both` both sides. Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy. Every horse is different. You get some horses that handle it quite well, and then you just get horses that just go berserk. Good. It's just the constant not knowing what's gonna happen next. And you have to be on your guard at all times. But when they get it right and you've helped them get it right, it's an awesome feeling. He hasn't actually, uh, fallen off, uh, in the two years that he's been here. Um, he's had a couple of quick dismounts where he's landed on his feet, um, where most of us would have probably woken up in hospital. Um, and so he's` he's got a really good seat and just good reactions and responds, um, in the right way instinctively when things aren't going how they're meant to be. A lot of people think that I'm crazy, but... doing this, but I still get terrified ` utterly terrified. Come on. (EXHALES SOFTLY) GENTLE COUNTRY SONG Head down. Stand beside him. When he first arrived, uh, he couldn't make eye contact. He, um, really avoided speaking to anyone, actually. Um, but in the first six months of just being with us, um, really encouraged him just to greet all the clients as they arrive and make them feel welcome, and that was really really tough for him, to begin with. Um, but over time, he's just become more and more confident in communicating properly. When I first went to Pete, I didn't know I was able to teach till he started getting me interacting with new people. Bit of jumping. Once I got to know Pete, I knew he would be the one to just throw me in the deep end and get me doing that stuff just to make me grow as a person. I'm gonna so torture you guys. People come here; they see me; they know I teach. They sometimes get told where I've come from. I'm just happy they don't look at me as an outsider. They treat me equal. Don't think that you've got no stirrups. Think you've got stirrups. I do still struggle socially, at times. Sometimes I just don't want to be around humans, 'but I guess it's part of life. You still have to be.' Looking at him, you'd think he's coping completely fine. But inside, he's probably still really stressed, but he's not letting that hold him back, and he's still willing to step out, um, into that uncomfortable area and give things a go. So that's how we've been able to help him so much. It's cos he's so willing to help himself. One more round and you can have your stirrups back. When he first came to us, he, uh, hadn't ridden. So we taught him how to ride. And, um, he took to that like duck to the water. Um, and that was just fantastic for his confidence. He came along to a Western clinic. Um, we had another instructor coming from out of town, and they couldn't believe that he'd only been riding for t` two to three months when he had that clinic. They thought he'd been riding for a couple of years, and they just raved about him, and he was just on cloud nine, and that did him the world of good. It's been since he's gone to work with Pete that that boy's blossomed and now can look people in the eye, hold his head up... high and be proud of his achievements. Because Pete gave him a go. METAL RATTLES I definitely wanna go out competing, showjumping and hopefully be competing around the world eventually. I've recently just bought a horse. She's a bit of a handful. She, when I first got her, had trust issues as well. Could say she's got... (LAUGHS) Asperger's too. But I don't know if horses can get it. She reminded me of myself ` having issues in the past and struggling to deal with them and not having the help that she needs. I felt I would be the one to give her the help. Just fell in love with her and got on her there and then, and, yeah, that's the day she tried killing me. But I still... loved her. I just found there was something there, and I've just worked on it, and now we've got a really strong bond. Gonna take the bridle off... and... attempt to ride her... with... just what you see ` nothing. Apart from this. I call her Luna because she reminds me of the moon at night and you can see the craters. And cos she has her moments of craziness, I add 'tic' on the end of Luna. So she turns into a lunatic. (CLICKS) Come on. (CLICKS) She had been beaten in the past, so I was never gonna make it that she was scared of me, and I would find a different way to do it. EXCITING GUITAR MUSIC (SIGHS) This is... to build our trust and our bond together. You need to respect this. PLASTIC BAG RUSTLES I wouldn't recommend it if you don't trust your horse ` and this part. (CLICKS) Thank you. People call me a horse whisperer. But it is not` not really about talking to the horse; it's more about listening to the horse. You need to respect that. Good girl. Thinking back to the difference between when I first got her and now, I'm just so happy I could help her. UPBEAT MUSIC It's my hobby that I'm doing, not my job. And that's what I love about being here ` is to see all the horses, and I'm just, like, 'Yep, this is where I wanna be.' MUSIC SOFTENS I actually thought that... when I left school, I was most likely gonna end up in jail and... do something really bad, but... it turns out I didn't. (CHUCKLES) UPBEAT GUITAR MUSIC From being made to feel like I was a failure when I left school to being a farm manager now and breaking in horses, it's... a massive achievement. MUSIC ENDS www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015