Dedicated horseman Hone Smythe can usually be found guiding tourists through the Tongariro National Park on horseback. Now he's now putting his experience into a new project, working with inmates at Tongariro Prison.
Photo: Hone Smythe
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Smythe's connection with horses began as a child in the '70s when he lived with several different farming families. At the time, farmers were still on horseback so if you didn't ride you had to stay home and do household chores, he tells Kathryn Ryan.
"We were chucked up on a horse with just a saddle blanket and a rope and a bridle. And then we would go out with the uncle on the farm all day. You pretty much learn how to ride straightaway. Hang on. Lean forward going on, lean back going down…
"Me being a young kid, I could actually see what the horse could do and where the horse could take you - and that fascinated me."
As a young man, Smythe was a semi-professional rugby player "heading for that black jersey" until a broken neck crushed his dream of being an All Black.
He came home to Tongariro, and against doctors' recommendations, got his own horse.
"It was therapeutic. The wairua of the bush was just beautiful and captivating to me. And then I realised that I could be sharing this with other people."
Smythe first started taking his old rugby mates out on horseback then realised he could maybe make a living out of it by taking out school groups visiting Mt Ruapehu.
"I had a typewriter back in those days. And I went through the Yellow Pages and found all the schools and I just typed letters and sent them letters inviting them to come from and do a horse trek with me and what I could offer."
Eventually, he started trekking with special needs kids from all over the North Island.
Smythe says he especially connected with the kids who, like him, had tough childhoods.
"Having them come to us as these little gangsters from the city, spending four or five days with us out in the backblocks of the bush where they were totally out of their comfort zone and then watching them slowly transform back to children… that was the reward of the whole journey. It was a really special time."
In the early '90s, Smythe began the commercial horse trekking business, now known as Horsemtrails, where he takes people further out of their comfort zones than other operations might.
"We've gone away from the single-file and flat-paddock … We're more or less gone away from the namby-pamby of horse trekking and we've added a lot more adventure."<
When international tourist couples would come trekking it was usually the woman who'd chosen the activity while the men were often sceptical, he says.
"Men are terrified of horses because they've got no control. There's no throttle to accelerate, there's no brake, no steering wheel to steer."
Soon, Smythe starts a new role with the Manaaki Ora Trust, bringing his own life experience and the healing nature of horses to Tongariro Prison inmates.
Horses have a deep understanding of humans and can read us extremely well, he says.
"They pick up on a lot of stuff that we carry. They have a sixth sense. They know when you're sad, they know when you're happy, they know when you're grumpy, they know when you're having a bad day. And that transfers into them. They'll take that on board but they're very non-judgmental.
"Let's just go saddle up, get out there, clear your mind and reconnect with nature and then restart what you want to do."