I thought it was a deer that spooked my Paint mare, Rory, into her leap, spin and bolt. Not so, say the animal communicators I recently interviewed. It was something far scarier than Bambi and his posse.

That was just one of many messages I got from Rory and her pasture mates. I wanted to hear her side of things, why she spooked hard enough to launch me head-first to the earth during a hack-and-yack around my farm. And I wanted to let the rest of the gang know that I’d been injured, and they had to be more careful around me if they wanted to keep living the good life at Finally Farm. So I contacted animal communicators.

Apparently my horses have a lot of their minds.

Turns out, Katie, my Hanoverian mare, annoys Cassie, my OTTB mare, with her incessant gossiping. Cassie purposely ran slow at the track because she didn’t want to be a racehorse, but now she wants me to ratchet it up a bit and let her go faster (she doesn’t think I’m pushing myself enough). Katie hated her previous trainer because he made all the decisions without listening to her (she’s OK with the new trainer so far, but reserves the right to hate him). And finally, Rory is dead to Katie because she hurt me. 

Also turns out, my horses notice everything about me, from hair color to riding clothes. So of course they knew about the fall and had already agreed amongst themselves to take it easier around me. They also opined that I’d be a fool to give up riding, but I just had to make smarter riding choices (eerily echoing the words of my trainer). And thankfully, none of them asked me to cut back on desserts.

I’ve interviewed animal communicators before. The first time for my novel, In Colt Blood, in which a horse psychic offers a clue she gets from a pony who witnessed the crime. I purposefully left it ambiguous, to let readers decide if the pony really talked or the psychic made it up. My character, Nattie Gold, never says what she believes. That’s because she’s not sure, and neither am I.

Of course I’d like to believe that Piper, the packer pony my trainer loaned me, really told Kristin Thompson, an upstate New York animal communicator, that I rode him beautifully. I’ll take riding compliments wherever I can get them. Including—maybe especially—from a horse.

“Easy, lovely,” is how Piper described me on his back, according to Thompson. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my riding. Though apparently I also lean a bit to the left, overanalyze everything and over criticize myself. Guilty on all three counts.

“He can feel how really tough you are on yourself,” Thompson said. “He said to lighten up.”

This is not the first time I’ve been told this.

I considered giving up riding for a few weeks following the fall. But I couldn’t do it; I was just too sad. I started riding again on Cassie, the OTTB I got last April after reading that 30,000 Thoroughbreds are slaughtered each year. I wanted to do my small share. She was only 3 but preternaturally quiet and stayed that way until the thermometer dipped. She didn’t do anything stupid, but she wasn’t the same-kick quiet horse she’d been this summer. The colder it got, the more nervous I got on her. Nerves and Thoroughbreds are not a good combination. It seems we were both frustrated with how I was riding her.

“She thinks you’re at the point where you could do a few more daring things,” said Bill Northern, a Kentucky animal communicator. “Not gallop around the trails, but trot a little faster and then a gallop. She thinks you’re ready to do more, and what you’ve been doing is not fun for her anymore. Don’t be afraid, you’ll be OK.”

Easy for Northern to say. He’s never been on a horse in his life, let alone smashed his head coming off one.

He Sees Himself As A Healer

I didn’t need a horse communicator to tell me Cassie wanted to go more forward. Thoroughbreds aren’t exactly happy in a sustained, slow, sitting trot around the ring. I needed a horse I wouldn’t be nervous on. That’s when my trainer, Gordon Reistrup, offered up his beginner lesson pony. Piper doesn’t care how slow we go or how nervous I get. He just ignores me and my machinations and keeps plodding along happily.

That’s because he sees himself as a healer, according to Thompson, which is certainly what he’s been for me. This little man is like a sofa with short legs. He stands about 15 hands tall and 15 hands wide. He needs all this body mass, explained Thompson, to absorb his rider’s nervous energy, which he then “zaps into the ground.”

Piper knows just how passionate I am about horses. According to Thompson, he said, “You would die without riding. But you don’t have to hold onto your fear or nervousness anymore. Things will move faster that way. Let me work, let me take you.”

Who wouldn’t want to believe in a kindly old horse whose mission in life is to teach children to ride and help scared women regain their courage? And who wouldn’t want to hear that her horse “hearts her forever?” Apparently a direct quote from my Paint mare. This is the stuff we horse-crazy women have been fantasizing about since we were horse-crazy girls.

So far be it from me to call it hogwash.

I’d called in the horse psychics to find out about my fall since it wiped away my memory of the day. Some people turn to communicators when the vets or trainers can’t provide answers for a horse’s sudden change in behavior. Northern, the Kentucky psychic, tells of a previously winning racehorse who inexplicably slowed down.

“The horse wasn’t trying,” he said. “Everything was the same.” Except….

The horse told Northern she didn’t like her trainer’s new hair color – “It’s way too light” – or her new racing colors. “The horse said, ‘I hope you don’t expect me to race in those sissy colors. I like red,’ ” Northern said.

After a long string of losses, the mare was back in the winner’s circle once they put the jockey back in red racing silks and her trainer darkened her hair.

Who’s to say whether it’s coincidence that she starting winning races again or that she really, really hated pastel blue and couldn’t stand blondes?

She Sees Dead People

And who’s to say that Rory didn’t just see deer bolt by? She’s seen them before without all that hysteria. Lots of people say they’ve seen ghosts. Is it such a stretch to believe horses can see them, too? Two of the psychics said that’s exactly what Rory saw: a ghost, an invisible guest. That much the communicators agreed on. After that, their paths diverged. Wildly.

“She saw a ghost, a white apparition,” said Charlotte Szivak, a Canadian psychic, who says she’s been talking to animals for the past 5,000 years.

“It wasn’t a Pilgrim,” she continued, “but something in military clothes from the 18^th Century. Someone who belongs to the property. It really freaked her out.”

Apparently. She sure took off like she saw a ghost. But the ghost she saw, according to Nedda Wittels, a Connecticut animal communicator, wasn’t human. More of a monster ghost. That explains the spin and leap.

“She showed me something that looked like an invisible Big Foot. She says it was a monster,” said Wittels. “This was really scary for her, worse than any deer could be,” Wittels paused a moment, then started talking again, but not to me. “Rory, keep talking …. let it out. This is good for you, too.” Another pause, then back to me. “She says, ‘I intended to take you with me. I was just so scared I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t stop myself.’ She’s really, really sorry.”

OK, Rory, apology accepted. Now it’s time to move on with your life, away from me. I sold her last month with full disclosure—and then some—about her ability to spook. But according to the communicators, Rory is confused, worried and still feeling guilty about the accident.

“Is that why you sent me away?” Wittels said, repeating what she said Rory wanted to ask me.

Great, one more thing in my life to feel guilty about. I can add that to throwing away my 8-year-old son’s wooden sword after he wouldn’t stop bonking his brother with it. He’s 22 and still brings it up.

Rory and I need some kind of healing closure, according to Szivak, because she said we’re tethered to each other by a very sick “etheric cord.” That’s the chakra-to-chakra connection between loved ones, which should look like a silver or red surgical cord. Ours is black. Not good.

“She’s been absorbing your toxins and emotional wounds because of the guilt she has from tossing you,” Szivak said. “She’s taking them on so you don’t have to. She’s kind of like your guardian angel.”

Good to know. Regardless of my beliefs, I’ve never been one to turn down help. When my religious friends tell me they are praying for me and my family, I always say thank you and ask them to keep at it. The worst that can happen is it does nothing but make them feel better, which isn’t so bad at all. But the best is that it could actually help.

Again, who am I to say?

Jody Jaffe is the author of “Horse of a Different Killer,” “Chestnut Mare, Beware,” and “In Colt Blood,” which have been featured in People Magazine and translated into German, Japanese and Czech. She is also the co-author of the novels, “Thief of Words,” and “Shenandoah Summer.” She is a journalist who was on a team at the Charlotte Observer that won the Pulitzer Prize. Her articles have been published in many major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Washingtonian and Practical Horseman. In addition, she teaches journalism at Hollins University. She lives on a farm in Lexington, Va., with her husband, John Muncie, and their eight horses. She attempts to ride hunters with her trainer, the ever-patient, Gordon Reistrup.