Equine Leadership Coaching Near Austin

Most leadership development tells you what to do differently. This shows you what you are already doing.

Horse + Bow runs ground-based equine-assisted learning for leaders and leadership teams on a 50-acre ranch in Marble Falls, 30 miles from Austin in the Texas Hill Country. Our specialty is larger intact teams, typically 18 to 23 people. We also coach individual executives weekly. No horse experience is required and no riding is involved.

A horse does not read your title, your reviews, or your intentions. It reads your body, your attention, and whether the two agree. A leader who is rushing while saying they are present gets a different response than one who is present. That gap, visible in real time, is the whole method.

What this is

Equine-assisted learning is experiential education, not therapy. You work on the ground alongside horses on structured tasks that require clarity, patience, and a plan the whole group can follow. A facilitator reads what happens and connects it back to how you lead.

The horses are not props. Cuatro is a 16-year-old grey Quarter Horse and a gentle giant. Charlotte is 14, sensitive and cautious, and will tell you immediately when your energy is off. Panda is a 12-year-old Paint with high energy who rewards clear direction and ignores vague direction. Peanut and Casper, two mini donkeys, round out the herd. Different horses surface different things, which is why the pairing is deliberate.

If you want the distinction spelled out, we wrote about how equine-assisted learning differs from equine therapy.

What it changes

The skills this work reaches are the ones that resist classroom training because they are embodied rather than intellectual.

What leaders work on	What shows up in the arena
Executive presence	Whether a horse follows you or tests you
Clarity of direction	Whether the task gets done or stalls
Regulation under pressure	Whether the horse settles or escalates
Trust and follow-through	Whether a second attempt goes better or worse
Reading a room	Whether you notice the shift before it becomes a problem

None of this is abstract. A leader finds out within minutes whether their intention and their signal match, and the feedback is immediate and non-political in a way that a 360 review is not.

The science, briefly

For anyone who needs the mechanism rather than the metaphor. Interaction with horses has been associated with measurable shifts in heart rate variability coherence, reductions in cortisol, and oxytocin response. Embodied learning research consistently finds that skills practiced physically transfer and persist better than skills discussed verbally. That is why a session here tends to still be referenced months later when a workshop is not.

We do not promise clinical or therapeutic outcomes. This is experiential learning, and we are careful about the difference.

Formats

Format	Length	Who it is for
Team intensive	Half or full day	Our specialty: executive leadership teams of 18 to 23
Smaller team session	2 to 6 hours	Teams of 4 to 17
Individual executive coaching	Weekly, ongoing	One executive, sustained work over months
Single leadership session	3 hours	One executive working on a specific pattern
Lead Mares series	4-6 hours	Women in leadership, workshop format
Follow-up sessions	Varies	Continued work after an initial engagement

Corporate engagements start at $3,500 total, typically $500-$1000 per person. Spring and fall are the best booking windows for Hill Country weather, but we have had teams in all seasons and weather simply plays an interesting role in the learning.

Who this is for

This works best for leaders and teams who have already tried the conventional thing. The clearest signal is a team that did an offsite last year and cannot name what changed.

It is a strong fit if you lead a team of 18 to 23 that needs to move together, you are an executive whose feedback keeps circling the same theme, you lead a group carrying unspoken tension, you are a founder whose company outgrew your original operating style, or you are rebuilding trust after a hard period.

Weekly one-to-one coaching is available and several clients have been working this way for several years. What we do not offer is an ICF credential yet, so if your organization requires one, start with the twelve Austin coaches we reviewed, several of whom we would recommend without hesitation.

About the facilitator

Kristine Palmer founded Horse + Bow after discovering horses through a family experience in 2020. She is a Certified Equine Assisted Learning Facilitator through EAL Academy, trained under Kim Shook, completed the 2024 to 2025 cohort of the EQUUS Experience Certification Training with Kelly Wendorf, MCC, where she is finishing the remaining requirements, and has trained with Leah Dyck of Equus Attuned. She holds an MBA from St. Edward’s University and a degree from Wheaton College, and previously co-founded a company that sold in 2023. She has also co-facilitated with Dr. Katie Pritchett of KPI Coaching. The corporate background is the point: she has run the kind of team she now works with.

What people say

The pattern in our reviews is consistent enough to name. People sometimes arrive skeptical, often having been sent. Something shifts partway through, usually when a horse responds to a change the person did not know they had made. They leave naming a specific thing they will do differently.

Reach out

Tell us what your team is working through and we will tell you honestly whether this is the right tool for it.

Start the conversation. Now Booking 2027 Dates.