“Dressed from head to toe in a flowing black hijab, Amina leads a stunning white Arabian stallion out to the ménage under a blazing hot desert sky.

There, she releases him and slaps the rope on her thighs creating a crack that startles the horse and sends him high-tailing round the school, moving as if he is dancing on light. Amina walks to the centre of the pen, and beckons two other women, similarly attired, to join her there. The sleeves of the Chanel and Gucci hijabs catch in the hot breeze, creating a flapping that increases the horse’s momentum.

Working as a team, they send the horse round the outside of the pen, trying out different stances to notice how this affects the horse. Standing square to the shoulder, eyes on eyes, they send the horse galloping, his nostrils flared, power surging from hind to front.

They have never presented themselves this way before, bold, assertive, proud and confident. Their attitude and state of being reflects perfectly in the horse. He is a flawless mirror in which they can test out their communication skills.

Until the previous day, few of these 40 ladies have ever been near a horse. Their husbands may own racehorses or Arabian endurance horses, but contact with the horses for these ladies has been taboo. On first entrance to the barn nearly all of them covered their noses with elegant flowing sleeves, shocked at the smell of the horses that we take entirely for granted.

They are experiencing a life-changing hiatus in which a lifetime of conditioning to be passive and demure is powerfully challenged. The experience of causing 400 kilos of equine masculinity to respond willingly to their focused and quiet intent will act as an anchor point in their memory. It will be a moment they can draw on again and again offering choice for a different way of being when in a difficult meeting or standing up to a dominant mother-in-law, or making their case to a recalcitrant husband, without needing to resort to manipulation or subterfuge which have to date, they admit, been their main weapons.”

Wizard Harriet Worthington has helped to design an experiential learning programme under the auspices of the Dubai Ladies Club, sponsored by one of the royal princesses, HH Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

Read Harriet’s fascinating account of the experience...

E-mail Harriet Worthington at harriet.worthington@thewizardsnetwork.com