What is the Lore Project?
We aren't preparing every horse for the same future, but for their future.
The Lore Project is a horse-centered initiative of Liberty Equine Assisted Program (LEAP) dedicated to developing confident, communicative, adaptable horses through connection and collaborative horsemanship.
The work begins with the horse who is already in front of us—not an expectation of who that horse should become. We build from existing strengths, support areas of difficulty, and listen to what each horse's communication tells us along the way.
The Lore Project works with privately owned horses and their humans while also intentionally developing horses with potential for careers in therapeutic riding and equine-assisted services.
Different horses may have different destinations, but the foundation remains the same:
Communication. Connection. Choice. Consent.
connection builds confidence
Development of the Lore Project Horse
The Lore Project intentionally identifies and develops horses with potential for careers in therapeutic riding and equine-assisted services—work that requires far more than simple obedience or tolerance.
We develop horses who can think, communicate, adapt, recover, and build confident connections with different humans. Thoughtful exposure and preparation are part of that process, but the goal isn't a horse who has learned to stop responding to the world around them.
“Nothing bothers this horse” isn't the goal. “This horse knows how to handle being bothered” is.
Not every horse will ultimately be suited for therapeutic work. Misalignment isn't failure. When a different future is more appropriate, we listen.
Suitable horses may eventually be sold, donated, or placed with aligned therapeutic riding and equine-assisted programs.
Work with the Lore Project
Whether you're navigating challenges with your horse, looking for a deeper and more collaborative partnership, interested in bringing the Lore Project to your barn for a clinic, or seeking thoughtfully developed horses for an equine-assisted program, we'd love to start a conversation.
Private horse-human work begins with an individualized evaluation of you, your horse, and the relationship between you. From there, the process is shaped by what we learn—not by a predetermined training formula or timeline.
The Lore Project currently offers:
Private Horse & Human Work • Barn Clinics & Education • Equine-Assisted Program Collaboration
Serving Sullivan, Ulster, and Dutchess Counties and surrounding areas in New York.
Ready to begin? Request a Lore Project evaluation or contact LEAP to start the conversation.
Why the lore project exists
Demi Duc Lore
June 18, 2001 – November 9, 2025
Lore came into my life at seventeen after being donated to a therapeutic riding program in Kentucky. Elegant, intelligent, capable—and deeply opinionated—he failed therapy-horse training twice. He was considered too reactive, too strong-willed, too difficult.
What was labeled failure was, in truth, misalignment.
Lore could not be rushed or molded into someone else's expectation of who he should be. He required patience, clarity, consistency, and relationship. Over nearly a decade together, learning to listen to him changed the way I understood horses—and changed me, too.
At twenty-two, Lore finally became ready for therapeutic work. Not because his personality had been erased, but because we had learned how to work together while honoring who he was.
Lore died suddenly on November 9, 2025, and was laid to rest at Split Brook Farm in Hurleyville, New York.
The Lore Project carries forward what he taught me: listen before judging, build connection before demanding confidence, and never mistake a horse's inability to fit our expectations for a failure of the horse.
Develop who they already are.
