The session that grabbed my heart.

This is the day that working with special children and horses became a passion for Kathy and I.

This is Baie giving this beautiful girl a ride on his warm, rocking back. Seeing this made me realize what we needed to do to make our world a little kinder. The day captured in this photo is what started it all.

My first experience with what we call a break through moment was a three year old non-verbal girl with cerebral palsy. Her Mother brought her over to ride our Clydesdale. We laid the child on the horse’s back and gave her pony rides around the yard. Each time we circled the yard we would stop and ask her if she would like to go again. Each time she would smile so we would be off for another loop of the yard.

After several rides her Mother noticed that she was getting tired and said it was time to stop and take her off the horses back. As Mom reached to remove her daughter she smiled and said "again". We all broke into tears. These were child's first words - to request a little more time on the back of a horse.

Volunteering at the Rocking T Ranch in California we had a ten year old boy with muscular dystrophy come to us in a strapped into his wheelchair. His Father had tried many different therapies with no success. He asked if his son could participate in therapeutic riding. We lifted the young boy from his wheelchair onto an older horse. His first ride lasted five minutes. The volunteers could not support the young boy as he leaned forward onto the horse’s neck. We lifted the boy off the horse and placed him back into his wheelchair. His father carefully strapped his son into the wheelchair and asked if he could try riding again next week. The instructor agreed but cautioned that the results he had hoped for may not happen. The next week came and the boy was able to sit in the saddle for ten minutes. Each week the young boy was able to increase his riding time. Therapeutic riding had been able to achieve results were other traditional therapies had not.

One of the secrets to therapeutic riding is the natural gait of the horse which closely follows the movement of the human walking stride. People who do not have the ability to use their muscles to walk can gain core strength in their abdomen and lower back along with improving their balance through therapeutic riding.

At the Rocking T Ranch we also had a young women who was in her twenties. She was paralyzed from her waist down from a serious car accident when she was two. Her dream was to ride a horse by herself. Once again I found myself lifting someone from a wheelchair in hopes of fulfilling a dream.

After four weeks of riding with volunteers by her side to assist with balance, she asked if she could ride by herself. The instructor agree that she could. She rode five minutes in the arena by herself, she stopped and cried. She had thought that she would never feel the freedom that she had experienced in that short five minutes.

While preparing for a class with four students in Phoenix I realized that I did not have enough volunteers for the needs of each rider. I made the decision to have one of my students, an eleven year old boy ( high functioning autism ) ride without his horse leader. The horse leader's job is to control the horse and guide it through the lesson. This rider had always fought with the volunteers and other students telling all what they were doing wrong. I talked to the boy and told him that I knew he could ride by himself. That all I needed him to do was listen and follow my directions. Also he would have to be quiet and respect the other riders.

The class was a success. The young man had risen to my expectations when asked to. His mother could not believe that her son was riding without help from a volunteer. A couple of weeks later this young man was moved to the advanced class.

Another one of my favorite students in Phoenix was a twelve year old girl. She was what most of us think of when we hear about a person with autism. She was in her own world with no sense of any communication or awareness. We would saddle her up with volunteers helping her balance. She would ride me entire lesson looking up into the sky, non responsive. After one of the lessons I asked her Mother if there was anything that she responded to? Her Mother answered, music. The next week's lesson the volunteers and I sang. Immediately the young girl made eye contact with me and smiled. We sang through the entire lesson. In the weeks to come the volunteers and I sang and our rider was with us in the moment, even if it was just an hour.

Sometimes therapeutic riding gives a person the chance to excel when they don't feel a pressure to follow orders.

Instead they achieve because of the enjoyment of feeling a partnership with a horse working together toward a goal.

I have a rider that started with us a year ago. He has downs syndrome. Before his first lesson his mother told me to only give him one task at a time. She was worried that if we overloaded him with too much information he would shut down. As the lesson progressed he not only could remember and complete one task but was following three and four directions at a time. Needless to say Mom was amazed. I remembered back to when I was a teenage boy and would often shut out my mom's request. (I don't do this any longer.)

Horses can teach us compassion and feelings.

My last rider is a 6 year old boy with Autism. He is highly intelligent. His social skills were lacking. Half way through his first lesson he did not want to follow directions. He begin to cry and tell me that he did not want to ride. He wanted off the horse now! I lifted him off the horse and carried him over next to his Mother and sat him in a chair. He continued to cry and yelled at me, "I hate you, you have ruined my day!" Mom reassured me that he says that to all his therapist. The second week's lesson was better as was the third week. Progress was being made with following directions and treating the horse and volunteers kindly. After his four lesson he asked me to kneel down so he could tell me something. He whispered in my ear that he loved me and was going to miss me. I reassured him that he would be back next week to ride Autumn. He smiled and kissed me on my cheek.