Therapeutic horseback riding benefits both the rider and the horse

Their mission is clear: providing therapy for people with special needs to help them succeed in society.

“We are emphasizing the abilities not the disabilities of our riders.”

Kim Hopkins is the executive director at Talbot Special Riders, a non-profit organization that provides therapeutic horseback riding to people with various special needs.

Talbot Special Riders, certified through the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International, has provided therapy lessons using horses to help sharpen their riders minds and bodies. And they have had much success with it.

“One little boy spoke his first word ever on the horse and it was happy. I mean there wasn’t a dry eye in the house…another little boy never sat up he would lay on a blanket or something all the time. Today he is running around school on a walker,” says co-founder Sandy King.

King says not every rider has that kind of success but you when just get a couple that have that much, that’s what you hang your heart on. She says they focus on finding their riders a place in society through sequencing.

“We do what we call trail classes. They’re letters on and  around the ring A B C D…you say go to A make a circle, go to B and stop, go to C and back up and that if they can do those three things, it’s amazing you know this is all training their minds to sequence things,” explains King.

Kim swears horses bring something no instructor or therapist can give they just have an innate sense for these riders.

And 47 ABC saw firsthand how happy riders get when Thomas came for his lesson and a smile never seemed to leave his face.

And horseback riding isn’t just benefitting the riders, it’s a safe haven for horses too. Many of the horses Talbot Special Riders use for therapy are old and with health issues, horses that many people don’t want.

Of the six horses they use for therapy, all have one thing in common; their owners found no use for them anymore — but not for Talbot. 

They recently just received Bella, an 18-year old horse that’s blind in one eye. Bella was set for the slaughterhouse, but a horse rescue team saved her, then once they saw how calm she was and brought her straight to Timber Grove Farm.

The horse now has a new purpose like all the others, providing therapy with people in need while also getting high quality care.

Hopkins adds, “Horses give unconditional love and they get it back in spades from all of the riders and volunteers.”

She also says it’s a special and unique bond between the horses and their now fifty riders, both expressing happiness in their own way.