Horseback Riding Benefits for Children

Video Transcript

"This is our next class, that we're going to have right here at Hearts. This is Christine. Yes, Christine can you wave to the camera over there. Good. And this is Kristen and Kristen is hearing impaired. And her mom is actually signing to her so she's can wave. Thank you. And Elias come over here. And this is Elias. He's our third rider in this class, can you wave to the camera. She's going to take your picture today. Okay? Okay, what we're doing, we're showing some mounting of some disabled riders here at Hearts Adaptive Riding Therapeutic Riding Center. The leader just brought in Buddy the horse, and she's going to get him still. The instructor has already checked the saddle to make sure it's tight, cinch is tight, we don't want the saddle to slip. As you can see the rider is getting on, trying to pull herself up as much as possible. We're using a ramp here, it's easier for especially the smaller riders to not have to step up so high from the ground. The ramp is right there and they can just swing their leg over and sit normally and then they walk straight off the ramp towards the arena. Elias is about to get on Rosa. Elias is a child with autism. He's been riding here a short time, but he's on a very quiet, calm horse. You see how he tries to get on too quickly and Christine is holding him back. She's trying to tell him the sequence of events so he goes nice and slow. Otherwise he might be really impulsive and jump onto the horse too quick. Now it could be dangerous if the horse is flighty at all. But this way, he learns to be patient and he's listening to instructions. She's giving him a lot of positive reinforcement because he listened to her and slowed himself down before he impulsively got on. Lots of things can happened when the horse gets in a confined space. That's why the horses have to be very well trained and sensitized, desensitized to everything that goes on around them, so they stand quite still and will be patient while the rider takes their time getting on. Sometimes, the riders will actually kick them as they swing their leg around, or kick them if they, or jerk on them. And all the horses have to be pretty much able to deal with anything like that."