Adaptive Horse Riding: Horse Temperament

Video Transcript

"My nae is Raeshell Sorensen. I am the Equestrian Program Manager here at the National Ability Center. I want to tell you a little bit about the horses that we have here. This horse here is named Rebecca Dill. She is a Norwegian Short and the thing that makes her fabulous is her breed specifically is great for therapeutic riding and they have a very calm nature, they're intelligent and well behaved and they like people. What we look for in a therapeutic horse is a horse who has a good temperament who is not easily spooked or easily flustered, a horse who has training and knows how to respond to rider's aids, a horse who is generally very patient and doesn't have any major vices, that doesn't bite or buck or rear or do anything like that. Generally we have middle aged to older horses but we do have a couple younger horses on staff a six year old and a seven year old who are fabulous. The oldest horse we have right now is 24 who was a national champion at one point and she is a wonderful therapy horse. Our horses generally understand what they are doing. Some horses will get on as instructors and they will be very spunky and excited but the second we put one of our riders on them they are calm and know their job and they'll behave in an appropriate manner to be safe for our riders. All of our horses go through a 30 to 60 day trial period before they are introduced into lessons and during that time we are also riding and testing them."