Therapeutic Riding

One of the goals I set for myself when I came out to Wyoming was to work with horses. I was not sure how this was going to happen but when there's a will, there's a way. I spent the first few weeks contacting ranches and horse owners around Jackson marketing myself as a "volunteer who would like to spend more time around horses." I thought people would be fighting over me - a reliable graduate student who is volunteering to muck out stables; who could resist.

Much to my dismay I realized that most horses are shipped out of Wyoming in November and winter in the sunny hills of Utah. Last week, however, I received a call from a therapeutic riding organization saying they needed volunteers to help train, exercise, and feed their horses. It was too good to be true.

Yesterday I went in for my interview and five minutes after my arrival I found myself on a one-eyed horse named Hoot trotting through the national forest. These horses are used in the summer as training tools for high-need children and parents. The president of this organization is an incredible educator and believes in using horses as a metaphor for her students' and their parents. Today I went on a morning ride through the forest exercising the horses and learning more about horse therapy.

Over the next few months I will be in charge of developing a relationship with the horses which includes on-the-ground training as well as riding. During the winter I will help with the feeding (which seems to be quite fun - hay has to be loaded onto a sleigh and I will be skiing around the paddock dropping bales of hay.)

Therapeutic riding is one of those new educational tools that I hope to add to my repertoire as the year continues.