A little nine-year-old girl is wheeled across the parking lot and into the arena. Her mother pushes the wheelchair up a long ramp. There, two attendants help the child get out of the wheel chair and two individuals on the ground, standing next to a waiting horse, help ease the little girl from atop the ramp’s platform and onto the standing horse. The child sustained a traumatic brain injury suffered in a car accident several years ago that left her severely physically handicapped.

With the help of her father, a five-year-old girl walks across the parking lot and into the arena. The little girl has cerebral palsy, her legs so tight with spasticity that they cross each other with each step. Attendants help her into the saddle of a patient horse standing aside a mounting block.

The four-year-old boy has autism. His kinesthesia (his awareness of where his body is in relation to his environment) is distorted, so very different than it is for you or I. He is talked through the steps of how to get on the horse.

Two individuals assisting the children are volunteers, a third is both an experienced riding instructor, a physical therapist assistant, A NARHA Certified Instructor and Registered Therapist. The fourth is an experienced rider, trainer, registered physical therapist and a NARHA Certified Instructor.

What these three children have in common is that for the next ½ hour they will be physically and emotionally challenged as participants in hippotherapy (hippo – from the Greek word, horse) sessions, one of the disciplines of the farm’s therapeutic riding program. Each of the children also receives some traditional physical therapy services. Hippotherapy often provides more effective and efficient means of therapy. With children, if therapy is not “play based,” i.e., fun or motivating, success can be more challenging to attain. A child does not “understand” the benefits of, or may not be receptive to, 30 minutes of painful stretching of tight muscles in a clinical setting. But 30 minutes of straddling a warm, affectionate, moving horse while playing ball, tag, or Simon Says is fun and motivating: the subconscious efforts at working trunk muscles and staying balanced as a horse moves in the same multi plane fashion, as we walk, produces therapeutic gains not easily accomplished in a sterile clinical setting.

For the girl who sustained a traumatic brain injury, she is making progress toward regaining her ability to walk. The little girl with Content for id "copper" Goes Here cerebral palsy dismounts after her ride, and is able to walk normally for a period of time. Over time, the autistic boy, getting sensation from the movement of the horse’s body, is able to alter some of his distorted spatial awareness and is no longer bumping into objects.

"Accept challenges so you may feel the exhilaration of victory." - General George Patton