Healing Hooves

All through grade school, middle school, and even high school, the boys in my grade would tease me about being a “pony girl.”  Pooooonniiiies?? That’s weeeeiiird. Why do you like Pooniiiies?”  I would just pout, flip my dress and stomp away in my little mary jane shoes, telling them they just didn’t have the guts to do what I do.  

As anyone who knows me can tell, my horse obsession has transcended the magical unicorn/pegasus/my little pony phase of childhood and grew into a passion for a sport and powerful human-animal connection.  I unfortunately don’t ride often while at college, but I still get to spend time with equine friends when volunteering at a horse therapy barn near Davidson called Hind’s Feet Farm.  They work with individuals living with traumatic brain injury, and it’s incredible to watch the joy and healing horses can bring to fractured minds and lives.  Therapeutic riding has been proven to help with neurological recovery in many people: when a person suffers from TBI, the damage done to neural networks caused by the injury often causes difficulty integrating different tasks together, and the brain does not perform efficiently.  When riding a horse, the brain must operate on multiple physical and cognitive tasks -balance, direction, coordination - and this multisensory activity can help begin the “re-integration” of processing abilities.   The joy and healing of goes beyond pure science, however; I’ve felt it before when I am faced with fragments in my own life.  If you’re a horse person, you know what I’m talking about.   This semester I have had the privilege to work with the members (the patients with TBI) directly in the riding program, and breathing in the sweet smell of hay is always the best way to start Thursday mornings.

The other week, I was working with a sweet older gentleman who was riding caddy, my favorite huggable horse at the barn, and he very concerned for Caddy’s well-being.  He kept asking me if he was comfortable since he was doing so much work to carry him.  I assured him Caddy does this all the time, so not to worry.  This morning I asked him if he was excited to ride again, and he simply said, “When they look in your eyes you can just tell there’s so much there.   They have minds.”  He commented on my green cowboy boots and asked me if I had been around horses a lot; I smiled and told him I had been riding since I was eight.

He looked at me with a knowing smile and said, “Ahhh.  They are really in your heart aren’t they.”

That they are.  And they’re even more magical than when I was eight years old.