NCEFT Archives - Page 10 of 11 - NCEFT National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy

Riding to Walk

July 14, 2011 by Development Director

Her small hands wrapped themselves around the wrists of the side-walkers on either side of her, insistently squeezing and kneading. “You want your seatbelt back?” one of them asked. Both women raised their hands from where they’d been lightly holding the child’s ankles and draped their forearms over the tops of her thighs. “Click, seatbelt on.” The rider sighed, contentedly resting her palms on their arms. They made two more laps around the arena in this fashion, their comfortable conversation pausing only briefly when the therapist requested a change of direction on the next diagonal.

She has Down Syndrome, the most prevalent chromosomal disorder affecting more than 400,000 people in the United States alone. Caused by additional genetic material—part, or all, of a third chromosome 21—the syndrome results in cognitive delays and stereotypic physical features. However, those affected by Down can go on to lead rewarding lives when given the correct educational, emotional, and therapeutic support.

Results from an 11-week study conducted at the University of Quebec in November of 2010 indicate that equine-assisted therapy improves the gross motor function and postural control of children with Down Syndrome. Motor function refers to the body’s ability to work as system, thereby enabling us to act and move. These functions are divided into two types, fine motor skills that involve small muscles, and gross motor skills involving larger muscles. Hippotherapy (Hippo) and Therapeutic riding (TR) increases strength in these larger muscle groups, allowing for improvements in walking and running. Though the ability to move is a necessary part of being able to care for oneself, it also has profound implications on one’s social opportunities. Early childhood development of social skills is dependent on participation in peer interaction. Hippo and TR not only improve a child’s ability to participate in games, but give them a source of conversation and commonality.

“Ready?” the therapist asks. The young girl immediately signs her reply, touching the front of the felt pad and placing her hand on her chest, “Go please!” For her, NCEFT simply means a small brown pony named Valentine. It’s not 30 minutes of improving motor function, or working on signing two-word sentences. It’s soft fur, blue skies, and friends who are always ready to hold your hand.

http://www.down-syndrome.org/

Volunteer Profile: Eva De Waal Malefijt

July 6, 2011 by Development Director

It was an innocuous start, one of those High School Career days where countless professionals tout the benefits of their job. Yet one seminar stood out to her, speech language pathology (SLP). The speaker casually mentioned other areas of study, and hippotherapy happened to be amongst them. After looking into a handful of therapeutic programs on the Peninsula, Eva de Waal Malefijt chose to explore equine facilitated therapy here at NCEFT.

Eva helps lead Ben during a Therapeutic Riding lesson

It’s been over a year and half since Eva joined our team of volunteers, and we’re sad to be turning the final page on this chapter of her life. She’s off to college at Illinois College where she’ll be participating in a five-year Masters program in Occupational Therapy (OT). Though originally interested in SLP, Eva credits the hands-on experience of side-walking at NCEFT for kindling a passion in her future career as an OT.

It was at NCEFT Eva first saw hippotherapy performed, and though a knee injury ended her riding career at the age of 14, she reveled in her time with the therapy horses. Their unique personalities, and those of the kids who ride them, continued to draw Eva back to the facility every week. “The horses are saints on hooves,” Eva said, “they never flinch during lessons.”

We asked Eva what she’d miss the most about NCEFT, and try as we might to put it into our own words, Eva really said it best. “I will miss seeing all of the kids excited for their lessons, waiting at the gate for their instructor to let them begin the lesson. I love the sense of community NCEFT has, someone is always willing to lend a hand or step in without being asked. All the volunteers that help during the lessons, the long hours put in by the therapists and barn [staff], and the willingness of the horses to do their job makes volunteering worthwhile.”

Si O Tuck

July 1, 2011 by Development Director

Watching him go you’d never guess at his day job; his neck arched, smooth strides taking him effortlessly around the arena. He looks as if he belongs in a show ring amongst polished hooves and banded manes. Instead, his rider dismounts and strips his tack, replacing it with a colorful felt pad and surcingle. He’s lined over to the mounting block where he waits, hip cocked, until his patient is a ready to mount.

Cody's Sire, Si Olena, AQHA World Champion in Open Sr. Cutting Horse

His name is Si O Tuck, or Cody as he’s known here at NCEFT. Out of a mare named Smoke Time Tuck, a reined cowhorse with earnings near $300,000, Cody was born on April 18^th, 1995 at Bar Eleven Ranch in Red Bluff, CA. Skip Brown, owner of Bar Eleven, has trained and shown some of the greatest horses in NRCHA history. Skip bred Tucker’s Vaquero, the youngest horse to ever win the AQHA Super Horse title, and has judged the AQHA Snaffle Bit Futurity an astounding 7 times. Though Cody never made it to the World Show, His sire, Si Olena, won enough awards for the both of them: 1998 AQHA World Champion in Open Sr. Cutting, 1998 AQHA High Point Cutting Horse, and second place winner of the 1990 NCHA Super Stakes Open Division.

That’s not to say that Cody didn’t earn his keep, by the age of four he’d already earned over $2,000 as a cutting horse. His competition career was put on the backburner when he was sold in 1999 to Dearborn Ranch in Wolf Creek, Montana. Owned by the Seibel Family, the ranch sits on over 90,000 acres, and is part of an Angus operation that produces about 1.5 million pounds of beef each year. It was there Cody experienced life as a true ranch horse, walking fences, moving cattle, and toting kids around the arena.

By some stretch of luck, 2007 found Cody on trailer to California. The Seibels had donated him, along with Jazzy and Boon, to our program. Cody quickly adapted to life as a therapy horse, learning ground driving with ease and thriving on attention from his riders. Unfortunately, only two years later Cody came down with an undiagnosed lameness. Together with the vet, the barn staff at NCEFT tried everything to rehabilitate him. From complete stall rest, to muscle strengthening, and even equine massage, but with no lasting effects. Cody spent most of 2010 in a state of unofficial retirement, until in October of that same year the staff made one last push.

Today you’ll find Cody cantering around the outdoor arena during his morning workout, dependably carrying his hippotherapy patients, and doing a session or two of therapeutic riding. He’s slowly putting on muscle and gaining strength, and we expect nothing but continued improvement as the days go by. Though his hoofs are unpolished and his tack unadorned, Cody is still every bit a superstar.

The Therapy Horse

June 27, 2011 by Development Director

We ask the world of them. To both tune in and tune out. To be dead to the world and yet so sensitive a touch or a word elicits instant change. We ask them to be therapy horses. Friends, teachers, soft rumps to lie on, warm bodies to hug. They listen unwearyingly to stories, quietly endure bouts of tears, and show heart-breaking tenderness.

The question is, are these horses born or made? We say the answer is both, born with kind souls and carefully shaped into solid citizens. In the process of auditioning potential horses we come across quiet horses, loving horses, easy horses. Yet, rarely do we find therapy horses. Why? What training techniques result in horses that are good, but not great?

Stormy showing western — Stormy takes a nap in the line-up while waiting for his blue ribbon in Maiden Equitation

Expectations. The steadfast belief that one’s horse is not only capable of the task at hand, but that the task itself is unassuming. The NCEFT staff currently has the pleasure of working with a young Fjord, TUF Stormy Weather, owned by our Barn Manager, Bonnie MacCurdy. Having just turned 6 in May, Stormy is shattering expectations by not only participating in daily hippotherapy sessions, but playing roles as a therapeutic driving, vaulting, and riding horse. Though born with the soft temperament essential to therapy work, it was careful training that brought Stormy to his full potential.

Now, don’t confuse careful training with finessed training. Not to say that timing and release aren’t important, but in the immortal word’s of Nike, “Just do it.” We believe our horses can do anything. We approach every task with the simple expectation of success, nothing more. The path to success may be filled with twist and turns, bumps, and dead ends, but we get there. Too often we confuse perfection and success, and as a result, too often does failure discourage us.

Earlier this year we took Stormy and our other two Fjords—7 year old Tonka, and 14 year old Sebastian—to a handful of schooling shows. Our goal: a different discipline every month. None of the shows were perfect. At the Hunter-Jumper show all the horses were a little strong in the ring. The Dressage show found an exuberant Sebastian more interested in hand-galloping than halting at X, and Stormy’s slow jog went out the window at the Western show. Yet every show was successful. Not only did the horses stand quietly between classes, but cantered to a win in the Equitation pattern class, earned scores over 70% in Dressage, and nearly took home a Western buckle.

Many of us are deterred by the idea of failure, making no attempt if perfection is unlikely. We limit our expectations and spend more time analyzing our faults than actually doing anything. We try to teach our horses to canter by spending entire rides trotting a circle, analyzing our bend, suppleness, impulsion, flexion. But we don’t canter.

: Stormy and Tonka hang out at Buck’s restaurant in Woodside

So, how do you train a therapy horse? You ride them down the road to the tie-rail by the grocery store, you hop on bareback for a game of mounted basketball, you canter on the right lead, left lead, any lead really as long as you’re cantering. You put scarves on their heads and throw balls at their legs, and sing “Old McDonald” at the top of your lungs. You stop analyzing and start doing, and before you know it, somewhere between the trail rides and champagne races you realize your horse has learned to halt off your seat, to sidepass and back, to move forward with a shift in weight. Somewhere amidst all the “doing” you’ve found success.

O.H. Sebastian

June 22, 2011 by Development Director

“Is that a horse?” the cyclist called, breezing by the group making their way down Canada road. “Yes!” the rider called back after a moment’s hesitation. She gave the gelding a pat, running her hand over the dorsal stripe that ran from his forelock down through his tail. She’d heard it all before. Donkey, mule, heck, they’d even joked about him being a rare arctic zebra. But no, Sebastian was a horse, or more specifically a Norwegian Fjord.

Sebastian was born on May 16, 1997 at Old Hickory Farm in New York State. Bred by Julia Wills, Sebastian was the result of a careful cross between the great stallion, Erlend, and a Montano daughter. The following year, Mary Blatz purchased him as a future family horse, hoping he might someday grow to be a babysitter to her 4 kids. Sebastian far exceeded her expectations, becoming not only a solid riding horse, but a steady driving horse as well. For nine years Sebastian flourished under Mary’s care, but a day came when she could no longer juggle the demands of a growing family and caring for a horse. So she turned to Patti Jo Walter of Francis Creek Fjords. Known for selling top quality ridden Fjords, Patti Jo agreed to consign Sebastian at her farm in Two Rivers,Wisconsin. Upon arriving, Patti Jo barely had time to advertise Sebastian before prospective buyers were lining up for the opportunity to purchase him.

Then NCEFT came along looking for a horse to act as the foundation in their new veterans program. Now, as a non-profit most of NCEFT’s horses are donations. But the staff recognized in Sebastian something worth investing in, and managed to put together the money needed to buy him. Then came the countless preparations for his cross-country trip from Wisconsin to California. After passing all the necessary exams and earning his health certificates, Sebastian loaded onto a trailer and began his trip to his new home here at NCEFT.

It’s been almost five years since Sebastian joined the herd and he couldn’t be a more vital part of our programs. He is one of our steadiest Hippotherapy horses, just as happy to stand still as to move out in a ground-covering walk. Therapeutic riding patients find him sweet but opinionated enough to be a fun challenge, and on Wednesday nights our Interactive Vaulters enjoy playing games both with and on him. Throw in his role as introductory driving horse for our barn staff, trail pony, and competition horse, and you can bet we’ve seen our investment back and then some!

Norwegian Fjord Horse Registry www.NFHR.com

Interested in donating a horse? E-mail our Barn Manager at Bonnie@nceft.org

Riding to Walk

Riding to Walk

Volunteer Profile: Eva De Waal Malefijt

Si O Tuck

The Therapy Horse

O.H. Sebastian

NCEFT: HORSES. HOPE. HEALING.

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