The much anticipated video is here! Considering taking a look at the video of Day 1 for comparison. Can you believe how far these riders have come over the past couple of weeks?
A Little Elbow Grease
Every year NCEFT would haul piles of tack and barn supplies from Woodside to Portola Valley for Webb Ranch’s Annual Tack Sale. It was no easy task moving mountains of saddles, and an idea began to travel through the office and barn: Our very own tack store. A small shed near the parking lot, holding little more than abandoned gardening tools and cobwebs, was picked to be the future location of “Bits and Pieces”, a tiny store selling gently used tack donations. Ownership of the project was handed over to the barn staff, and these industrious ladies quickly set to work evicting the spiders and replacing rotted floorboards. Paint was applied, homemade saddle-racks went up, and a transformation took place.
Weeks later Bits and Pieces held its first sale, a smashing success. Tack sale veterans, used to dusty leather and stained breeches, were surprised to find Ariat tall boots in pristine condition and racks of Wool hunt coats with dry-cleaning tags still attached. Priding itself on selling clean, like-new merchandise, the little store continues to provide some serious bargains.
Open this Saturday, October 29th, from 10am-2pm, Bits and Pieces will once again open its doors to the public. With a wonderful selection of Winter blankets, and the usual array of riding apparel, tack, and barn supplies, everyone is sure to find something they’ve been needing!
The Cost of Therapy
As I was dropping hundreds of invitations to this year’s “Jewels and Jeans Gala” into the mailbox at Roberts Market, I thought about the chasm between NCEFT’s need for fundraising, and the public’s understanding of the costs associated with our facility. Our annual Gala raises roughly one-quarter of our year’s operating budget, funding horse care, patient scholarships, facility upkeep, and dozens of other areas of need. Though income from our services offered (hippotherapy, therapeutic riding, etc.) helps fund NCEFT, without the continued support from generous donors, we’d be unable to help all of the children and adults who seek therapy at our facility.
Unlike most traditional therapy centers, NCEFT employs a specialized staff with around the clock needs. These team members are at the facility 365 days a year, and accept food, board, and the occasional carrot, in exchange for their service. The 14 therapy horses under our care are vital to the success of our program, and as such, receive the best upkeep we can offer. However, employing a stable of horses comes at a cost, one that may surprise most. Let’s take a peek into the daily routine of a therapy horse, and see just what goes into keeping our barn running.
7 am – Horses get an individual portion of grass hay depending on their weight, height, and exercise level.
8 am – The Barn staff begin grooming and exercising horses set to work that day. Each horse receives an hour of individual attention.
9 am – Barn stalls and upper stall-paddock combos are cleaned and rebedded with fresh shavings.
10 am – Therapy sessions begin. Each session utilizes a horse handler, therapist, and as many as three volunteers. Up to three or four sessions may run every half hour.
12 pm – Horses get a specialized lunch with appropriate supplements and medications. Our horses receive everything from supportive care for sensitivity to diet changes to apple-flavored electrolytes.
5 pm – Therapy sessions end for the day and horses get an evening meal similar to their morning feeding.
When combined, the cost of twice daily feeding, individual grooming and exercise, stall cleaning, specialized supplemental grain, and session staffing (horse handler and therapist), comes out to between $115 and $300 a session, depending on the type of therapy.
- Chase takes a moment for a photo op on Halloween
So, we ask for your help. We ask that you consider giving to NCEFT in whatever way you can. Whether small or large, your donations make a difference to patients and families who find hope and healing within our fences. At $200, the purchase of a ticket to our Gala not only provides an evening filled with good food, great music, and fantastic company, but goes so far towards helping children like Chase. Doctors predicted Chase would never walk or talk, but four years after starting therapy at NCEFT he’s doing both.
TUF Stormy Weather
It’s impossible not to anthropomorphize when it comes to horses. We can’t help but assign the emotions of joy and contentment when we watch some of our therapy horses in their sessions. Where they sometimes fidget and mouth their handlers when they attempt to touch their faces, they move not a hair as patients unsteadily reach out small hands to pet muzzles or cheeks.
- Stormy’s always happy to socialize with visitors
Stormy is as precocious a young horse as you’ll find, wise beyond his years and seemingly born to do therapy work. With most Hippo and TR horses well into their teens, at only 6 years old Stormy is far from ordinary. He belongs to our Barn Manager, Bonnie, who has generously been leasing him to NCEFT for the past year.
In 2005 Bonnie was living in Visalia, CA, running Sunny Days, a private carriage service. While searching for a pair of white horses to use for formal events, Bonnie fell in love with Fjords and began looking for a matched set of grey duns. After seeing a photo of Stormy online, at the time only a month old, she fell in love. A couple months later Stormy stepped off the trailer from Michigan, a gift from Bonnie’s father. Over the next year Stormy was more dog than horse, going for long walks with Bonnie and her kids around their neighborhood and in downtown Exeter. By age two he was being ground driven, by three he was between the shafts of a light cart, and by four he was attending schooling shows.
- Stormy and one of his Hippotherapy patients
A year later, Bonnie loaded up her three horses (by then adding a second Fjord to her small herd) and moved up to Los Gatos. Believing their strong driving background made them ideally suited to therapy work, she began looking for a facility interested in using the horses. Three months went by before Bonnie found NCEFT, and it wasn’t long before they were participating in sessions.
Stormy is now following in his Uncle Sebastian’s footsteps, well on his way to becoming an invaluable member of the NCEFT team. A regular participant in hippotherapy, vaulting, therapeutic driving, and soon therapeutic riding, Stormy is the definition of versatile. Though care is being taken to make sure our star player doesn’t get burned out, his positive attitude and laissez faire outlook lead us to believe he’ll be a happy member of the program for many years to come.
Willy and Wonka
They’re the quintessential socialites. Whether it’s white tie or country chic, the two of them have been photographed at every social event since their arrival in Woodside four years ago. You won’t find them knocking back a cocktail though; at only 5 years old they’re both too young to partake in anything more than a bucket of water.
Willy and Wonka are arguably some of the most prominent and well-recognized members of NCEFT. Though some of their notoriety is certainly due to a serious set of vocal chords—often put to good use during feeding time—their fans love them for more than their good looks. Officially known as Miniature Mediterranean Donkeys, the boys are the perfect size for our smaller patients to love on. Though their list of marketable skills is short (walks on lead, eats cookies), they earn their keep as ambassadors, entertaining visitors with antics and elaborate costumes alike.
Registered as Evening Star Chris and Evening Star Oscar’s Doc Holiday, both Donkeys were born in 2006 at Evening Star Ranch in Raymond, CA. It’s hard enough for most people to tell Willy and Wonka apart, much less try and match them to registration papers written back when the donkeys were yearlings, so for now we don’t know who’s Chris and who’s Oscar. In any case, the two of them arrived at NCEFT in late 2007 and instantly settled into their roles as icons.
It’s been 4 years and the boys’ fan base is still growing. During lunchtime you’ll find them roughhousing in the arena with our Miniature horse, Roxy, or taking a walk with one of the many volunteers who helps care for the “Three Amigos.” They’re always happy to visit with admirers, so be sure to say hello the next time you’re at the barn.
