Does my horse have healing horse properties?

Therapy horses are champions with the gift of improving lives physically, emotionally, socially and cognitively. Part of my job at Equest, a 40-year-old therapeutic equestrian center in Dallas, is to evaluate horses and see if they can be part of the Equest family to bring hope and healing to children, adults, and veterans with diverse needs.

Not all horses can be therapy horses. It requires certain characteristics in order to provide customers and employees with a safe and beneficial driving experience. Your evaluation can take weeks – sometimes months – and only a few are selected. The following characteristics are necessary to include a horse in a therapeutic riding program.

Certainly reprint is number one on our list of selection criteria. The horse should be calm and calm in a variety of situations – in the arena, on the road, in the riding yard, in the stable, on the threshold, at the tournament. You have to stand up and be patient. You will also have to put up with many different handlers for grooming and turning, as well as guiding and walking.

Exercise is number two on the list. At Equest, we take riders of all levels to competitions across Texas and out of the state. We want our horses to have the experience on the show circuit so they can travel well and stay calm in the new arenas. We have riders competing in a variety of disciplines, so we need horses that are trained in multiple events or we need a variety of horses to fill those niches.

Therapy horses are a must -have comforting rider with a herd of people around them. Many horses come to us and they have to imagine this part of their work. Some horses don’t like people running alongside them or receiving mixed signals from handlers and riders at the same time, so they must be taught to accept all the additional input.

Therapy horses are a must -have strong enough to hold unbalanced drivers. This can be difficult for horses with weak backs or leg problems. Many disabled riders have physical problems that prevent them from riding like a healthy rider and may not be able to correct themselves to correct the balance in the middle of the horse’s back. This can put a lot of stress on the horse and the horse must learn to tolerate and compensate for this imbalance.

Therapy horses is a must seem ! Our horses need strong legs and muscles to do their job, even if it’s just a matter of walking. Our riders need a steady gait in order to develop symmetrical bilateral strength. Also, we wouldn’t ask the horse to run if it wasn’t moving. Many people want to donate their horses because they can no longer be ridden. Our program cannot accept a horse that is not comfortable walking, trotting and jogging because our riders must be able to perform all of that gait.

Horses are predators and live on high alert, but therapy horses can remain peaceful and restorative which enables the development of social and emotional relationships with our clients. Since horses are prey animals, they are able to interpret or read nonverbal communication. You can monitor, evaluate and interact with social stimuli. In Equest, they respond to the verbal and nonverbal behavior and positive coping strategies of clients. They help our clients with emotional regulation based on their nature, their reactions and the use of our senses – sight, smell, hearing and touch.

Horses do not have to belong to a particular breed. Most of our horses are quarter horses due to their size and nature, but we also have Thoroughbreds, Hufflingers, Fjords, Welsh, draft horses and miniatures. They come from all walks of life. Some were showing horses of English or Western disciplines, hiking horses or even police horses. Our therapy horses are donated, purchased or rented from generous donors, which brings me to our final trait: Affordability . Equest, like many other therapeutic equestrian centers, is not for profit and does not have a large budget for buying horses. At the moment we have 30 great therapy horses and we are looking for more.