Volunteers make therapeutic riding progams happen

2.20.2007

By SEAN CLOUGHERTY
Staff Writer

EASTON, Md. — Talbot Special Riders, a therapuetic riding program in Easton, Md., operates under the idea that there’s nothing better for the inside of a person than the outside of a horse.
Founded in 1981, the program is a certified member of the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association and is the only program of its kind in Talbot County. Through two, ten week sessions a year, instructors and volunteers work with riders with mental or physical disabilities to develop new skills and promote physical strength and emotional growth by riding horses.
“I am always trying to push them along, trying to get them more self confident,” said Molly Foster, owner of Glendale Farm where the program is administered. Foster is a certified instructor for both disabled and able-bodied riders.
Before a session begins, prospective riders are evaluated for their abilities and assigned goals to achieve while learning to ride. The goals vary, Foster said, from being able to sit up on the horse to trotting and cantering. Each rider has three volunteers during a session, two sidewalkers and a leader. Whenever possible, the rider uses the same horse to feel comfortable while learning.
“They do get a bond just like able-bodied kids and that helps a lot,” Foster said. “For a lot of the riders, it’s the most attention they’ve had the whole day,”
Though it may seem like a small feat to some, a task like learning how to direct a horse by using the reins is empowering.
“I think it’s the ability to control an animal that is so much bigger than you are,” Foster said of the effect horses have on the riders. For riders confined to a wheel chair, getting up on a horse “can take you where your own legs can’t take you.”
Nancy Radosta helps coordinate the program’s more than 70 volunteers and said getting on a horse changes the riders entire perspective of things.
“If they’re going from a wheelchair to now sitting up on a horse, now they’re sitting up higher than everyone else,” she said.
When riders build that kind of confidence in themselves, often times the volunteers and caretakers will witness a transformation. Foster spoke of Karin, who before riding refused to walk through her house without assistance.
But now “because of what she’s done in riding, she’ll now walk around the house without anyone.”
Radosta said she has seen several riders who show no verbal skills when they begin a session, but after a few classes, start talking and give the horse commands.
But the riders are not the only people who benefit from the program. The volunteers, some of whom have been with the program since it began, take satisfaction in seeing riders improve and carry out instructions.
“The satisfaction is in having these students gaining control and just having fun,” Foster said. She said several reasons make the program a success in helping disabled people grow physically and emotionally, but the volunteers keep it all together.
“We wouldn’t have a program without them,” she said.