By Tanya Hartle

Fourteen years ago Jackie De Muth became a volunteer evening feeder for United Cerebral Palsy’s Saddle Pals. The therapeutic horseback riding program helps children and adults improve their abilities while bonding with horses. As a horse lover, Jackie enjoyed her volunteer work, but Saddle Pals took on a whole new meaning for Jackie when her eight-year-old granddaughter, Zoie, was born with cerebral palsy.

Continuing as an evening feeder, Jackie also formed Team Zoie three years ago. The team (Jackie, her husband, Paul, and Zoie’s mom, Jen) walks alongside the horse to help Zoie reap maximum reward from the program. When Zoie first began riding, she had little trunk control, but now she is almost sitting up on her own. She is more verbal, and her paralyzed side is more flexible. “She just keeps getting stronger,” says Jackie. “It’s incredible!”

RIDING'S REWARDS
Equine-assisted therapy is a proven technique to help children develop more control over their bodies, minds and emotions. The rhythmic movement of the horse, so close to our own human gait, helps educate young riders’ bodies and minds. The horse’s size and warmth, the equipment used, and the activities performed are all parts of the equation too.

As with Zoie, many children experience greater head and trunk control. Riding also relaxes spastic muscles and improves strength, muscle tone, coordination and balance, flexibility, mobility, endurance, posture and gait, spatial awareness, sensory processing, and tactile sensitivity.

Through grooming, feeding, and regularly riding the horses, children develop a bond with the animal. It's a special friendship that often involves overcoming fears, practicing patience and gaining self-esteem.

For kids like Zoie, this increased strength and confidence pays off in school too. With greater endurance and the ability to hold their heads higher (literally and figuratively), children can pay closer attention to their teachers and socialize more with other kids. Riders often improve their attention span, memory, concentration, vocabulary, and verbalization, all of which leads to even more self-confidence and self-esteem.

Tanya Hartle is chief operating officer of United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of Greater Sacramento, which runs Saddle Pals. It’s just one of UCP’s programs helping people with disabilities live a life without limits.