Nestled in a peaceful valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Hearts and Horses Therapeutic Riding Center serves the community with the power of equines. For nearly 25 years the organization has been helping people with disabilities find confidence in themselves. One of those riders, 35-year-old Tommy Bogdanski, has been participating in therapeutic riding since he was 15. He started with hippotherapy (hippos being the Greek word for horse) at the National Ability Center in Park City Utah but moved to Colorado in 2005 and has been coming to Hearts and Horses ever since. Lisa Bogdanski, Tommy’s mother, says that since Tommy is on the autism spectrum, controlling his world was very important to him. Getting on a thousand-pound animal can sound like the opposite of control for someone like Tommy so trust was a pivotal thing between him and his equine partner, “Tommy for the longest time was essentially non-verbal and once he got into doing hippotherapy,” she says, “the confidence started building.” Another thing that Hearts and Horses provides for their participants is continuity. Bogdanski says that having the same volunteer work with Tommy helps to ease her and Tommy’s anxiety, “other places, even in Utah, that week to week you wouldn’t know the volunteer who would be working with him.” Having consistent and highly-trained volunteers is a big part of why Hearts and Horses fit so well for the Bogdanski family, “they all care and that’s the thing - the heart that goes into the program.”
One of those volunteers is Carol Mckennan who has been coming to Hearts and Horses since 2013 after she retired from Hewlett Packard. She said it was a nice change of pace from an intense full-time job in the software strategy and planning department. As a volunteer, McKennan says she has worked in all parts of the non-profit. From the Gala and Fundraising side to working with participants hand in hand, “my heart is really with the horses and the programs and the participants.” Currently, she is focused on the therapy services side where she has been trained and certified in long-lining. Long-lining is where someone, such as McKennan, will walk behind the equine with two long ropes and control the animal from there rather than from their back. This is important because during a therapy session there are a number of people involved including the therapist (occupational or physical), the participant, and the side walker. Since equines are prey animals they tend to lean more towards the anxious side and having one less person crowding them helps to keep them at ease. McKennan won the 2020 PATH International Volunteer of the Year Award. PATH or Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship, is the certifying board for centers like Hearts and Horses and they perform audits every five years to make sure that everything is up to standard.
McKennan has also volunteered in the Changing Leads program which provides youth at risk with a place to find friendship while giving them skills that can be brought into their day-to-day lives. Tamara Merritt, Director of Program Innovation and Research, founded Changing Leads in 2009. When the program first started the primary focus was on youth in residential treatment facilities, says Merritt, but over the years the goal of the program has become prevention to catch kids before they “fall through the cracks.” During the pandemic, many of these kids were in extended isolation which only compounded with other mental health issues like depression or anxiety. By giving them a chance to be in a calming environment and work with volunteers who can be reliable adult figures in their lives, Merrit believes that they can and do make a real difference for these kids.
The word “Research” in her title isn’t only for show, Merritt told us about how Hearts and Horses has been on the forefront of studying the benefits of therapeutic riding. Although the Hearts and Horses’ staff aren’t researchers themselves Merrit says they can, “facilitate a researcher to conduct a really solid study.” Hearts and Horses is currently partnering with Children’s Hospital to study the physiological effects of therapeutic riding for children on the autism spectrum, “we’re looking at…changes that would indicate a decrease or increase in stress levels.” Merritt says that people who work in this field already know the effect it can have on someone, watching a non-verbal participant say their first word or someone suffering from a traumatic brain injury standing up on their own, “we’re really excited to be kind of on this cutting edge in our industry to show the world that it’s more than just a pony ride.”
The participants are only one part of the ongoing research into therapeutic riding. The other, of course, is the horse (equine is the correct term since that includes mules and donkeys but a good rhyme is hard to resist). This fall Hearts and Horses will be working with Colorado State University in a similar study to the one mentioned above but instead of measuring the participants’ stress levels, the equines will be the ones under the proverbial microscope. Along with understanding the effects on the animals, Program Coordinator, Maria Amann, discussed how the equines are cared for. They monitor their quality of life by watching for signs of arthritis and they only allow the animals to be in two lessons a day to prevent overuse. Not only that they have support from the community with veterinarians and farriers coming out to take care of the horses’ needs. Just like humans these horses there comes a time when they need to retire from their years of service. Amann says that it’s better to retire them before they show signs of pain. Where do horses go to live out their golden years? Well, when this time comes members of the local community have reached out and offered their property as, “a retirement home for [the animal].”
Having worked in the therapeutic riding industry for 32 years Merrit has seen firsthand how therapeutic riding is viewed by the neigh-sayers. Although many people have benefited from participating in therapeutic riding, insurance still doesn’t cover the costs for them. Hearts and Horses does charge a fee for participants (except for the veteran program) and also offers scholarships as about half of the people who apply do not have the financial means. But the fee only covers about a third of what it takes to fund the program, says Merritt. For the rest, they rely on support from the community to be able to underwrite the programs for those who need it, “we fundraise two-thirds of that cost out the gate,” says Development and Communications Director Summer Alameel. That fundraising is done through events like the upcoming Lucky Hearts Gala on September 22nd or corporate sponsorship. The hope is that the current research being done will give concrete evidence of the physical and mental health benefits for participants. So in the future insurance will help to cover the costs of the programs.
The dedicated staff combined with the support from the community make up the connecting tissue of Hearts and Horses. From the many volunteers like McKennan who donate their valuable time and skills to help the non-profit continue to offer service to those in need like Tommy. To the community members who show their support by donating bales of hay to help feed the herd or through financial means to fund the programs on offer. That’s where the “Heart” in the name comes from after all.
If you would like to learn more about Hearts and Horses you can visit their website at heartsandhorses.org