Therapeutic Horseback Riding Breaks Barriers

Horseback riding can open new doors of experience, physical coordination, and happiness for people living with a wide variety of disabilities. Children and adults with Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, paraplegia, stroke, and other conditions have benefited from feeling the regular, rhythmic cadence of a horses gait and have learned to form emotional bonds with the animals. The human participants in therapeutic riding have increased their ability to balance and refine their own muscle movements, gained in short-term memory, and built up their self-awareness and sense of pride in accomplishment.

Specifically, therapeutic horseback riding can develop both fine and gross motor skills. Riders who select reins, saddles, and gear and fit them to their mounts are practicing their small muscle movements and fine motor skills. A rider increases gross motor skills through activities such as mounting and dismounting, posting, and lifting his or her body out of the saddle by pushing on the stirrups.

Furthermore, the feel of the horses movements next to ones own body develops the riders own sense of gait and coordination. Horses move from side to side as they go forward, a three-dimensional motion that would be hard to produce in any other way. This multidirectional movement requires a rider to utilize a range of core muscles not used in walking or running.

Additionally, experts have remarked that riding contributes to greater social awareness and sensory integration through fostering conversation, exchanges of information, and alertness.