Afraid of the bullies who taunted her as she walked to school, Valerie started skipping classes nearly every day.

Soon, the 14-year-old was flunking and faced expulsion. Valerie, whose name was changed for this story to protect her privacy, was scared to go to school partly because of low self-confidence.

School officials recommended that she try Strides to Success, a nonprofit organization that provides learning and therapy programs with the help of horses. It's called "hippotherapy," or "equine-facilitated learning."

Valerie took their advice, and soon she was a successful equestrian.

"She could tell that horse to walk, trot, canter and he would just do that," said Debbie Anderson, founder and executive director of Strides to Success. "She learned that she really has a lot of personal energy to control situations, and that she doesn't have to be afraid."  

Many who are struggling with their physical or mental health have followed a similar therapeutic path. After undergoing equine education, children who couldn't walk have taken their first step, children who couldn't talk have said their first word, and children scarred by sexual or physical abuse who couldn't trust have opened up to others for the first time.  

Strides to Success in Plainfield is one of 25 accredited equine-facilitated riding centers in Indiana. The center offers a wide variety of classes to school groups and private clients. They engage in programs that teach life skills and use equine-assisted psychotherapy to help clients.

While horses and horseback riding play a major role in equine-assisted therapy, so does teaching and mentoring. Students learn to apply all these lessons to everyday life -- often without realizing it is therapeutic or educational.

"A lot of the kiddos that we see, they're in therapy three and four and five times a week, and they go to clinical settings, and this is the one place where they come and have fun," said Raquel Ravinet, executive director at TherAplay, a nonprofit center in Carmel that is one of the largest of its kind in the country. "We don't talk about what we're going to do in therapy, how we're going to use the movement of the horse. . . . It's all, let's play!"

More than fun "We consider ourselves a rehabilitation clinic, just like if you went to St. Vincent's or Riley," said Ravinet. "We just happen to have one furry, four-legged treatment tool that not every clinic has."

TherAplay specializes in treating patients with physical challenges and disabilities. So how advantageous is this "furry, four-legged treatment tool"? What does a horse offer that a psychiatrist with a Ph.D. can't? "Horses have no ego; horses don't lie. Horses are honest and they live in the moment. So those very basic four things are wonderful for us humans to learn from," Anderson said.

Not just any horse can work in these therapy programs. Because of the important role that horses play in therapy, the selection process used by centers is tough.

At both TherAplay and Strides, horses are donated or on permanent loan.

At TherAplay, owners are first sent a series of questions that determine the physical attributes of the horse and its personality. If found suitable, the horse is selected for a 30-, 60- or 90-day trial.

"One of our staff members gets on them and we mock a session, and they cry, strain, throw toys, do everything that we think might happen in a session," said Ravinet. If the horse does well with the trial, and adds some- thing unique that the center wants and needs, then it is accepted and becomes part of the family.

Anderson said Strides to Success needs a variety of healthy horses. "The horses are picked for their different personalities, but they all have one thing in common, and that is . . . their gentle spirit and their willingness to develop a relationship with other humans," she said. "If we have a child that is coming here and he's kind of a tough guy, you know, kind of gotten in trouble for maybe bullying some other kids in school, and he really isn't very respectful, we'll put him with a horse that's kind of got the same personality," Anderson said.

When the child gets frustrated and complains about the horse, the therapist steps in to talk with the child about how it feels to get pushed around.

Therapists explain to kids in the program: "We can give you the tools to change how that horse is acting, as well as yourself." Kids who are withdrawn or shy often get matched with a horse that has a similar temperament. "You watch that person try to nurture that horse and try to comfort that horse and give that horse confidence to not be afraid," Anderson said.

This in turn allows the child to adapt that same behavior to his or her own situations, boosting morale.

Get moving

Horses are also a great help in physical and occupational therapy, Ravinet explained. They have three different types of movement -- vertical, horizontal and rotational -- and can help clients learn these same moves.

In addition, a horse's gait from side to side is similar to how a human walks, and that facilitates helping a client learn to walk, according to the American Hippotherapy Association.

Providing equine therapy is expensive. At TherAplay, it costs about $140 an hour. Sometimes the therapy is paid for with Medicaid or other government programs. Families who aren't on Medicaid but can't afford $140 an hour can pay on a sliding scale based on income.  

Clients are not the only ones who benefit from therapeutic riding. Volunteers said they get just as much out of the therapy as the kids. Sarah Karas, a 19-year-old volunteer at TherAplay, appreciated watching a preschooler with cerebral palsy improve via the therapy. The 4-year-old loved to play basketball, but was struggling because he couldn't uncurl and curl up one of his fists. But after taking equine-therapy classes, the boy was thrilled when he finally could use both hands to shoot a basket.

Cindy McDaniel said she wishes everyone had an opportunity to volunteer with horses in a therapeutic setting. "The calmness and the intuitiveness of the horses as they bond to the people that work with them is just amazing," she said. "They're very patient, they understand so much without you saying a word."

The directors and volunteers are spurred on by all the successes they see. "It's really amazing when you see kids that are all shut down open up again and extend themselves to humans and learn to trust again," Anderson said.

Valerie not only went back to school and learned to stand up to bullies, the next semester she was on the honor roll. She's been on it ever since.

Copyright 2007 Y-Press