North Carolina Therapeutic Riding Center
Think…
Just for a moment, what it would be like to live in a world where…
Your body limits your ability to do the simplest tasks – balancing to move
across the room is a challenge – you are not able to recognize simple shapes or
identify colors – the accident that happened in a split second changed you
forever, leaving you a lifetime to relearn skills once taken for granted.
It is in this world that the North Carolina Therapeutic Riding Center exists to
make a difference. The volunteers, staff and instructors work diligently toward
the common goal of helping others with special needs through equine assisted
therapy.
What is Therapeutic Riding?
Therapeutic riding uses the assistance of a horse to encourage children and
adults with disabilities in several areas.
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For someone who is challenged by limited speech or language difficulties, imagine how motivating it is to tell a horse or pony to “walk on” and begin riding forwards. For a child or adult with balance and coordination deficits, every step of the horse challenges trunk muscles to engage. For the rider who has difficulty focusing, the movement of the horses back underneath them has a calming influence and the horse is a powerful focusing tool. Many of our riders have difficulties in all three of these areas so the beneficial effects are cumulative. But best of all is the joy in the faces of individual riders as they climb aboard their favorite horse or pony. They are reaping all the benefits of many therapies rolled into one and yet they think of it as pure fun! This is what keeps riders, volunteers and instructors coming back year after year.