Then they came to SERT and started learning about how to take care of horses.

Because some of our students ride, some students learn about the proper grooming and care of horses, and some do both.

You know the old saying you have to learn the rules before you can break them?

Well at SERT, we’ll never break any rules that have to do with safety. Safety for us is first, last, and everything.

It’s that constant awareness of safety, in fact, and the special safety training that all our instructors and volunteers are indoctrinated in, that allows us to come up with some creative ways to help students get the most from their SERT experience.

Like our ground lessons.

Ground lessons are the proper grooming and care of horses.

So getting back to the brothers: the twins’ SERT teams, in addition to themselves, consist of their horses, instructors, and their horse handlers.

Always wearing their helmets, under the supervision of their teams, these fellows have learnt how to identify and use, in proper order, the correct grooming tools. After working with the horses in stalls, the guys pack them up with proper equipment for riding sessions: saddles, saddle pads, girths and so on.

In other words, the horses are prepared just as if they’re going to be ridden.

Next, the entire teams head into the arena. It is there that the brothers have been learning how to lead the horses. Instead of riding, however, each learns to guide his horse through an obstacle course as his team’s ground leader (under the supervision of the two other human members of each team) without ever mounting.

One day the boys’ mom told us that after their lessons one of them said, “Mom, if I can learn to lead my horse, I can learn lots of things, like what I need to get a job someday.”

To us, that’s the magic of real life. Because the way it makes us feel is just a bit beyond special.

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In The Arena we may sometimes discuss issues surrounding therapeutic riding that various people have widely divergent views about.

We’d like to hear your opinions whenever you feel like weighing in.

All we request is a respectful attitude towards other peoples’ opinions, whatever they may be.

After all, we’re one big arena with room enough for everyone!

- By David Tandet

Do we want scientific studies that objectify the benefits of therapy with a horse?
Or just trust our eyes to tell us what a good thing riding can be?
Maybe it’s not an either/or sort of thing.

Hardly any experience could be as powerful as Connie Gilly’s. When her daughter Vickie, who has Down syndrome, was able to go horseback riding at her all-inclusion summer school once a week years ago, it was life transformative. “All I would hear from Vickie when she came home,” Connie says, “was the name of the horse she rode: ‘Mocha! Mocha! Mocha!’ ”

Responding to that spark changed the world for Vickie and her parents. And by the way, it’s why we have SERT in Moorpark today.

Who could argue with Brian Wright in Kennesaw, Georgia, who has cerebral palsy: “I believe the more you can ride, the more proficient and skilled you become; and, therefore, the more exciting it can be. You need not worry about riding any great distance. It inspired me with the feeling of wanting more and feeling confident that I could do more.”

Then again, objective research continues to make more riding available to greater numbers of exceptional kids. A growing body of scientific data directs more attention and funding to horse therapy using real and even simulated riding. Success begets success.

Tim L. Shurtleff, OTD, OTR/L, of the Washington University Program in Occupational Therapy is one member of the medical community who understands the importance of increasing statistical evidence that focuses on the benefits of horse related activities: “I think the most important thing we can do to enable people with disabilities to receive the benefits of hippotherapy and other EAA/T [Equine-Assisted Activities/Therapies] is to further develop the scientific evidence base for activities and therapies using horses. A solid evidence base will open doors for funding and make it unethical and irresponsible for insurance companies and third party funders to not pay for professional therapy that uses horses and their movement as treatment tools.”

Welcome positive results:
subjective, objective — comprehensive.

- By David Tandet

Who was Lis Hartel? She was a world-class equestrian from Denmark whose accomplishments earned her a place in the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Her riding career was well underway in 1945 when she was struck with the life-threatening disease polio, still common at the time, while carrying her second child.

She survived the disease but was left crippled, and no one thought she would ride again — certainly not at her competitive level.

With the help of trainer Gunnar Andersen she again took the reins. It just so happened that the 1952 Helsinki Olympics were the first that permitted women in equestrian events. Lis, as a polio stricken competitor, made an even more spectacular mark when, after being helped onto her beloved horse Jubilee by her trainer, she rode her way into the history books to win a silver medal.

At the Olympic Games four years later, Lis again mounted Jubilee with the assistance of her trainer and won another silver.

Lis Hartel’s competitive career continued for another decade. Her love of horses and her work for disabled riders lasted for the rest of her life. She passed away in 2009.

It is Lis Hartel’s achievements that are regarded as the impetus for formation of therapeutic riding centers in Europe. Those centers led to the establishment of NARHA, which changes and enriches lives by promoting excellence in equine assisted activities through the United States and Canada.

Connie oversees NARHA certified instructors, as well as experienced and dedicated volunteers, at SERT.

Inside the arena or out — we could hardly be more inspired than by the example of Lis Hartel.

We consider her a SERTain
kind of equestrian.

- By David Tandet