Horse Health for Autistic Riders

I "met" Tamara Tanner on Twitter as she twittered about horses. Then I visited the Hoofbeat to Healing site and discovered a truly amazing story.

"At Utah’s Hoofbeats to Healing, Missouri Fox Trotters are doing their part to help special-needs children overcome life’s obstacles. Together, they’re having fun and winning awards."

This group of gentle "angel" horses and their people are bringing joy to special needs people in a very special way.

"When Tami Tanner talks about her Utah-based Hoofbeats to Healing program, she puts forth theories about “balancing the brain” and “applying gaits to the brain neurologically.” But parents
such as Carolynn Hulbert aren’t overly concerned with medical terminology or fancy assumptions about the effects of riding Missouri Fox Trotters.

Instead, Hulbert focuses on her son Travis’ success since joining the Hoofbeats program – success he hadn’t achieved in working with other therapeutic- riding curriculums. “The first time I brought him here, Tami had him ride with a lead-walker,” Hulbert recalls. “He’d been riding for 10 years at that point, and I certainly didn’t think he needed a lead-walker. But after
10 minutes, Tami stopped him and looked at his eyes. They were dilated, so she could tell there was something going on in his brain neurologically. The dilation meant that his brain was downloading the patterning of the horse’s gait.”

“Downloading that patterning can reveal the rider’s emotional, physical and neurological issues,” Tanner explains, “making it seem like the rider’s getting worse, not better.”

“We were just about to give up, but Tami kept telling Travis to hang in there,” Hulbert says. “Sure enough, one day he had a breakthrough, and everything worked. He’s been going steadily uphill ever since.”

Read the rest of the Western Horseman article.

And then go follow Tamtrot on Twitter - to keep updated on all the fun!