Equine Assisted Therapy making headway in Fort Collins
Colorado State University has been making plans for their new Temple Grandin Equine Center for over a year now. Named for world-renowned animal handling and welfare professional and CSU professor Temple Grandin, the center’s administrators will strive to “integrate research and education in Equine Assisted Activities and Therapies” (TGEC video).
The new equestrian center will be located on the intersection of Elizabeth and Overland in Fort Collins, directly next to the current B.W. Pickett Equine Center. Along with two new arenas, the center will also include a barn, a family lounge, offices and classrooms. The Equine Sciences department hopes to break ground on the new center in the next 12 months according to the CSU Equine Assisted Activities and Therapy website.
As stated in the center’s brochure, the TGEC “will celebrate and elevate the role of the horse in society through the physical and emotional benefits of serving those in need.” In this case, those in need are individuals with emotional, physical or developmental challenges who are healing or rehabilitating with equine assisted therapies. Hippotherapy, the use of horseback riding as a therapeutic tool to improve coordination, balance and strength, has become a widely used and recognized therapy for these individuals.
Fort Collins has a few options for parents looking for healing opportunities for their children with disabilities. Respite Care, Inc is one particular organization that takes short-term care of these children with various challenges and has been involved with other therapeutic riding facilities because they have recognized the benefits that riding has for the children.
The TGEC will provide new opportunities for healing for individuals involved in local organizations like this. Parents in the community could also find a new way to develop their child’s emotional, physical or physiological strength through equine assisted therapy.
As Temple Grandin addresses in the promotional video below, there seem to be several links between advancement in development or healing due to therapeutic riding.
As someone who has been extensively involved at other therapeutic riding facilities, I have always appreciated the healing powers of hippotherapy. Horse riding has multiple benefits for riders with any range of challenges. These benefits include: exercise, balance, stimulation, bonding and not to mention the enormous benefits in the similarities between a horse’s gait and a human’s in a rehabilitation program. I think an equine center devoted to this therapy would be wonderfully beneficial for children and families in this area.
CSU has started several new projects over the years that are intended to benefit the university and the community. Instead, a few have brought them under a lot of scrutiny — mainly the on-campus stadium and demolishing multiple parking lots — but I believe that this is one project that will actually be extremely beneficial for the school and particularly the community.
Not only will this center provide education for students or individuals looking to become certified instructors, but also it will be used for research into therapeutic riding and the results that it has on individuals. With more education on therapeutic riding available to community members or students, the community will only continue to grow until more and more individuals have access to this excellent therapy.
With more focus on research into therapeutic riding, the programs could become more advanced in pin-pointing the best exercises for certain disabilities or limitations. Individuals could be evaluated on a personal basis and have a riding experience that targets their exact needs for strengthening and healing. Once they have begun to understand what kind of therapies work with certain disabilities, they could then present this information to therapeutic riding programs across the country.
This facility will also provide a tremendous amount of opportunities for new families seeking the therapy who were not getting enough time in therapy in the current equine center due to overcrowding issues.
I maintain that CSU’s decision to build this facility not only greatly benefits the local community but will also benefit the rest of the country in terms of advancement of therapeutic riding.
