If you’re an animal lover, sport fanatic or just somebody looking for a little fresh air and exercise then horse riding might be an ideal activity for you. And if you’re less able it’s actually something quite easy to get involved in.
The Riding for the Disabled Association is a national charity which helps to get people on horses. With about 18,000 volunteers to help disabled people ride it’s a pretty well run and popular charity. They have a network of 500 volunteer groups organise activities such as riding, carriage driving, vaulting and showjumping to up to 28,000 people each year. Surprisingly they actually manage to cover urban as well as rural areas.
Riding is a really good form of therapy, either instead of or, more likely, as supplement for standard forms of physiotherapy. The three dimensional movements of the horse are transmitted through the rider’s body, helping to strengthen core stability, reduce spasms and improve balance, posture and coordination. Triple gold medal winner at the London Paralympics, Sophie Christiansen, told us in January that “it definitely helps with my balance and coordination. I think without riding I definitely wouldn’t be as able bodied as I am.”
Hoof Ride has found that not only is riding healthy for you physically; it can also be beneficial psychologically. They found 80% of riders demonstrate physical improvement of some kind in 12 weeks or less but they also found that 90% of riders demonstrated improved confidence beyond the riding arena. On top of that, 82% of riders demonstrated improvement in their ability and/or willingness to communicate with others. So riding really is a positive force for people with all types of disability. Particularly, for people who need to rehab riding can be such a positive activity – it’s a literal embodiment of getting back on the horse!
Riding is a very inclusive activity with no restriction on age or gender and the RDA have done a lot to make riding accessible not just in terms of disability but also in terms of making riding affordable. Anyone can get involved and it can be a genuinely life changing experience or just a good way of keeping fit!