Sarah Neubecker, the NARHA certified instructor from Hemet who had approached TGC for a chance to maintain her own riding skills, was impressed enough to speak to one of her former students, Madie Cline, who suffers from MS. Madie is an amazing lady - so brave in her willingness to clamber on anything with four legs despite her weakness. She wanted horses who would move out without lots and lots of leg pressure, because her leg strength is diminished. TGC horses are largely forward, and when she rode Sunny on her first visit, she admitted she was getting what she wanted! On her next visit, she rode Buck, with Mike Roth leading him, and Sarah Neubecker was riding Hava (to provide Hava with a structured physical therapy session for her hip injury after adjustment). See the website for some neat photos taken by PC’s sponsor of this very productive session. Madie was on a horse 3 hands taller than anything she’d ridden before, and had a great time.

Madie benefits from horseback riding because it increases circulation promoting healing and and thus slowing down the progression of her disease. Horses like those at TGC are often happy to take long walks, which is what she needs as well, and when the weather permits, we hope Madie will visit more often and get familiar enough with TGC horses to ride unassisted.

Mike Roth should get some credit also for not only leading Buck around for 30-40 minutes for Madie, providing her with a ‘safety blanket’, but also for building her a special mounting block complete with handrail, so that in large part, she could get on Buck herself.