Handicap Driving
For a few years I worked with a very good friend, Terri Parrott who started Gods Helping Hands, a working farm that had a very good theraputic riding program. Some of those children were intimidated with the thought about riding such big horses, or were physically unable or didn't have the strength to sit upright on a horse. Those could sit on the seat of my cart with the help of body harness to hold them, and learn to drive a horse.
Our poster child was Katie. She was 10 years old and weighed 40 pounds. She was paralized from the waist down, and had undergone 2 open heart surgeries. But she had the will and the drive to learn. She learned to navigate a cones course and do some pretty tough precision driving. Her favorite thing to do was cone crashing which is what we did at the end of every lesson at a trot! She built up her strength from driving enough to graduate to riding. She now competes in local 4H shows in the walk-trot classes!
I have worked with autistic children and mentally challenged children. The nice thing about my cart is, that I can safely carry a child along with their parent and myself for a lesson, with the child in the center. They seem to come alive once they take the lines in their hands. One little boy that never spoke at all just started talking about how nice the horse was, how big it was, his pretty color. His mother started crying, saying that he never talked and he was talking now! That was a pretty emotional day for all of us. I still tear up every time I tell that story.