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- Horses have healing power and can help people through equine therapy.
- Horse-related therapy has improved the lives of a group of children from Langa, Cape Town, suffering from various intellectual and physical disabilities.
- Horses allow for physical, emotional and tactile stimulation.
Cape Town occupational therapist Trish Hart has spent the past nine years helping children through hippotherapy – a therapy intervention strategy to improve children's physical and cognitive abilities.
Hippotherapy uses the natural gait of a horse to provide motor and sensory input. It is used to treat patients with physical or neurological disabilities such as autism and cerebral palsy.
According to Hart, she has seen children learn to walk and improve their balance and coordination due to the therapy. She even had a non-verbal child who laughed for the first time when a horse sneezed.
She believes horses have healing powers.
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Rosie, Midnight and Pocahontas are the three horses Hart uses to work with the children. She says the therapy improves the children's ability to communicate.
"If the child says 'go' to the horse, the horse goes. If the child says 'stop', the horse stops, which is often amazing. They learn to communicate, even making eye contact with the horse," she tells News24.
She says the horses have distinct personalities.
Hart describes Rosie as a "human teenage girl" who works well with small children.
"You take horses that are naturally calm," she says.
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The horses are trained to work with children and have a gentle nature. They are "bomb proof".
"We're going to do things that are unnatural for the horses. There will be children who are maybe screaming, shouting, they might jump, they might run under the horse, they play games on the horse, all things that are unnatural."
Midnight is a "chilled, easy-going horse" and has even been used as a jungle gym by one child.
The third horse, Pocahontas, has been with Hart the longest. She's sensitive, "connects with the child", and works well with children on the autism spectrum.
A group of children from Langa, born with cerebral palsy, visit Hart and her horses twice a week to improve their balance and muscle control through hippotherapy.
The NPO Play on Wheels transports the children from their homes to the horses.
Caregiver Fundiswa Juta says the children eagerly anticipate the outings every week.
"They love horses too much." She says she has seen a visible difference in the children since they have started hippotherapy.
"The horses calm them down and improve their coordination and balance".
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