Katie Bell: The Perfect Partnership

I’m a sucker for an underdog story. I believe growth means much more when you start at the bottom. After all, the only place you can go after hitting rock bottom is up. Having been there myself, I would know. When I see others go through similar struggles, it always reminds me of where I came from and how blessed I am to have had the support I did when things got really tough. During my internship experience, I was fortunate enough to be this support for one boy struggling through high school and one horse struggling in his new role.

I spent my summer of 2023 at HALTER, a therapeutic horseback riding facility with programs directed towards providing children with special needs and disabilities an opportunity to develop life skills with the assistance of an equine partner. I had the privilege of being fully immersed in their programming all day, every day, May through August. In my time there, I observed and got to experience firsthand what it means to be a part of their community. On Mondays, I taught the local humane society camp the basic skills of riding. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I volunteered and assisted with hippotherapy clients and completed special projects for the physical and occupational therapists. On Thursdays and Fridays, I taught therapeutic riding lessons to students from the community. And in all my spare time, I helped exercise their established program horses and helped train their new additions to the program.

One new addition took a very special place in my heart. Onyx came to the facility from a horse trader earlier that spring. The staff didn’t know anything about him other than what they could physically see: a dark, average-sized horse, with a large white star right in the middle of his forehead. He had kind eyes and a willing heart.

When I first worked with Onyx, he was both untrusting and fearful. During our first interaction, he kicked me right on the side of my knee. The hoof shaped bruise was real cute.  During our second interaction, we did quite a bit of groundwork to build his trust. I led him around the arena at different speeds and around different obstacles, rewarding him with pats for all the times he stayed right by my side. I guided him to explore the arena and encouraged him to interact with objects he was unsure about. Once we had established more of a relationship, I got on him. He bucked me off within the first five steps. I refrained from reacting. The worst thing you can do to a horse during training is punishing them for an innate reaction. Once dusted off, I simply walked back over to the mounting block and got right back on.    

I asked him to do all the same things I did while on the ground. If I felt like he was going to give me a negative response, I redirected his behavior so that I could reward him. We did this for about 15 minutes. Once he had accomplished a few tasks without a negative response, I gave him lots of big pats and hopped off. In all my following sessions working with Onyx, we followed a similar format. We would start on the ground doing things he knew how to do. Then we would explore anything that might potentially be scary. I’d ask him to move forward and back to establish that I was confident in my commands and to further gain his trust.

In the months that followed, we began introducing him to the lessons and therapies without a rider so that he could experience his job in context without the pressure of keeping a rider safe. Once he became confident in that, we felt that we could start using him for camps and lessons. One rider clicked with Onyx in a way I had not seen with any other horse. In return, Onyx seemed to adopt this rider as truly his own. You would never know this was the same horse. In the time that I had worked with him, he was never dangerous, but I had never seen him quite this confident. Everything about this pairing synced.

In the lesson I taught with this pairing, the goal for the day was for the riders to successfully post the trot (rising up and down with the horses’ legs in a rhythm), with control and balance. Previous riders paired with Onyx really struggled with his trot due to him having a lot of forward motion and his step being quite big. Knowing this information, I gave his rider that day the usual spiel of how to stay balanced when Onyx began to trot. When I gave them the go ahead, to say I was impressed would be an understatement.

It was smoothest walk to trot transition I had seen all summer. Onyx picked up the trot gently and his rider was immediately able to find his rhythm, whereas other riders had struggled in their first few attempts. They supported each other for the duration of the ride and watching their relationship grow in the span of a short hour was truly remarkable. It was hard to keep the smile from spreading across my face.

As the lesson progressed, Onyx and his rider became increasingly confident in their skills and the tasks I was giving them. They were able to work through everything with ease. Anytime I worked with other riders in the lesson, Onyx and his rider were off practicing on their own nailing absolutely everything.

When it came time to dismount Onyx’s rider, I was flooded with emotion. This rider had hardly ever shown much expression and spoke in very yes, no, short sentences. When I approached Onyx and his rider to initiate the go ahead for the dismount, he was giving Onyx a pat on the shoulder. I asked him what he thought of Onyx, and he smiled.  He told me how much he enjoyed his ride, all the while continuing to pet Onyx’s shoulder. Once he dismounted, and I began to walk away, I saw him give Onyx a hug. I had to hold back my tears.

In just under an hour, I had seen two lives completely transform from when I first met them. I saw a doubtful horse become confident in his role. I saw an inexpressive rider express more emotion than I ever thought he would. I will never, ever forget the way that these two connected and that I had the privilege of teaching them both. Once again, I had been reminded of how empowering it is to accomplish something, no matter how small. Even more so, I had been reminded of how nice it is to have somebody root for you.

Katie Bell is an Interdisciplinary Studies major with an emphasis in Equine Assisted Activities and Therapies and a minor in Psychology. She pursued an internship at HALTER, a therapeutic riding facility, in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Katie spent her summer of 2023 at HALTER fully immersed in what it means to operate a therapeutic riding facility. Katie will be a graduate of Lander University as of May 2024 and plans to be fully employed as a certified therapeutic riding instructor in South Carolina.