Delaney Corbitt This I Believe Essay I believe in the healing power of horses. Horses understand and can sense when you are stressed, happy, upset, etc. It is amazing to me that horses can sense your mood. It seems to be that they nuzzle you more and behave, it’s like they know you are having a bad day. I always find myself going to the barn when I have bad days. This is because I know my furry friend will be there to listen and let me brush her. The motion and calmness of the brushing and later the riding and jumping seem to have a way to make everything better. While I am around horses I am aware of nothing besides the horse and myself, no drama, stress or bad thoughts. I have believed in this statement ever since I was in 5th grade, but it was never as significant to me as the summer before my junior year. I remember I was brushing Candee and talking to my mom about college and my “plan”. We were discussing college applications and requirements when she said, “Delaney, you need to come up with volunteer hours or you will not get in to these schools you are looking at!” Statements like these from my mom always annoy me so I grabbed my tack and walked to the tack room to put it away. My mom chased my down and showed me a sheet of paper had the number and name of the EBC therapy center that she had found on the bulletin board. The EBC therapy center specializes in hippotherapy and therapeutic riding. I continued to read the sheet and it talked about how they needed volunteers, and not just any volunteers, volunteers who are comfortable around horses because they needed side walkers and people to lead the horses. I immediately got excited and wanted to give them a call, so I did. To be completely honest, I have never been excited for volunteer work, until June of 2009. I arrived at the EBCPT center out in the middle of Berne, NY. When I pulled up I noticed how serene, calm and sunny it was out there. The arena barn and trail entrances were like a painting. I walked into the arena where I was greeted by the Physical Therapist and Nurse who worked there. They told me that I
was just in time to help them with a little girl named Sarah. They told me that when Sarah had first arrived there, she had limited function in her hips, but when the little girl appeared and I was walking on the side of the horse I saw her hips moving and how much she was enjoying herself. The motion of the horse’s hips make the clients hips move. This movement may not be drastic but after time it gives them a greater range of motion. Whether horses give you confidence and a greater range of motion, or just improve your bad day, horses have the power to heal anything.