Our Visit to the Ranch

Good Morning,

Yesterday's visit to the Charleston Area Therapeutic Horseback Riding Center gave us the chance to see an entirely new approach towards building the confidence of and physical rehabilitation for children with developmental disabilities.

Early yesterday morning, we set out to Johns Island to visit the Charleston Therapeutic Horseback Riding Center. We arrived at the enormous ranch about thirty minutes early, certainly dressed out of place with our flip flops for a couple of guys spending some time at a horse farm. Upon arrival, we were greeted by program director, Murray Neale who has quite the extensive backround in both riding, physical education, and therapy. We were also greeted by several dogs, but fortunatly, the intentions of these dogs were a little bit better than those we meet on the road.

Within minutes, a 10 year old boy, Tyler arrived for his first horseback riding lesson. While Murray prepared Tyler for his first ever ride, we helped the ranch hands prepare an enormous horse, "Rebel" to be ridden. Contrary to his name, Rebel was quite the easy tempered horse, and showed incredible patience as Tyler hesitantly began his first horseback riding lesson.

I guess the best way to describe the next series of events is to describe the beginning and the end...you can figure out the middle. When Tyler first approached Rebel, he was reluctant to pet the large horse. An hour later, Tyler was steering rebel through a course made up of four northern rollerbladers. The size of the smile on Tyler's face was huge...only rivaled by the size of the blister on Orto's heal from skating.

We also skated in some of the nastiest heat of the trip, appeared on Channel 5 news, and went out in Charleston last night. For details, shoot us an email.

Bests,
Dan T.