GREENFIELD — Agape Therapeutic Riding will begin offering a horsemanship program at its Greenfield location geared toward helping veterans with physical or mental difficulties.
The nonprofit will an open house Saturday, Oct. 19 to gauge interest from local veterans in participating in therapeutic riding or horsemanship classes beginning next spring.
Agape will provide services to veterans free of charge, thanks to grants received from the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship and OrthoIndy.
Agape is a fairly new presence in Greenfield, having taken over the facility formerly owned by Edelweiss Equine-Assisted Therapy Center in 2018. The organization has a 30-year history in the state, however, with locations in Cicero and Martinsville.
Greenfield site manager Becca Spitzig said Agape’s services can provide a range of health benefits, both physical and mental.
“Just riding a horse is going to always strengthen your core and strengthen your leg muscles and strengthen your legs. We see a lot of students that have physical challenges,” Spitzig said.
Program director Linda Hazzard currently leads a program for veterans at Agape’s Martinsville location. Hazzard works with a group on a weekly basic exercise on developing skills like self-worth, leadership and more. Hazzard said her participants range in age from their 20s to their 50s, but all are learning to re-adjust to life after serving in the military.
“It’s all about re-establishing yourself as a civilian,” Hazzard said.
Agape’s programs and employees are certified through PATH. The organization offers two main services: therapeutic riding and equine-assisted learning. Therapeutic riding classes consist of three to four individuals who set individual goals for what they hope to gain by working with horses. Equine-assisted learning involves a group of people, often from a school or other organization, working together to develop skills through a one-time session with horses.
Veterans will be able to participate in either model at the Greenfield location, depending on their needs.
Hazzard’s program follows the equine-assisted learning model. In an example activity, she said, veterans were asked to write down one thing that makes them angry and tape it to a pole. The group then tries to convince a horse to jump over the pole repeatedly as it is raised progressively higher off the ground.
“The whole metaphor is that as your anger rises up, it’s harder to deal with,” Hazzard said.
Hazzard said participants in the program report having higher levels of confidence and an easier time interacting with others.
“As you learn how to trust the horse and the group, you can take that lesson to pretty much anywhere in life,” Hazzard said.
Agape’s horses are often donated by their previous owners, although some are purchased. To determine whether horses are suitable for the job, trainers work with them alone for 30 days before introducing them to a trial period with clients. If they are not found to be suitable for the work, they are returned to their owners.
“We have a draft mule at this site that came from an Amish family; she was a plow mule,” Spitzig said. “We have retired racehorses, retired show horses, a variety of backgrounds. And some of them are just previous pasture pets, and now they have a job. They really come from all walks of life.”
Agape currently has 30 full-size horses, including six at the Greenfield location, and seven miniature horses.
Demographics who can benefit from Agape’s services, Spitzig said, include people with a variety of physical and developmental disabilities, children in foster care and people recovering from addiction or dealing with sexual assault, domestic violence or other trauma.
“Because we’re incorporating life skills into horseback riding, a lot of our participants don’t realize that we’re doing that,” Spitzig said. “They’re taking a horseback riding class; it’s something cool that their friends don’t get to do or something cool that their siblings don’t get to do. A lot of them, this is the one place that they get to be in charge and in control of their lives.”
Spitzig said Agape’s form of therapy is often beneficial for people who have difficulty with other methodologies.
“It’s a lot less intimidating than something like talk therapy or physical therapy or occupational therapy where you’re in a really sterile environment. Having to face somebody one-on-one can be really intimidating for a lot of our participants. We throw horses into the mix, and almost everybody loves it,” Spitzig said.
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The Greenfield location of Agape will hold an open house for veterans Saturday, October 19 from 1-3 p.m. to gauge interest in the programs on offer and share information about the organization’s services and history. The program is located at 531 W. 100 South.
For more information on this or other Agape programs, call (317) 759-9444 or visit agaperiding.org.
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