Healing through Horses: Central Kentucky Riding For Hope Offers a New Experience

It’s a simple Thursday morning, and the city landscape slowly fades into rolling green hills.

Shopping centers and subdivisions blend into the world behind.

Long, black wooden fences begin to wrap the landscape.

Signs picturing horseback riders with the words “ALWAYS HAVE RIGHT OF WAY” replace the stoplights.

The drive is quiet all the way to the horse-peppered fields at the edge of the Kentucky Horse Park.

The sun starts to take its place in the clear sky above a green-roofed building, home to Central Kentucky Riding for Hope (CKRH).

“At our very beginning … it was started by some people with an idea on a plane, and they ended up trying the idea of helping people with a disability out with horses,” said Pat Kline, executive director of CKRH.

After learning about the benefits of using horses for therapy, Dr. Peter Bosomworth, former chancellor emeritus for the University of Kentucky Medical Center, approached Kentucky Horse Park to give it a try.

In 1981, Kline said CKRH was off the ground with one borrowed horse from the riding horse concession, and as time went by, the evolution began.

Pat Kline, executive director of Central Kentucky Riding for Hope (CKRH) poses for a photo with a therapy horse at CKRH on Aug. 29, 2024, in Lexington, Kentucky.

Now, more than 40 years later, CKRH is a Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH) Premier Accredited Riding Center, home to 29 horses, a Fayette County special education high school and a list of programs that are continuously growing.

Because CKRH offers a different type of therapy built around horses, Kline said it gives people of all ages a chance to experience therapy uniquely.

“You think of regular therapy in a clinical setting, and you're on a table with equipment, you know. But out here, this is kind of like the therapy you want to come to because you want to see your horse,” Kline said.

Along with being in a nontraditional environment, Kline said interacting with horses helps stimulate every one of a rider’s senses.

“You know you have the vision, you have the depth perception, you have the noise that the horse makes when it walks, and you know the noises in the barn, and then the olfactory, you know, because there are definitely certain smells … plus you're sitting upright,” Kline said.

That upright position is a crucial part of many success stories at CKRH because Kline said it helps release pressure from a rider’s diaphragm, develops core strength and improves balance.

Along with the physical benefits horse riding brings, Kline has witnessed non-verbal participants speak at CKRH. She recalled a 10-year-old rider proclaiming his love for his horse for the first time.

“They don't say anything, and then one day, one of them will come out with a sentence ... The one I remember the most was a sentence that said, ‘I love Annie.’ And everybody in the whole arena heard it,” Kline said.

This is just one example of how undeniable the connections formed at CKRH are.

“They bond with the horse. They like the barn setting. They just like the peace that it brings,” Kline said.

One bond facilitated by CKRH is shared by 27-year-old Julian Clark and KyKy, a 22-year-old Norwegian fjord horse.

Julian Clark and his mother Alva Mitchell Clark Covington posed for a picture outside the Central Kentucky Riding for Hope building.

“Julian’s kind of like a horse whisperer. I think they communicated … it just gave him peace, which is hard to get when you don’t have language,” Alva Mitchell Clark Covington, Julian’s mother said.

Clark has cerebral palsy and autism, which Covington said does not inhibit him from success despite limiting his speech. Covington said Clark has tenacity, radiates positivity and “almost 100% of the time, rises to the occasion.”

However, when the pandemic disrupted his routine, Covington said she watched Clark regress in a lot of his emotional and physical skills. Now CKRH is helping him “build back better.”

“They used to describe autism with puzzle parts. CKRH was the perfect piece to fit into his team to help him move forward,” Covington said.

Throughout his nine years taking lessons at CKRH, Covington said she has witnessed Clark’s communication and body mobility improve.

“I can tell a big difference in when he's riding weekly versus month gaps because he's physically is just not as strong, and it's a huge, huge difference for him, and it's one that he likes riding horses, so he is actually getting exercise and therapy in a manner which he likes,” Covington said. “And he probably wouldn't even see it as strengthening and exercise. He just sees it as joy and fun.”

That joy and fun Clark receives from CKRH is similar to how Covington said she feels about being Clark’s mother.

Covington and her late husband adopted Clark when he was one, exposing them to the neurodivergent world.

“I had birthed him in my heart … I didn't know anything about special needs, and all I knew was the things that people thought about special needs, and I probably would have been just as bigoted about their capabilities as well, if I hadn't been exposed to someone who has continuously outperformed expectations,” Covington said.

CKRH is another place where Covington said she has seen Clark reach his potential.

Julian Clark participates in an exercise that involves placing a ring on a peg while volunteers, Russell Hoff and Crystal Owens, and coach, Nancy Delacenserie, guide him.

“It’s just a lot of really positive things that helps him [Clark] from the top of his head to the crown of his feet,” Covington said.

In addition to the personal goals Clark has achieved at CKRH, Covington said she has seen a band of supporters grow around him.

“One of the biggest things that’s necessary for any special needs individual is to build community, to build community of diversity … and it is a rare thing to find it in an environment like this with equine horse therapy,” Covington said.

Although this community, facility and offerings are vital to Covington and her son, Kline said it is not an easy or cheap feat for CKRH.

“Every time we put a rider up, it’s $35 [for the rider’s family], but the cost to us is somewhere around $110. So, every time a rider is up, we’re losing money, and we have to fill the gap in the middle,” Kline said.

For CKRH to offer these services at a loss, Kline said they must rely on about 150 volunteers a week to help.

In addition to a large number of volunteers, the organization also has a small staff of 13, including Ellie Toothaker, CKRH’s equine manager and trainer.

Toothaker’s office, located in the horse stables, is lined with ribbons won at equine competitions, a calendar with horseback riding fails and crayoned art pieces gifted by riders.

Ellie Toothaker, the equine manager and trainer for Central Kentucky Riding for Hope flips through her horse calendar in her office at CKRH on Aug. 29, 2024, in Lexington, Kentucky.

“For my fourth birthday, my parents got me one riding lesson, and I got on a horse, and my dad said, ‘Oh no, she's hooked,’” Toothaker said.

Throughout her life, Toothaker said there was always something magical about having a relationship with a horse and although she had a love for them, she said she never expected to have a full-time career in the industry.

“I started as a volunteer, and as I’ve had the opportunities, I’ve just taken them and run with it, and it’s been one of my best decisions ever,” Toothaker said.

As a trainer, Toothaker said her job entails “preparing the horses for the therapeutic riding lessons.”

And “because this is a job unlike any other in the industry,” Toothaker said each horse must undergo an intense vetting process, followed by a 30-day quarantine and then a total of a 90-day trial period before they can be introduced to a rider and used for lessons.

This rigorous method, Toothaker said, is to test how the horse will respond and react to different situations to ensure the safety of the horses, riders, volunteers and staff.

Once the horses are prepped and ready, Toothaker’s job is not over.

A drawing of a horse hangs in the office of Ellie Toothaker, the equine manager and trainer at Central Kentucky Riding for Hope on Aug. 29, 2024, in Lexington, Kentucky.

“You know, I’m their [the horses] emergency contact. If somebody’s got a boo boo, like, that's my boo boo. Like, that's my problem as well. So I see all the problems, kind of, I take them to heart as if they're my own children,” Toothaker said.

These 29 ‘children’ that Toothaker oversees are the cornerstone of CKRH’s unique mission.

“Maybe it’s not the therapy for everybody, and we can always accept that, but when you come out and you try, we have that added bonus here of the horses,” Kline said.

That added bonus is what led Bosomworth to create the idea of CKRH over 40 years ago, and today Covington said her and her family owe him and this organization much gratitude.

“Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for not stopping … The neurodivergent community … we’re in need of places like this,” Covington said. “I know how they've impacted my life and my family and my son, but I know of others that have had just as much success and has brought just as much joy and peace to their families. So I'd say, God bless them.”