Dressage with a View – Congratulations!
Congratulations to one of our incredible volunteers, Colleen Lewis, for her great rides at last Saturday’s Dressage with a View show. She came home with several blue ribbons and some great memories. We are proud of all our riders!
Justin Time Paints with a Purpose
Coming soon! Hear the Beats Horse Show
Mark your calendars and tell your friends! Hear the Beats Horse Show is coming up on May 31st. Held annually at the Virginia Horse Center, it will feature both English and Western classes of all levels. All proceeds benefit Hoofbeats Therapeutic Riding Center.
For more information, please visit www.horsecenter.org.
Bonnie Blue Show
On May 7, four Hoofbeats riders performed the opening drill and flag ceremony for the Bonnie Blue Horse Show in the Coliseum of the Virginia Horse Center. Rocking out as usual, our little riders executed their routine to some hip tunes, setting the tone for a great event. The Bonnie Blue show team presented a surprise blue ribbon to each Hoofbeats rider for their excellent performance. Thanks drill team!
Admiring her well-earned blue ribbon
In the Coliseum waiting for riders to mount
April Showers Bring May Flowers
Everybody at Hoofbeats is enjoying the successful launch of a new season.
We have some new horsey faces around the barn. Check out the updated “Meet the Horses” page.
— Pictures from this week’s lessons —
Getting her pony ready!
Lessons
Focusing on tacking up.
Coming soon:
On May 7, Hoofbeats riders will perform as the opening drill team at the Bonnie Blue Invitational at the Virginia Horse Center.
On May 10, Hoofbeats is hosting Hear the Beats Fundraiser Horse Show. It proves loads of fun every year.
Last Year’s Hear the Beats Show. “Ham it up guys!” Carol says.
We’re Back!
Hoofbeats is back and getting ready for Spring Lessons.
Never mind the rain!
Happy (almost) spring!
After a long winter, Hoofbeats staff and volunteers are busy preparing for Spring Lessons, scheduled to begin April 1. The barn is full again. The horses finally came back last week and Saturday the 14th was the first day of schooling them. It rained most of the day, churning the ring into a lovely milkshake consistency, but mud did not deter us!
Henry, Harry, Blueberry, Spirit, Hermes, and Commander are back, along with two new horses: Lillie and Grayson. Lillie is a lovely gray Arabian, rescued by Maria and here at Hoofbeats for her 90 day trial as a therapy horse. She is a sweetheart, and we really hope that therapy is the right job fit for her! Grayson grew up with Commander. We call them brothers. He is a talented 23 year old and knows a lot of fun tricks! If you call, “Grayson!” and hold up your hands like you’re taking a picture, he will “pose” and “smile” for you.
The horses, volunteers, and staff at Hoofbeats are excited about the upcoming spring session. Hopefully see you soon!
https://hoof-beats.com
By B. Jinae Kennedy
Hermes
One of our young volunteers is excited about helping train horses for April lessons.
Two of our incredible volunteers.
Kelly, an intern, is training Spirit.
Commander and friend.
Photo Essay by Colleen Lewis
A photo essay by Hoofbeats volunteer, Rockbridge County High School freshman Colleen Lewis.
She is well on her way to being a professional – in our opinion.
Whatever your skills are – photography, organization, carpentry, fashion, painting, web design, writing, networking, cooking – there is a place for it at Hoofbeats, where skills and interests are encouraged and developed. Hoofbeats volunteers own the space to expand their creativity, develop ingenuity, and design and launch new ideas. Volunteer today. Apply your skills to change the present and train for success in the future.
By Jinae Kennedy
Volunteer Highlight: Congratulations to Katy Barron
Katy and Sybren
Katie, Sybren and Ashley
Katy Barron – a Hoofbeats volunteer since she was just 8-years-old – began a new job this fall in NYC designing clothes for Kohl’s, jumping into a new and exciting phase of life. Throughout her childhood and adulthood, Katy’s experiences at Hoofbeats have shaped the successful woman she is today.
As an “absolutely horse crazy” 8-year-old, Katy first came to Hoofbeats in 1993, where she would spend every weekend for the next almost ten years. “We were given, what I realize only in retrospect, a lot of responsibility,” she said.
“We did just about everything from setting up the ring for lessons, helping with both disabled/ non-disabled riders, taking care of all the horses, cleaning tack, and mucking stalls. We worked hard, got dirty, and sometimes caused a little mischief- I loved every minute of it!” she explained.
Hoofbeats director Carol Branscome said that Katy was an integral part of Hoofbeats in those days. “This was a big part of her growing up,” Carol said.
In high school, Katy stopped riding and could not spend as many weekends at the barn but continued to volunteer sporadically with big events and photography.
After attending Roanoke College for a few years, she dropped out and started thinking about applying to Savannah School of Art and Design (SCAD). It was during this rough episode of questioning and high pressure, Carol said, that Katy’s mother encouraged her to return to Hoofbeats.
Using her incredible artistic senses, Katy lent her photography skills to Hoofbeats – and it was her 2008 photograph of Eliza that was selected among thousands as the winner of an EQUUS contest. This picture is internationally recognized and has been used in multiple publications. (Try it! If you “Google” therapeutic horseback riding, it will surface as one of the first listed images.)
With these award-winning photos in her portfolio, Katy applied and was accepted to SCAD, one of the most prestigious design schools in the country.
When she graduated in 2012, she could not find a job right away. “Being an unemployed college graduate is a miserable experience,” she said. “The last two years of my life have been some of the most brutal and emotionally trying.” After seven months in New York City trying to a full-time job without success, she moved back home last April, feeling defeated and broken.
Then, on a whim, Katy visited Hoofbeats and Carol introduced her to a beautiful and gentle horse named Sybren. “After that, I kept coming back,” she said.
Carol said she was so thankful to have Katy back. She told her former student, “Katy, if you will help me this summer, if you will design my costume for my Baroque gala, I will teach you how to ride that horse.”
Katy started training Sybren for the TRAV show in October, partnering with another young woman who had also volunteered at Hoofbeats since childhood. Carol said she saw her two former “littles” helping each other with this horse. Katy schooled Sybren for Ashlyn to ride in the show and Ashlyn groomed Sybren for Katy. The two young women supported each other to overcome so many fears and anxieties, Carol said. When they successfully showed Sybren at TRAV, Carol said with emotion in her voice, “I saw the culmination of 20 years of work.”
Continuing to lend her creative skills to Hoofbeats, Katy re-decorated and organized the center’s interior and designed Carol’s Baroque Gala costume. At the Gala, Carol said the judge showered compliments on the costume and one of her friends used it in a photo-shoot for her professional portfolio.
Using the costume in her own professional portfolio, Katy prepared for her final job interview last summer. The worst thing about job interviews – Carol said that Katy explained to her one day – is that they say Tell me about yourself, and you never know what to say. “Can you tell me about myself?” Carol said Katy then asked her. “I answered, Katy, you’re a rider, you’re an artist, and look at what you’ve done this year,” Carol said.
When Katy sat down for her last job interview, the inevitable prompt came – Tell me about yourself. And she took a deep breath and told them what she had been doing all summer long, Carol said.
Katy is now in New York City, designing clothes for Kohl’s. She is also volunteering at a therapeutic horseback riding center in the city.
Reflecting on her experiences, she said, “Growing up at Hoofbeats I developed a moral compass […] As a kid I witnessed the healing power of a program like Hoofbeats- only now, as an adult, do I truly understand it. The past 7 months at the barn […] have revived my soul!”
By Jinae Kennedy
Hoofbeats would like to thank Katy for all of her hard work over the years and congratulate her on her new job. We cannot wait to see her back in Lexington for visits!
Invest in a Brighter Future – By Shopping on Amazon!
“You Shop. Amazon Gives.”
That’s the slogan of the AmazonSmile program. Use the drop-menu to select your favorite charity (Hoofbeats!), and Amazon will donate a portion of your purchase to your cause. What a fantastic way to invest in a better future — helping people find freedom and healing through horses.
Check out AmazonSmile today at http://smile.amazon.com. When doing your usual shopping (especially buying textbooks, for all you college students!), please consider using AmazonSmile to invest in Hoofbeats.
By Jinae Kennedy
Riding My Way Back: Horses, Healing, and Disabled Veterans
When you’re a disabled veteran, you have lost everything, said U.S. Army staff sergeant Aaron Heliker.
Heliker told his story in the 2014 award-winning documentary Riding My Way Back – an emotional film that Hoofbeats has screened multiple times for our volunteers and supporters.
Heliker was only 19-years-old when he hugged his mother good-bye for his first deployment in active combat zone. He served several tours of duty and returned home with a head injury and severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
At Walter Reed Medical Center, he received treatment — in the form of 42 suppressive pills a day, said his mother with tears of anger and sadness rolling down her face. She said she looked into her son’s eyes and saw that they were dead.
Disabled veterans feel alone and useless, said Heliker. “When we’re deployed, we fit in, we have a purpose,” he explained. But when warriors come home, their purpose is gone and it is easy to get lost in a haze of medication and discouragement, according to this disabled vet. At his lowest point, Heliker said he wrote a suicide letter and prepared to end his life.
With that letter still stored in his belongings, Heliker began visiting a therapeutic riding center — where he met a horse named Fred, who changed his life.
“The horses can do it. The horses are the therapists,” said one of the instructors. Horses are prey animals and herd animals, so they sense and reflect emotion, she said.
If there was a day that he did not show up, Heliker said that this instructor would call him, claiming she needed help with something or she could not get Fred — a mischievous gray gelding with the reputation of the barn clown — to listen to her. Trudging out to the barn almost every day, Heliker spent hours training or quietly brushing or sitting with Fred.
One day, Heliker approached one of the instructors and handed her an envelope, saying he wanted her to keep it. It was a suicide note. With tears streaming down her face, she recounted how Aaron had said he did not need it anymore — because he had Fred.
Since then, Heliker said he has found his purpose helping other disabled veterans find peace through horses. He and Fred work now work at the same riding center, connecting fellow warriors with strong and mighty horses who can listen, understand, and partner with these returning heroes. “I have a mission here at home and I’m going to follow through,” Heliker said.
Over 2.5 million veterans have come home since 9/11.
Many of them are coming home to Rockbridge and the surrounding counties. As compared with other cities and states, our area has a disproportionately high percentage of brave citizens who serve in the armed forces. Hoofbeats is a registered equestrian center with the Wounded Warriors program and our horses have had the opportunity to partner with a few of these veterans.
Hoofbeats director Carol Branscome said that Riding My Way Back accurately portrays the healing power of horses, but it is not just veterans who need to find peace and a renewed purpose. Struck by the scene of Heliker’s mother talking about dead eyes, Branscome said she has seen the same dead eyes in a troubled 12-year-old boy, in a woman suffering domestic abuse, and in so many others who walk through Hoofbeats’ doors. Just as Heliker explained about disabled veterans, all people need a purpose and a mission, Branscome said. That is key to finding peace.
Find more details about this incredible documentary, Riding My Way Back, and discover how horses are helping disabled veterans at http://www.ridingmywayback.com/#welcome
By Beth Jinae Kennedy
Recent Comments