SPIRIT Creates A Legacy At Northwest Tennessee Farm by Nancy Brannon School is out and summer is here, so families’ attention turns to summer camp, and horseback riding is often a part of children’s camp experiences. Shirley Warrick’s Tennessee Legacy Farm in Brighton, Tennessee offers the traditional summer riding camp experience with lots of horseback riding, plus something to brighten the lives of special needs children. This year, Warrick was moved by the SPIRIT to extend her equestrian lesson program and summer camp to offer riding experiences for children, and adults, with disabilities. “We had been doing riding lessons since 2004 and started our regular summer camp in 2005. This May we started the riding for the handicapped program. We had kids with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and a lot of other disorders related to FAS already benefiting in our riding program. We have students age 5 to 25 years who have some kind of special needs.” Tennessee Legacy Farms has several professional people on their Board of Directors who have been influential and volunteered their time to get the program started. “We have a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, three ex-nurses, three school teachers, and several general ‘horse people’ two of which have disabled children,” said Warrick. So this group formed SPIRIT, Special People in Riding Involved Therapy, which is a non-profit, 501 (c) (3), all volunteer organization, providing therapeutic equine activities to people with disabilities. Since the program is just getting started, it has “needs,” too, such as financial donations, more volunteers, more special saddles and special equipment such as lifts and ramps. “We are going to start with mostly mobile children, but we can also handle blind, deaf, emotionally disturbed, and autistic children,” Warrick said. To qualify to attend the camp, children must first get a doctor’s exam to make sure they are capable of riding activities. “We want suggestions from their doctors on which muscles need to be strengthened, or have tactile stimulation, or if they need language stimulation,” she continued. “In many cases, we’ll be working with their parents on goals. With learning disabled children, the therapy can stimulate them to work in school better, to build their self-confidence. Riding therapy can provide an area where they can succeed, whereas they may have trouble succeeding in school. It helps them learn to focus. Others may need to strengthen their muscles, or work certain muscle groups to improve their posture and balance. With all, riding therapy helps improve concentration and focus.” Warrick stresses the benefits of riding therapy for a variety of disabilities. “Studies have shown that many participants are able to overcome obstacles where other therapies have failed. With therapeutic riding, students are able to express themselves and improve their physical, emotional, and communicative expression,” Warrick said. These are some of the disabilities that can benefit from equine facilitated therapy: muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, Downs syndrome, autism, Multiple Sclerosis, emotional and learning disabilities, abused children, and ADD. The physical benefits include stretching muscles, improved range of motion, improved respiration and circulation, improved digestion. Psychological benefits include an increase in self-confidence, emotional control and self-discipline, patience, healing of past trauma, development of trust and a sense of acceptance, increased motivation, improved listening and communication skills, and mastering fears. SPIRIT seeks to be certified by NARHA, the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association. See their web site at: http://www.narha.org/. Currently SPIRIT has experienced riding instructors for summer, but they are not NARHA certified yet. “We have people who are experienced as nurses, teachers, in pediatrics and child psychology who know what to expect with the various syndromes in children. These are highly informed instructors, but our goal is to have them NARHA certified,” Warrick said. “It’s a fairly expensive process to send the instructors for training, so we’re raising money for that.” Future plans of SPIRIT are to make their program available to the special education classes at the nearby schools and to offer their program as a service project for FFA and 4-H kids. Regular camp for all children is held throughout the month of June. The riding for the handicapped program will run in July and August. “We are aiming specifically at more physically able children now, actually people of any age, even adults who have had strokes,” Warrick explained. “We do both English and Western riding and have both horses and ponies” to suit the size of the equine to the size of the rider. Most of her horses are Morgans and, in fact, Tennessee Legacy Farms specializes in raising Morgans and Morgan crosses. Some of her favorite horses are Morabs, crosses with her Morgan stallion, “JMF Midnight Obsession,” and Arab mares. “They are all bomb-proof horses, very good natured, even when they are young. They put up with the foolishness of kids.” It’s a long story of how Warrick got interested in doing this. But to make it short, she says, “It was a combination of having horses and being a nurse for about 20 years. In the latter years of my nursing career I was doing more administrative work. So I wanted to get back into more hands-on work. I bought this place seven years ago and thought the horses needed a job. I started with one horse and now I have 18.” That’s a familiar story to many horse owners! Warrick used to ride, but after she broke her hip two years ago, the muscle in her right leg “didn’t come back” properly, so she doesn’t ride much now. Warrick has an adult trainer, Mary Temple, and two local students from Brighton High School who ride, train and help with the horses, Shannon Bieber and Heather Wheeler. Heather is a senior, so will be going into the Air Force after graduation. The camps run Monday n Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Activities include riding, washing, and grooming horses, arts and crafts, swimming, class-room work when guest professionals come to teach a particular equine-related subject, and, of course, barn chores. At camp, children “learn the hows and whys of proper horsemanship.” The facility has a large arena, 60 X 80 feet and a smaller arena, 18 X 18 feet “for children who want to ride alone, but may not be strong enough or skilled or confident enough for the larger arena. In the small arena, all the instructor has to do is just reach out to control the horse, if needed.” For the more experienced riders, there are 30 acres available next door where children can trail ride. For more information on Tennessee Legacy Farms, their summer camp or riding for the handicapped program, call (901) 476-0193. Or email tnlegacyfarms@aol.com. The farm is located at 3104 Sunnyside Road in Brighton, TN. See their web site: http://tnlegacyfarm.com.