At the Morning Dove Therapeutic Riding Center, children with special needs ride horses as a kind of treatment. They're able to build confidence and develop necessary motor skills.
Lisa Condes is the executive director at Morning Dove.
"They're learning how to ride these horses and some of them are already moving forward. The horse simulates human walking. They build self-confidence and they steer and they sit up and just the motion of the horse really help them. But more than anything it's just the confidence and the fun and the activity that we provide," Condes said.
Calvin is one of the students benefiting from the therapy. His big smile already shows how he's gaining confidence.
"He just participated in his first horse show and was able to win the blue ribbon. He's just doing fantastic," Condes said.
Todd Sullivan is a board member at Morning Dove with a son who's also benefited from therapeutic riding.
"My son started riding in a therapeutic program at the age of two. He's nine years old now. We lived out in New Mexico when we did that. We moved out here to Indiana and we found Morning Dove. The family were all involved. It started as a way to help him physically to build his core strength and just develop his gross motor skills and that kind of thing," Sullivan said.
When it comes to special needs kids, therapeutic riding may not at first seem like an obvious choice because of safety concerns. Sullivan said his family had some questions at the beginning.
"We're not horse people. We're not a horse family; never been around horses. At first it was like, what are we gonna do? We're gonna get on a horse and lean off of it and lay back on it and do all these crazy things on a horse. But you know, we're open to anything and it's certainly been a huge benefit to us."
While Sullivan says the therapy helped his son physically in his early years, as he grows, it's become more of a social activity. "To come out to Morning Dove and be around the horses it's just a lot of fun for him."
Morning Dove - Learn more about the program and find out how you can help.
