Riding School Helps Disabled Children

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 2

Riding School Helps Disabled Children

In spite of the increasing mechanisation more and more children in Britain today are finding delight in horse-riding in the parks and countryside, and riding schools and clubs are increasing throughout the country.

One school which is attracting much attention, at Grange. Farm, Chigwell, just outside London, is using this enjoyment of riding to help disabled children.

Watching the children at a lesson in the paddock, one is impressed by their confident handling of their ponies. In many cases, it is not until the children dismount that one realises the difficulties they face in life. Some may not be able to manage to stand on their own, but have to wait for crutches or a stick to support them. Or it may be necessary to lead the pony between two ramps to enable the rider to transfer to a wheelchair, which can travel easily up and down speciallydesigned ramps. This is the Riding Centre for the Disabled, where children—and adults—who are spastics, paralysed by poliomyelitis, or disabled as a result of other illnesses or accidents, learn to ride and in controlling a pony gain greater control of their own muscles.

Mrs Norah Jacques, founder and director of pony riding for the Disabled Trust, which raised the money to build and run the centre, and who helped to form the coun-

try-wide Advisory Council on Riding for the Disabled, in which all interested groups and individuals can share their knowledge, is dedicated to the idea that riding can help disabled people both physically and psychologically. She was an enthusiastic rider herself.

Her original inspiration came from another woman rider, a Scandinavian dressage champion who was paralysed by poliomyelitis, yet rode again to championship form. Mrs Jacques, in partnership with a riding school I owner, Mr Gerry Van der Gucht, of Forest Lodge Rid-

ing School, Epping, near London, started riding lessons for spastic children, mostly from St Thomas’s Hospital, London. It was soon apparent that the school could not allocate sufficient time for the many disabled people who applied for lessons. St Thomas’s wanted to send all Its patients who might benefit by riding. Other hospitals wanted to send patients too. The offer of a lease on the Chigwell land at a nominal rent by London Parochial Charities, owners of Grange Farm, and £20,000 for the centre, was a personal achievement for Mrs Jacques. The affairs of the trust are now under the control of an extremely able and enthusiastic board of trustees. INDOOR SCHOOL

The centre was opened in 1964 and now accommodates about 110 pupils a week. There is an indoor riding school as well as the paddock, changing rooms, reception and refreshment rooms, stables and a tack room with low-level racks so that the children can share the care of the ponies and their equipment. All the ponies are' lent or gifts. Expansion is planned including the provision of a physiotherapy room. All pupils have to be passed fit to ride by their own doctors, and parents’ permission is required for children. Pupils are also assessed by a trust physiotherapist During the lessons they do certain exercises on horseback aimed at strengthening their limbs, such as leaning back, feet in stirrups, hands on hips. The trust aims at providing proof of the therapeutic value of riding, so that it can be officially acknowledged by the medical profession. This is a highprincipled aim. But the Chigwell riding school is more than an experimental and re--1 search centre. In the neces--1 sarily confined life of a han- ' dicapped person, riding les- ' sons make an enormously ’ enjoyable break. Watching a group of spastic children 1 arrive for their lesson, one ; could quickly see how much ' this hobby means to them. ; They could hardly get out of ■ their car fast enough. Any- ; one who could not walk or hop got on the ground and ' crawled. The reception room, with ’ its refreshment bar, was a ’ babble of noise. Everyone , was talking at once until the , long-awaited moment when ' the women volunteers, who I attend all classes, had seen . that each child was ready ’ and wearing a hard, protec- ’ tive riding hat.

Then they went out to get mounted and start the lesI son. The children adore the ponies, calling each by name. They learn horse lore. They work hard at their lessons, j striving for the day when they will ride without somejone else leading and controlling their pony.. Perhaps that is the real ! secret of the experiment—that the pupils become intent on learning to control their limbs so that they can not only control a pony but become accomplished riders, able on horseback even if not truly able on foot