12372 Riggs Road
Independence, KY 41051
Therapeutic Horseback Riding Program
Milestones is a therapeutic horsemanship program that presents opportunities for individuals with challenges to enhance their quality of life. Milestones strives to assist each rider to become an innovative and productive member of the community by building independence, self-confidence, and social skills in a safe, fun, loving environment. This is accomplished by teaching horsemanship skills and basic grooming to individuals with diagnoses such as Autism, Cerebral Palsy, traumatic brain injury, Spina Bifida, Down syndrome, etc. In 2019 Milestones served 138 therapeutic riders in the Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall Sessions; 61 riders were served through the Silver Saddles program (for riders over the age of 50); and 14 vocational education opportunities/summer camp programs took place.
A Milestones Success Story: The Second Summer of Horse Tales
For the second summer, Horse Tales provided students (grades 1-8) with the opportunity to improve their reading skills while also assisting Milestones’ horses through socialization and interaction. The rhythmic sounds of reading can be very soothing and comforting to horses. Additionally, research has shown that many children struggle with reading aloud at school and are often not willing to practice at home. Horses are completely non-judgmental listeners. If a child mispronounces a word, the horse continues to follow along with the story. If the child pauses in the story to work on improving how to read a certain phrase, the horse still follows along. An occasional whinny can be heard throughout the barn during an exciting book or the reader might just as easily hear a heavy sigh of contentment.
Similar programs have shown that students achieve remarkable improvement in their reading skills and feel more confident and relaxed while reading. Horse Tales, it seemed was the perfect fit for students in the community and the horses at Milestones.
Milestones developed a partnership with the local library branch (Kenton County Public Library, Durr Branch), which was very supportive of Horse Tales and offered book donations. This led to a wide variety of books for students to choose from while at the farm reading to the horses, and allowed each student to take a book home. In addition, Milestones was granted a $25,000 grant from the Dater Foundation for our Therapeutic Riding Program, Horse Tales and Summer Programming. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation’s Summertime Kids Grant was submitted and awarded. With these collaborations and community support Milestones was well on the way to launching the second summer of Horse Tales.
Horse Tales was held on select Mondays throughout the summer. A day of Horse Tales at Milestones was structured to include six sessions, with the first session beginning at 1:00pm. Ten to twelve of the horses were able to participate in each session and were read to for up to 30 minutes. Milestones purchased new stall guard for each horses’ stall in order to increase the contact between the horses and readers. Tall stools outside of each horse’s stall allowed the readers and horses to interact during their session. At the conclusion of the reading session, the instructor allowed the reader to meet the horse and have a picture taken. Three sessions ran consecutively, then horses and staff took a break before the next three sessions resumed at 4:30pm. By setting the sessions up in this way Milestones was able to accommodate students that were available to attend sessions during the day, as well as later in the evening. By the end of the summer Milestones horses were read to over 277 times!
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