FORT COLLINS, Colo.—After nearly four years of planning and dreaming, riders at Hearts & Horses Therapeutic Riding Center will take their learning to the next level this year as the center completes work on the sensory Trail of Discovery.
A group of volunteers from the Fort Collins Soccer Club U13 Arsenal Gold team has begun construction on the trail’s first station, a tire dragon obstacle. When completed next summer, the Trail of Discovery will include 10 stations that test and interact with riders’ senses, working with the program’s existing horse therapy program to help riders with cognitive, physical and emotional disabilities.
For some riders who use wheelchairs, the trail’s sensory garden and other features will allow them to feel and experience the world from horseback.
“They’ll be able to feel the brush of a shrub against their leg or face, something a lot of us take for granted,” said Tamara Merritt, program director for Changing Leads at Hearts & Horses. “They don’t get to experience that (normally), but we’re helping them to experience their environment and nature in a different way and get them out of the arena setting.”
Merritt said 90 percent of Hearts & Horses riders have difficulties processing sensory information.
The stations, ranging from the garden, with all local flora, to a giant chime xylophone that riders can play from horseback, will help riders process a wide range of sensory information.
“It really makes a difference in the lives of our disabled people by giving them new experiences and giving our horses new experiences,” Merritt said. “We work with people of all different types of disabilities, providing therapy with the use of the horse.”
Hearts & Horses will also begin providing horticultural therapy through the sensory garden, Merritt said. At-risk youth in the Changing Leads program will take over maintaining the garden and mentoring each other through caring for the plants and the horses and riders that get to experience them.
“It’s a healing place,” Merritt said.
The nearly $13,000 sensory trail is supported entirely through grants, community donations and volunteer work.
Desperados, a 4-H club, donated nearly $6,000 to get the project off the ground. HighCraft Builders of Fort Collins is constructing a pergola for classes and picnics. Several community groups also are pitching in to build stations.
Hearts & Horses is still seeking native plant, sculpture and financial donations to complete the Trail of Discovery.
Kris Banghart, coach of the U13 boys arsenal gold team that helped build the dragon station Sunday afternoon, said volunteering with Hearts & Horses helps his players see the world beyond themselves.
“I just think it helps build character,” Banghart said. “It helps them mature a little bit and understand that there are bigger things out there than just playing soccer. To give back is always a good thing.”
The team dug a serpent-shaped hole in the ground and drilled tires of different sizes in the rut to make a green “dragon” that horses can walk and jump over.
Logan Juergens, 12, said he was proud to see his team working together to help Hearts & Horses.
“I think it’s good to help the community,” Juergens said. “We’re pretty lucky to do what we get to do (with soccer).”
