Strides/Sin Limites Honored by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

On May 16, 2008 Strides/Sin Limites received an award from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, which reads:
"As Mayor of the City of Los Angeles and on behalf of its residents, it is a great pleasure for me to extend my sincere appreciation to Strides Therapeutic Riding Center for their outstanding services to disabled children. Your program has really touched the lives of many children with disabilties and I congratulate you on your continuous services. Your dedication has been of great beneift to the community. Best wishes for continued success!"

Strides Executive Director and Sin Limites Program Director Teach the First Therapeutic Riding Instructor's Class in Pachuca, Mexico

Lydia instructs a future instructor in positioning a rider

Nora teaching vaulting positions

The University of Pachuca in Hidalgo, Mexico, has a well-established therapeutic riding center funded by the University. In an effort to improve their program and make it NARHA compiant, they hired Strides Executive Director, Nora Fischbach, and Sin Limites (Uruguay) Program Director, Lydia Lercari to teach a week-long course in therapeutic riding instruction. Representatives of therapeutic riding centers from all over Mexico attended the course as well. This is the first course of its kind taught in Mexico, and we were honored to be a part of teaching and demonstrating the safest and most effective methods of providing therapeutic riding.

8 Strides Riders Participate and Win at the annual CALNET Horse Show

This year 8 Strides riders were selected to participate in the annual CALNET Horse Show at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center on April 20, 2008. Ellen, an adult with quadruplegia, participated in Para Equestrian Dressage riding Padu and took 1st place! She also rode in the Obstacle Course and took 2nd place. Kaarya, who is 5 years old, rode in Pole Bending (a race) on Mimi and took 1st place as well, and in Obstacle Course she took 6th place. Chloe, who is 15 and one of our volunteers, rode in two Dressage Classes and took 1st place in both of them! It was Harrison's (10 years old) first time at the horse show. He took 2nd place in Dressage on Beau, and 2nd place in Obstacle Course. His sister, Elizabeth, who is 8, also showed for the first time. She took 4th place in Dressage on Mimi and 6th place in Obstacle Course. Barbara, an adult born without legs, showed for the first time after only taking 5 riding lessons and only 3 short lessons in Dressage. She took 3rd place in Dressage on Beau, 3rd place in Pole Bending on Mimi, and 3rd place in Obstacle Course on Beau. Laura, 15, rode Padu to a 3rd place in Obstacle Course and 6th in Pole Bending.

This was a very large horse show, bringing riders from all over California. Our riders, horses, and volunteers were amazing, and we are proud of them all.

Strides Riders Win Big at the Tri-Valley Horse

On September 30, 2007, twelve of our Strides Riders and 4 of our horses participated in the annual Tri-Valley Horse Show, held this year at the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center. Last year, only 35 riders in total participated, so it was easy for our riders to win. This year, the numbers were up to almost 150! Despite the greatly increased competition, our riders took home ribbons galore, including better than a dozen 1st place ribbons

Strides Executive Director Honored as a Judge at the Venezuelan International Paralympic Horse Show

Strides' Executive Director, Nora Fischbach, was invited Venezuela to judge at the International Paralympics and Special Olympics Horse Show in January, 2008. The show was divided into two parts, Special Olympics in the mornings and Para Equestrian in the afternoons. Special Olympics is specifically for riders with mental delays, while Para Equestrian riders must have a physical disability. The three day show took place in the city of Valencia in Venezuela. Nora was housed at the Olympic Village along with the disabled athletes participating in the show and their trainers.

Three countries participated in the show, bringing athletes from Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela. Although the United States was not represented in the show, the American flag was displayed along with the others to honor the judge from the USA. Riders were not allowed to bring their own horses, but were required to ride the horses provided by the hosting therapeutic riding center and surrounding equestrian facilities. This provided a level playing field for all riders, as they had equal access to the same quality of horses. The riders and their trainers chose the appropriate horses in advance of the show, and riders had 2 days to practice on those horses before the actual horse show began.

"It was amazing to see the courage these riders displayed", said Nora. "It's scary to ride any horse you don't know, but to see these riders with disabilities ride a horse they don't know in a horse show, in a strange arena and in a strange country is really awe-inspiring!"

Strides Has a New Home!

Strides will be moving to a new location by the end of this year, and thanks to a wonderful article in the Daily News and a spot on KFWB radio, we were able to find a great new home in Granada Hills, only a few minutes from where we are now. It's hard to leave the only home we have ever known, but there are definite advantages to our new location:

**We will have a huge sand arena without any trees in the way (but there is shade). See the photo above.

**We will have REAL trails! Trail rides for everyone!

**There is a REAL bathroom...flush toilet and sink.

**No more mud. The entrance is flat, you can drive right up to the arena and mounting block (only those people in wheelchairs or with dificulty walking, please), and the footing in the stalls is excellent. Every horse will have a huge stall with lots of room.
** The location is only a few blocks from the 118 freeway at the Reseda exit, so getting there is really easy.

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We will begin moving on Saturday afternoon, December 22, after our classes are finished at noon. We need all the help we can get. We estimate it will take us a week or two to move everything, so whatever help you can give, on whatever days, we need it. There are no classes the week of December 24 to January 1, so we will have the time to make the move. If you can give any time that week, please let us know by e-mailing Nora at nora@strides.org, or call (818)571-0048.

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Our new location is 11582 Longacre Ave., Granada Hills. Our landlords are Diana and Frank Vigil. They are wonderful people who have a disabled adult daughter who lives in a group home now. We want to thank them for this great opportunity. Our thanks also to some special people who made this possible, including: Alan Pollack, who pestered the Daily News to write this article, Sindee Simolovitch and Jeri Creston who worked very hard to help us negotiate on the Chatsworth property (even though we didn't get it), Julie Neumann, Cheryl Carr, Michelle Garza and Lydia Lercari who all drove around trying to find us a new home, and all the volunteers and parents who helped us during this transition time. We appreciate all of you more than we can say.

Healing Touch for Animals Workshop

On April 1, 2007, Strides hosted at Healing Touch for Animals workshop at our ranch, focusing on using Healing Touch for horses. Eleven students attended the Level 1 workshop, where they practiced techniques they has learned the previous 2 days. As best I can understand it (not having taken the course), the technique is a transfer of energy to the horse from the practicioner along areas long identified by Chinese and other Asian cultures points which can become blocked and interfere with healing. The idea is to unblock these areas so that healing can occur.

We chose Sable, Chiquita, Bubba, Cuervo, Mimi, Teller, and Zane to receive treatment during the workshop. All these horses have some lameness or stiffness except for Mimi, who was chosen because we hoped it would relax her. The students used a variety of techniques, which you can see in the photos above. As an uninitiated observer, what I saw was that the students unfailingly identified where the problems areas were, and that our horses were extemely relaxed by the end of the session, almost to the point of falling asleep. For example, Sable does not like to stand still and is very "mouthy". She was totally quiet and relaxed and stood for over an hour quietly once the treatment began. She rested her head on the shoulder of her horse leader and all but fell asleep.

It was difficult to tell if the session did much more than relax the horses, as it was only one treatment and most of the students were novices. Sable, however, showed considerably more strength and stability in his hind end the following days. I believe this was as a result of a combination of the Healing Touch treatment and the treatments he as been receiving from a former volunteer, Sha'Ron Kleinbeck, who has been doing light therapy on him, which also focuses on moving energy.

One of the students in the class has offered to come back and do additional Healing Touch therapy for our horses, and we look forward to seeing the results.

A visit from our English rider, Pat Blackledge

Once a year we are fortunate to have a visit from a disabled rider from England. She comes for one lesson only, and it always makes our day. This year, we challenged her more than usual, and she wrote the following e-mail to us after her lesson:

Hi Nora,

I just wanted to thank you and all the volunteers for what I think was probably my best ever lesson yesterday. I felt I had so much confidence in the whole team that I could tackle anything you asked.

It would really be unfair to compare that with a typical lesson back home because there I'm in a class of about five riders and we don't have enough volunteers to give each rider such individual help and attention. Even if I could afford a private lesson every week, our structure is such (We hire the use of the arena and horses at certain times) that the volunteers wouldn't be available. Plus, I'd guess Chiquita is special even by Strides standards. Crispin, who I usually ride, is used by our good dressage riders in competitons but even he can sometimes be hard to get into a good, active walk. Chiquita seems to do it naturally. And when I tell them I only had to say 'Trot' and she did it immediately - I'll be the envy of the group. Maybe I should just move to California and ride regularly with you!

I've had no physical repercussions from trotting. The reins, while being great for my left hand, probably weren't good for my right and I've had a very sore wrist since last evening. I could tell it was doing some damage during the ride but was enjoying myself so much I ddn't want to change anything. I still wouldn't. It was well worth it.

Thanks too for letting me ride despite our getting hopelessly lost and arriving late. I'd actually given up all hope of a lesson and only really turned up to explain and apologise.

You've made me realise that I'm capable of quite a lot more than I'm currently achieving. I'll see what I can do about that and hope to report back to you next year! Best wishes to all the team,

Pat

Strides Riders at Pierce College Horse Show

Four Strides riders, Hannah Lerner, Clea Lerner, Jessica Bibb and Jordan Spiva, competed in an able-bodied horse show this past weekend at Pierce College. Unlike disabled shows, where riders are competing on schooling horses like ours, at an able-bodied show our riders are competing against riders who are often riding $20,000 horses and wearing expensive riding gear. Also, unlike disabled shows, the classes are larger and not everyone wins a ribbon. Despite this "handicap", our riders did exceptionally well. Check out their ribbons in the slide show above.

A visit from a Gypsy Vanner horse

For the week of March 19, we will be hosting Braveheart, a 3 year old Gypsy Vanner horse, at our ranch. Braveheart is a beautiful gelding, about 15.3 hands high, with brown and white paint markings. He's here to see how he reacts to our riders and how our riders react to him. We are also selling raffle tickets for $10 each to win a 3 year old Gypsy Vanner gelding (in the photo above), to support the American Gypsy Horse Association's Angel Babies program. They will be donating Gypsy horses to therapeutic riding programs. If you have always dreamed of owning your own horse, this is your chance to try to make that dream come true. Ask Nora, Nichole or Michelle at the ranch for raffle tickets, or go to www.aghba.com to purchase tickets online.