Horses for wellness Therapy

8 ^th August 2024 Equine Assisted Therapy - Sally and Ollie Heron     

This Community Interest Company started the business in 2020, using horses to promote mental health and wellbeing.  Sally trained in the USA in ’97 in Equine Assisted Rehabilitation to re-educate “disaffected street kids” in California.  Having been involved with horses all her life she dreamed of setting up this business back in England, but realising that there’s very little money in it, but nevertheless very rewarding!  They bought some land in Fulbeck in 2016 with a derelict barn and have managed to develop it, now having an arena and an American 7 stable barn.  A Welsh pony was offered to them for palliative care having a 2-week life expectancy, but is still with them 9 years later.  Sally specialises in American quarter horses as she is a professional international barrel racer, representing the UK in Germany, France, China and the USA.

They run activities for affected people that are metaphors for the ‘things that are going on in their life’. No phones, no radio, just being in the moment, acknowledging peoples past before you can take them forward.  Find out what they need to talk about, ‘triggering it’ in group or individual therapy.  Why horses? They are large, herd animals, they mirror behaviour (they are sensitive to changes in heart rate, adrenalin and other non-verbal reactions).  But Sally and Ollie needed to be creative to widen their business opportunities.  Inevitably, horses are a female dominated interest, so in comes Ollie to try and attract males.  It all started with him registering and getting a licence for a weekly Lottery with prizes drawn every Friday (now with 2000 regulars).  Being a “LEGO boy”, he noticed that the LEGO prizes were very popular and realised himself returning to the hobby after 40 years he purchased a Titanic Model, noticing that he became totally absorbed in the build process, not thinking about anything else: financial, children worries etc, which link well with the ‘wellbeing concept’.  They now run a weekly programme, generally attended by at least 20 people (they even featured on TV’s Look North) as an alternative to the horse therapy, which is so busy with bookings into April ’25. Ollie offered some amazing statistics: 6 red standard Lego bricks have a combination of 27 million choices of combination, rising to 94 million if multi coloured bricks!

In Ihe future they are looking for grants to expand into Armed Forces Covenant and ‘Line Dancing’ events, recently holding a ‘Honky Tonk’ event attracting 107 people, raising £1k with a raffle and the support of Grantham Rotary Club and locals who volunteer and provide some of the prizes, I believe recognising what a great job Sally and Ollie are doing for their local community. Their current project is turning a grain store into a refreshment area, with outside and inside kitchen areas and a fire pit, which always offers a good ‘bonding’ environment. They have limited parking space (12 to 15 vehicles), which can be a limiting factor at wet times/ in the Winter, so they are looking to put down 1 acre of ‘grass mats’ at a cost of about £15k, and are always looking for sponsorship ideas. Many questions followed covering riding of horses, school referrals, training of the horses, all handled very effectively.

David V proposed the vote of thanks, thanking Sally and Ollie for their very captivating and enthusiastic presentation. He thought he’d been set up having to do a VoT with no knowledge of horses, then additional Lottery, Lego and Line Dancing activities.  However, he was totally engrossed and feels that the excellent work they are doing should be financially supported with National or Local Government initiatives, then asking members to join him with a warm round of applause.        AR