EquiHope is a nonprofit for disabled kids. EquiHope offers therapeutic horseback riding for children with disabilities. In cowboy vernacular they help crippled kids.
We followed the signs down the county road leading the way to free pancakes. We’d already ate breakfast and we had plenty of time, so we just were curious about all of this “horse stuff” in Pilot Point.
Marge Nicholson is the Vice President of the Board of directors at EquiHope therapeutic riding. She gave us a tour of the place. In one barn grooms were brushing and saddling a couple of smaller horses. A young boy in a wheelchair waited as the horses were saddled. The first thing I noticed was how underdeveloped the little boys arms and legs were. He had muscular dystrophy or some other ailment that prevented his muscles from developing properly. I never heard him speak a word either, so he might have been nonverbal. I didn’t ask, I didn’t want to be rude.
Once the horse was saddled it was led up so the boy in the wheelchair the boy could pet its nose. The smile that came across that boy’s face was almost ear to ear as he petted the soft muzzle of that horse. I think the horse understood the boy was disabled, it lowered its head almost into the boy’s lap.
In the corner of the covered riding arena there is a specially designed ramp for wheelchairs. The little boy was pushed up the ramp and a host of people lifted him out of the wheel chair and on to the back of the horse. One person led the horse and two other people walked along each side as the horse walked around the arena. Once again, the little boy grinned ear to ear when the horse started walking.
Once the tour was over my daughter and I had to walk about half a mile to our car. That simple act, walking down a road with my daughter made me realize how lucky I was. Both times when my kids were born there were babies in the nursery that were born with issues. It’s up to God which parents get a healthy, normal child and which parents get a special needs one. As we walked down that road I remembered those disabled kids in the nursery all those years ago, and I felt lucky. I felt lucky both my kids were born normal.
The Pilot Point Chamber of Commerce had a booth at the end of the driveway near where we parked. I walked over and thanked them for supporting EquiHope and those kids. It was spitting rain as we left, I admired those ladies sitting under the chamber of commerce canopy. They volunteered on a Saturday, sat in the rain, all to help disabled children.
Later that evening as we drove home I imagined what it would be like, being in a wheel chair all of your life, then, magically one day, you are put on a horse’s back for the first time. The sensation of movement, power, balance, and the rhythm of the horse must be exhilarating for those kids. I bet they feel like they are flying. After thinking about it for a while it was easy to see why that little boy with fragile arms and legs grinned ear to ear.
Matthew 25:40 says whatever you do for the least among you, you do also for God. It truly was God’s work that my daughter and I found in Pilot Point, Texas. It’s fitting their address is friendship road….
Contact:
EquiHope
10415 friendship road
Pilot Point, Texas 76258
Phone# 469-682-9723
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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