Therapeutic Riding

One of the Most Respected Therapeutic Programs in the U.S.

Welcome to the Special Troopers Adaptive Riding School of Sioux City - an organization “Reaching Beyond the Ordinary” to change people’s lives every day. Therapeutic Riding is the core of the S.T.A.R.S. Through the power of human/animal connection, we forever change the way people experience the world.

What is Therapeutic Riding?

Therapeutic riding utilizes the horse to help individuals of all ages who experience physical, cognitive, emotional, behavioral, or social challenges. Therapeutic Riding and animal-assisted programs provide a significant, cost-efficient, and highly effective form of physical, learning, and development therapy. Through structured activities, therapeutic riding utilizes the horse to evoke response from the human client while providing the ideal kinetic, tactile environment for powerful, transformative situations that nearly everyone – despite age or ability – can fully experience.

Our unique setting at S.T.A.R.S. provides a host of intangible benefits to improve self-esteem and self-control while fostering positive relationships and learning opportunities. S.T.A.R.S. supports each rider with compassion and empowerment, not pity. Our goals don’t limit riders by the same expectations they experience elsewhere in the world.

Therapeutic riding serves as physical, cognitive, and emotional therapy for its riders while also providing teaching patience, cooperation, control, confidence, and self-esteem. Because of its extraordinary effectiveness S.T.A.R.S. riders accomplish things they never thought possible, seeing the world – literally – from a new perspective, and experiencing freedom, release, and healing.

How Does Therapeutic Riding Work?

The experience of being in the presence of a horse automatically provides a constant stream of physical, mental, and emotional stimuli. Within our supportive format, the client is able move and self-adjust in ways creating powerful opportunities for breakthrough moments in a short period of time. The kinetic and natural aspects of the experience help clients to take initiative, explore solutions creatively, problem-solve, discover new strategies, and develop new strengths. With this immediate and unerring feedback, progress moves faster and with accelerated results. Clients come in excited and leave transformed with deep experience of reconnecting to their bodies in a powerful way.

Over our 25-year history we’ve worked with clients experiencing physical disability and injury; mental health issues; developmental disabilities; and chronic illness. Our clients faces challenges with cerebral palsy, spinal bifida, brain trauma, stroke, and paralysis; multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and arthritis; PTSD, depression, anxiety, obsessive/compulsive disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorders.

Click Here to Learn More About S.T.A.R.S., Inc.