"31 for 21" - Cate Horse Adventure (Part 1)

My daughter is a little horse crazy - isn't that awesome?  Such a typical little girl obsession!  I wasn't a horse girl as a kid so this new adventure of Cate's is completely foreign to me.  The way it all started (beyond her being fascinated by shows on the ipad that were horse related) was a birthday party.  The funny thing is that birthday party was a friend of Lucy's that the mom was just so sweet to invite Cate along.  When I went back to look for a couple of pictures of Cate's first horse experience I was really surprised to find it was in August 2013.  I really thought we'd been on this kick longer than a year.
The party was in a horse barn and from the moment we arrived Cate was captivated.

Meeting the horses - Aug 2013

She had no fear petting this huge horse.  I think she would have been perfectly happy to work in the barn and pet horses the whole party but of course then came the riding.  She had no hesitation getting on the horse and within a few steps looked like she had been doing it for ages!

Of course when her turn was over this was the look she gave the helper -

She took every turn they gave her and since Lucy wouldn't even pet the horses at this point, Cate got a couple extra rides.

She had such a great time and I could see how good it was for her physically to be on the horse.  It really takes a lot of core strength to hold yourself upright while the horse is bouncing around.  For the most part she was also very focused and stimulated.  I had heard of Hippotherapy (a physical therapy done on horseback where the therapist use the horse as a tool to promote major muscle work as well as speech and OT goals) and knew some people who's kids with Ds did it but Cate's hypotonia isn't bad enough in her major motor groups to quality for PT.  After talking to the helpers at this party I decided to look into some riding lessons for Cate.  A strength building exercise that she loves seemed like a no brainer.  So my next step was to start looking into our options - something I can chat more about tomorrow!


Cate Age 7 - Aug 2013