The Benefits of Equine-Assisted Therapies

I met Jakers on my first visit to Anne Krocak’s horse-rescue sanctuary, Art, Heart, and Hoofbeats, in Cologne, Minn. The 14-year-old quarter horse — a black, brown, and white paint with asthma — had come to live with Krocak only two months earlier. As we brushed the excess hair from his winter coat, Krocak interpreted Jakers’s body language for me, explaining how a particularly subtle movement was suggestive of his state of mind. I got the impression that this was more than her imagination at work: Krocak could sense the horse’s emotional energy, and she was narrating what he was expressing.

Over the past 30 years, Krocak has rescued 15 horses and ponies at risk for homelessness or the slaughterhouse. While rehabilitating them, she also provides equine programming for humans, including corporate team-building activities, therapeutic art classes, and even yoga. She has enjoyed watching students, veterans, and others learn through the herd about nervous-system regulation, trauma-informed care, and nonverbal communication.

By the end of the afternoon, I better understood the ways Jakers responded to my presence. I’d even practiced using my own body language to persuade him to come toward me, move away, or change speeds as he moved around the arena. I wondered whether I could be more horse-like with the people in my life — more present with them, more observant and curious about their feelings, more aware of their energy.

 

Horses Helping Humans

Horses are highly social creatures, so the connection I felt with Jakers was not unusual. “As herd animals, horses get reassurance from other horses, and they do that with people, too,” explains Sharon Butler, DVM, a professor at Colorado State University and program coordinator for its Temple Grandin Equine Center. “They are intuitive and in tune to the energy we’re putting out.”

That perceptiveness is proving to be helpful in a wide range of therapeutic treatments and wellness experiences. The American Horse Council estimates the total direct financial impact of equine-assisted services (EAS) in the United States was $810 million in 2023, up from $311 million in 2017. In that time, the number of facilities that offer EAS has nearly doubled.

The therapeutic role for horses began in the 1960s with hippotherapy, a technique that used a horse’s gait to mimic a human walking pattern for patients with limited mobility seated on a horse. The three-dimensional motion — side to side, front to back, and rotation — retrained the human brain and the body’s muscle memory to move in a similar manner when off the horse.

Today, hippotherapy has expanded beyond physical therapy into occupational therapy, psychotherapy, speech-language pathology, and mental health counseling. Noting how more nonmedical professionals had incorporated horse–human interactions into their work, a consortium of key organizations in 2021 proposed a more expansive term: equine-assisted services. This includes the original work of therapy with licensed professionals in healthcare; horsemanship, such as adaptive riding for people with diverse needs; and learning in education settings, within organizations, and for personal development.

Fran Jurga witnessed this growth firsthand. Jurga publishes the Equine Assisted Services Research, which provides quarterly reports on new research for professionals and educators in this growing field. “When I started in 2017, I was primarily collecting EAS research for medical conditions such as cerebral palsy or stroke,” she recalls, noting that her index now includes some 23 diagnoses.

But the landscape changed beneath her feet as research diversified, with horse–human interactions for mental health, educational purposes, and personal wellness. Jurga’s most recent EASR report was her largest compilation of research to date.

Now, she says, researchers are also focusing on the horses themselves — with growing concerns about their welfare. “I had no idea when I started that I was on the edge of something that was about to become so much more sophisticated and multifaceted,” she says.

 

Humans Helping Horses

Krocak is most concerned about the welfare of the horses. The eight equines currently in her care don’t provide assistance to people, she says — it’s the other way around. “People support the horses.”

Yet volunteers are often personally transformed by the experience. “As a trauma-informed rescue, we recognize the difficult experiences each animal has endured,” Krocak says. “As we help them find safety, we are also teaching ourselves to coregulate, find peace, and reconnect with our true selves.”

Army veteran Jason Bossen began volunteering at Art, Heart, and Hoofbeats in May 2024, when his mental health was at a low point. “I had lived in this negative space in my head,” he recalls. “I was my own worst enemy and bully.”

While working with the horses, he also attended a program for veterans and first responders to better understand emotional reactivity. “I’ve learned how people’s thoughts and reactions are ways we teach our body and mind to cope with trauma,” he says.

Discovering alternatives to emotional reactivity — like progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing — was transformative, as was learning to be more compassionate and gentle with himself.

Now, Bossen shares that compassion with a highly anxious rescue horse called Ritz. “I show him he can be calm in a situation he’s not comfortable with,” Bossen says. “My calmness and stillness feeds his calmness and stillness, and there’s this positive back and forth. The more relaxed he is, the more relaxed I am.”

This also helps Bossen as a husband and father of three teenage children. “I talk to them like I talk to the horses,” he explains. Being an empathetic and calming presence is a more effective way to interact with his kids, he notes, “because they’ll match your energy.”

 

Horse Sense

Nina Ekholm Fry, professor and director of equine programs at the University of Denver’s Institute for Human–Animal Connection, wants people to understand that the horses themselves are not the therapy. Rather, interactions with them are added to therapy to enhance the experience. “It’s a real relationship,” she explains. “The horse offers a relational presence that can feel soothing and calming but also provides an opportunity to practice certain mental and behavioral skills.”

I felt that relational presence myself during a yoga class at Art, Heart, and Hoofbeats. Though I’d practiced yoga for more than 25 years, I’d never had the experience of lying on a yoga mat in the middle of a pasture, watching and listening to a thousand-pound animal graze nearby.

Fear began to bubble up in my mind — I wondered whether I shouldn’t stand up. But before I allowed the worst-case scenarios in my imagination to take over, I checked in with my surroundings. My body felt supported by the ground. I could see my fellow yoga practitioners at peace in their yin postures, and the nearby horses were most interested in the grass under their noses. They were all relaxed. I remembered that I could be relaxed, too.

“When you enter their space, you become part of their herd,” Krocak explains. Even though the animals have had traumatic backgrounds and some have taken years to build trust with her, she says their resilience inspires her. “It’s a powerful reminder that we are all capable of healing, learning new behaviors, and finding safety in connection.”

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