Charity Spotlight: GallopNYC

A Closer Look At: GallopNYC

The Big Apple-based nonprofit provides therapeutic horsemanship experiences for students at facilities across the city.

By MEGAN BRINCKS

Photos Courtesy GALLOPNYC From world-class shows to riding stables nestled in between skyscrapers, equestrianism has a long and storied history in New York City. But for the past decade, GallopNYC has brought a different type of horse culture to the metropolis. The nonprofit organization provides therapeutic horsemanship to people with developmental, emotional, social and physical challenges across

Thanks to GallopNYC, riders in New York City now have access to a therapeutic horsemanship program where they can learn skills related to horses and life.

several facilities in Manhattan’s boroughs.

“Our vision now is to make therapeutic horsemanship available to all people with disabilities in New York City,” said Suzy Marquard, a longtime volunteer and president of the group’s board of directors. “It’s pretty aspirational, but that guides us.”

Executive Director Alicia Kershaw first learned about using horses for therapy during a stint in Hong Kong in 1998, and when she returned to New York, she started volunteering at a small program located at the Claremont Riding Academy on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

“It was a tiny program—about nine kids a week,” said Kershaw. “A group of us decided we wanted to do more and better. It was one of those, ‘How hard can it be?’ moments. It’s been good, but it’s been hard!”

GallopNYC was officially started in 2005, but the program took a few more years to really get off the ground.

“We didn’t get regular lessons going until 2007 because we had problems finding stables to accommodate us,” said Kershaw. “Then for a while, we were like, ‘Where are all the riders?’ Suddenly word of mouth took off.”

Marquard joined GallopNYC as a volunteer instructor just as the organization began offering lessons at its first base, which was at Brooklyn’s Kensington Stables. She rode as a junior, and her family owned a Thoroughbred farm outside Lexington, Ky. After taking a lengthy break from horses as an adult, she returned to riding, and her father sent her a horse needing a career outside of racing.

“He arrived just a couple days after 9/11, and it really cemented the idea that horses can be healing—to have that interaction with a horse while your emotions are raw,” Marquard said. “I found it was better for me to go riding on the weekend when I was working as a lawyer than to go play golf or something. It was more effective.”

A Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanshipcertified instructor, Marquard taught some of the first GallopNYC students.

“We had three riders lined up,” she said. “When I saw the effect it had on the riders, I was just hooked. It just confirmed my belief that riding is therapeutic for everybody.”

Big City, Big Breakthroughs

Originally the organization operated out of one stable in Brooklyn, using that facility’s horses to teach lessons— many of which it conducted in adjacent Prospect Park with permission from the city. But GallopNYC now teaches out of several locations, including one barn the organization owns in Forest Hills, Queens, which is adjacent to a 3-mile bridle path, and another it has exclusive use of with a nine-year agreement in Howard Beach, Queens.

Staff trailer horses from Howard Beach to Prospect Park four days a week, about 30 minutes away, to serve the approximately 100 students there. The organization holds those lessons on the park’s Bowling Green field.

“It’s fenced with a wrought-iron fence, and it’s thankfully too small for a soccer field, so there aren’t a lot of other people wanting to use it,” said Kershaw. “The fencing is safe, and it’s green; it has gardens on the edge. We go around in a circle basically and use cones to mark off

Longtime GallopNYC volunteer, board of directors president and PATH-certified instructor Suzy Marquard first experienced the healing effects of horses after 9/11, and now she helps GallopNYC students reap the rewards of barn time.

whatever area we want to ride in.”

The program also utilizes other facilities in the Bronx and in Brooklyn. Each week they serve about 450 students, but there are hundreds more on a waiting list.

“We began to branch out because we knew there was a huge population of people in New York City who could be served by this and could benefit from working with horses,” said Marquard, >>who received the 2016 EQUUS Foundation Humanitarian Award.

GallopNYC instructors find that students with physical issues get stronger, and students with cognitive issues learn focus thanks to their time at the therapeutic horsemanship program.

“The demand is huge,” added Kershaw. “The waiting list is not a good thing. My staff hates telling people they can’t ride. We have doubled and plan to double again.”

GallopNYC relies on financial, product and service donations to run and maintain their facilities and keep students with financial need in the saddle. About 80 percent of students have their lessons subsidized by donations.

The organization is also always looking for volunteers in a huge range of roles, from maintaining the barn and caring for horses to assisting with lessons and even serving on the board of directors.

Depending on the student, lessons might include only groundwork, or students might sit on the horse with a side-walker on each side and a leader at the horse’s head, or they might ride more independently. But no matter what they do in their sessions, the students reap huge rewards from time at the barn.

“We had a kid who was just getting into first grade, and there were a lot of family issues; his mother was seriously ill,” said Kershaw. “When he came to us, he was about to be thrown out of school because he was such a troublemaker. He started riding and just adored it. He loved riding. His parents came and said, ‘Not only is he staying in school, but he’s gone up three levels in reading.’ He completely turned around. He was a kid on a negative course, and the feelings of self-confidence and empowerment and agency he got riding horses carried through to the rest of his life.”

GallopNYC staff and volunteers have also witnessed the first words of several students.

“We had one kid who did come to us with the diagnosis of being non-verbal on the [autism] spectrum, and we try really hard not to limit our expectations of our riders, so even if a child comes with a diagnosis of non-verbal, we do encourage them to communicate,” said Kershaw. “The instructor was saying to [the student], ‘Tell your horse to walk on,’ and his schoolteacher came running over saying, ‘He’s not verbal!’ and just as she got there, he said, ‘Walk on!’ At the end of his lesson, he got off and said, ‘Thanks a lot, buddy.’ Now his teachers know he can talk, and his parents know he can talk. It was really a breakthrough.”

GallopNYC is also home to an equestrian team that competes in the Long Island Horse Show Series for Riders with Disabilities, a girls’ empowerment program led by a mental health professional, a veterans’ leadership program, a hippotherapy program, which uses horses for targeted physical therapy, and many other programs for specific populations. They host a yearly on-site horse show to let students show off their skills to family and friends.

And now that GallopNYC operates its own facilities, the leadership is aiming to become a PATH International Premier Accredited Center.

“All of our instructors are certified by PATH, but we haven’t been in a position to have the facilities [accredited] because we didn’t own and operate them,” said Marquard. “Once we are, we’ll have a lot easier time expanding our programs.”

Regardless of the facility, GallopNYC connects people in need with horses—and the organization will keep fulfilling that mission.

“Whatever the disability, the horse seems to have an answer,” Marquard said.

>> LEARN MORE: Visit gallopnyc.org. >> GET IN TOUCH: Email info@gallopnyc.org or call (646) 233-4507. >> GET INVOLVED: Monetary donations are accepted through the GallopNYC website at gallopnyc.org/donate, or you can contact the organization to discuss donations of horses, products or services.