Healing with horse power Racing Hearts is an Equine Assisted Therapies organisation comprising of a dedicated group of mental health practitioners, volunteers, and former racehorses helping children and adults overcome various life challenges.
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isa Coffey, owner of Racing Hearts and current ambassador for Racing Victoria’s Off the Track Program, discusses how her passion helps others. ‘We're a registered charity with a fabulous group of qualified mental health professionals, who integrate retired racehorses into their therapeutic and evidence-based interventions to provide mental health support to people in the community,’ Lisa explains. ‘This field is known as Equine Assisted Therapy, which emerged around a decade ago. It has a large variety of applications, with more and more research about its efficacy being published. We see approximately 250 clients a week and try to retrain around 50 retired racehorses per year from our Mornington Peninsula base. We're about to expand to another property in Pakenham, where we hope to at least double those numbers.
‘Each session is planned around the client’s specific challenges and needs. Even though most clients have no experience with horses, they often tend to bond very quickly,’ Lisa continues. 'Research has shown that when we are in contact with animals, our bodies release feel-good and relaxation hormones such as oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, which will often help the client relax and open up about their challenges. It’s a very cool body hack for a therapist to work with. Horses can also evoke many emotions within the client – and when these present themselves, the therapist can then work on them with the client as per a traditional room-based therapy session.
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