Jamestown New Horizons

To view a video that shows what we are about and what we do, copy and paste this address into your browser:
http://www.jnh-goneriding.org/images/Redux-Half.mp4. Or, you may visit the website http://www.jnh-goneriding.org and click on the video at the bottom of the Home Page.

Jamestown New Horizons, a special combination of children with disabilities, volunteers, therapists, and gentle horses, was founded in 1985 for the sole purpose of providing therapeutic horseback riding to improve the health and quality of life for children with disabilities. Jamestown New Horizons provides a natural therapy for children with disabilities in a healthy, non-threatening rural environment filled with nature - a setting that many of these children would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience. The best part of all is that it doesn't seem like therapy.

Jamestown New Horizons provides three 12-week riding sessions each year during the spring, summer and fall for toddlers to young teenagers with developmental disabilities. Classes are held Tuesday - Thursday at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. Jamestown New Horizons provides four weeks of Horsemanship Camps in June, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., for children, 6 - 16 years of age, who have autism, intellectual disabilities and learning disabilities. Registration forms and additional information are available on the Jamestown New Horizons web site. Jamestown New Horizons is a great place to discover new friends and new abilities while having great fun riding the JNH horses and ponies .

Therapeutic riding is a unique form of serious physical therapy, as well as psychological and social therapy. It helps to improve their posture, balance, and muscle tone, while gently mobilizing their joints, enabling them to sit up tall! Under the direction of therapists, riding instructors and adult volunteer horse leaders and side-walkers, they ride and play games and have great fun. Toddlers to teenagers with developmental disabilities - autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, intellectual disabilities - participate at Jamestown New Horizons.

The program takes the rider through a complex series of movements that consciously and unconsciously use all the body's muscles. Every step that the horse takes challenges the rider's balance and posture with infinite variation because the horse's strides vary with the surface of the ground and the length of the stride. It is not possible to duplicate this infinite variation with therapeutic equipment and/or computerized machines. The treatment plan includes evaluation and assessment, functional limitations, specific techniques/exercises to be used to reach goals, treatment strategies, outcomes/goals, and duration/frequency.

The movement of the horse will transmit action to the student's body in such a way that the pelvis is moved in the same pattern required for walking. In this way the body is prepared to develop functional balance, strength and equilibrium. The horse's movement will affect the sensory, cognitive and psychological components of the person in a positive manner. The activities at JNH will foster increased socialization skills and the development of the student's self-responsibility, initiative-taking and making choices. Parents perceive their disabled family member as a person of competence, with a possible future of success and accomplishment.

"A typical scenario of a JNH participant might be a boy with autism who benefits from a low-keyed approach to riding while surrounded by good role models. He may have a need to become less preoccupied with himself, in which case, the large body and the movement of the horse help to accomplish this. Frequently, he needs to develop coping skills, to increase tolerance to sensory stimulation and to experience tasks that are fun and challenging, yet avoid stress. He often requires a structured activity that facilitates increased social interaction and relationship formation with others. He may need opportunities for the increased uses of language and to improve postural endurance, balance and strength."