Cob Jockey

A couple weeks ago, a friend from the gym brought his two little boys out to meet Connor, ages I think around 3 and 4. Part of the reason they wanted to come out is that the older boy is fairly non-verbal autistic, and they knew kids like that sometimes benefit from being around horses. At the very least, it'd be a good experience for two city kids to visit the farm!

So many fun things to see on the farm, such as Rum laying in this pile of "cow hay" waiting for our hay guy

T, the autistic kid, screamed as soon as he saw Connor and wouldn't go near him. He actually ran away when his mom sat him down the first time, and I didn't think for a second he'd get on him after that reaction! But first we put his dad on Connor (Western saddle totally paying off here, lol), then we put his little brother on with dad, and then mom got on and we all decided to at least give it a shot with T.

Random pics, since I'm not sharing pics of other peoples' kids for this. Our city's architecture biennial just opened, and this installation with outdoor movie viewing stations is one of my favorites.

To everyone's utter surprise, not only did T stop crying the second he got in the saddle, he went into almost a trance-like state for the entire ride. It was the most focused I saw him the entire afternoon. He even took some basic instructions, like petting Connor's mane and saying something that sounded like "whoa" as I tried to teach him some mastery of the big animal he was on. You hear about how good horse therapy is for special needs kids, but seeing it in action on my own horse was very cool, and his parents were so amazed and grateful.

I'm intentionally not posting many pictures from that day because you know, not my kids, but I think this photo of T from right before they left says it all:

This horse has a heart of gold <3