Hippotherapy at Xenophon

This season saw the addition of a second session of hippotherapy. Our wonderful therapist, Tineke Jacobsen, is now doing hippotherapy on Tuesday mornings in addition to Thursday afternoons. This allowed us to move 5 students into the program from out waitlist. Many of you may not know that Hippotherapy requires the horse to be driven from behind, rather than led. Cocoa and Kiwi have a taken a huge liking to the driving and are solid hippotherapy horses. Echo will be joining those ranks in the near future. A big thank you goes out to Mary Wunderlick and Judy Levine who went through extensive long-lining training and now come to “drive” our horses on Tuesday mornings.

One thought on “Hippotherapy at Xenophon

  1. Melisa McCampbell

    I am a “newly minted” speech therapist with an interest and some experinece with horses. I recently attended a hippotherapy level I course in Chatsworth, CA. It was interesting to learn about the differences in hippotherapy (conducted by OT, PT and SLPs using equine movement)and therapeutic riding (providing recreational horseriding opportunities for those with disabilities). I am finding there is much overlap and no clear distinctions or agreement on what defines which. However, the point was made that hippotherapy can certainly be done without long lining and is often done with a leader and sidewalkers (the therapist being on one side). So your comment that “Hippotherapy requires the horse to be driven from behind, rather than led” seems at odds to what I learned. Any clarification is appreciated. By the way I am looking for an organization that may have the opportunity to “apprentice” as an SLP (in my spare time of course…) I live in Sacramento, CA. Thank you, Melisa

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