Tips and Resources in the Time of Coronavirus
Here’s a mini-guide for horse owners affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information, visit the United Horse Coalition at
Whether you keep a horse yourself or board one elsewhere, chances are you have been affected by the novel coronavirus/COVID-19. Here are some additional tips and links to assist horse owners financially strapped by the pandemic.
To help reduce costs, the United Horse Coalition offers the following suggestions:
• Turn out your horses as much as possible to save on the costs of feed, hay and bedding.
• Increase hay consumption and decrease grain and supplements as much as possible.
Discuss with your farrier the possibility of pulling shoes on your shod horses.
Reach out to others and share resources! There’s no time like now for community collaboration.
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Do you need to stop riding?
As long as you feel healthy and observe reasonable precautions—and as long as your facility is open—you might consider continuing with your routine. We know that exercise is good for both you and your horse at this difficult time. However, be careful to comply with any local and state orders and use common sense if riding from a barn used by others:
• Try to arrange your ride times so you aren’t sharing space at the barn with a lot of other people (online signup logs are useful here).
• If making payments for board or lessons, try to do so in advance over the phone or via the internet. • Ride outside in the sun if at all
possible, and maintain a healthy distance from other riders (no side-by-side riding).
• Observe the six-foot distance rule and refrain from hanging around in the aisle or tack room for chitchat. If you must participate in lessons, make sure the groups are small and that the horses and riders stay spread out.
• Bring hand sanitizer and wipes with you, and incorporate frequent sanitization into your routine. Touch doorknobs, latches and light switches as little as possible, and also refrain from using the restroom while there.
• Try to reduce or eliminate your use of communal items such as whiteboard markers, wheelbarrows, pitchforks and brooms.
Other helpful resources:
For a list of coronavirus “best practices” at the barn or schooling venue, visit the American Association of Equine Practitioners AAEP.org.
The Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International (pathintl.org) offers some guidelines on biosecurity basics and emergency planning.
The United Horse Coalition is assembling a state-by-state list of emergency assistance resources for horse owners. Visit unitedhorse coalition.org, click on “resource-database” and go to “safety-net-programsand-resources.”
The Ontario Animal Health Network has posted advice for setting up a care plan for your horses should you become ill. Go to oahn.ca/resources/equine-all and search for “Caring for Your Horses During a Pandemic.”
The horses are surprisingly calm as they walk down the bustling steel and concrete corridor of New York City’s Fifth Avenue. A few of their riders are somber, subdued by the gravity of the ride’s purpose. Others are giddy, happy to be here—to be alive. Bright yellow ribbons ornament the horses’ manes, fluttering gently as they catch the breeze. These ribbons aren’t festive decorations, however. Each bears the name of a veteran lost to suicide.
Mitchell Reno was almost one of those ribbons.
By 2004, combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq had left the former infantryman shattered—both physically and mentally. Unprepared for re-entry to civilian life, Reno spent the next decade intent on self-destruction, mired in dark thoughts, chasing comfort through alcohol and pills.
“When I say I was at-risk, I truly was,” he says. “I had lost everything that was ever important to me and was at rock bottom. I spent 10 years in a slow suicide. I did terrible things. I just wanted to be dead.”
Reno’s story is all too common among veterans. Bearing both the physical and invisible scars of service, the suicide rate among the veteran population is nearly double that of civilians. According
to a 2016 report published by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), an average of 20 veterans die from suicide every day.
It is a crisis that BraveHearts—the largest equine-based therapeutic program in the nation for military veterans—is on a mission to address.
When Reno discovered BraveHearts in 2014 through a trip coordinated by a local hospital’s PTSD program, the bleak, dead-end path he’d envisioned for himself was finally illuminated by a glimmer of hope. There he laid eyes on a venerable, recently-gathered mustang named Boo-Yah. Newly arrived at BraveHearts as part of their Operation Mustang program, Boo-Yah was scared and defiant. The horse had scars crisscrossing his body; he’d seen battle. He was traumatized. He hadn’t been given many reasons to trust people.
“Just like me,” says Reno.
Reno made a bargain with his sponsor and BraveHearts: if he got clean, they would let him work with the mustang. He entered a rehab facility shortly thereafter and held up his end of the bargain. When he returned to BraveHearts, sober, Reno was instrumental in gentling Boo-Yah.
Through Boo-Yah and the other horses at BraveHearts, Reno learned valuable lessons about trust, self-worth, vulnerability, and empathy. These lessons have transcended the arena, and Reno, now happily married with children, sees a future for himself.
“It’s no exaggeration when I say horses saved my life,” he says. “They very literally saved my life.”
As the lead instructor and special events manager at BraveHearts, Avery White has witnessed many veterans like Reno being pulled back from the brink of suicide through the healing power of horses.
“Veterans are desperately seeking something,” she says. “They’ve tried medication and therapy, and nothing has worked until horses. It’s a miracle I’ve seen happen over and over again.”
In 2017, to raise awareness about the VA’s sobering statistic and how horses are helping struggling veterans, BraveHearts launched its pilot Trail to Zero ride. On October 22, 2017, veterans rode 20 miles through New York City—one mile for each veteran lost every day to suicide.
Since that inaugural event, Trail to Zero has grown to include 20-mile rides in major cities across the country. Each ride attracts much-needed attention for the cause. It’s not only media outlets and photo-snapping tourists that gather to take in the spectacle of horses making
their way through urban centers; those whose lives have been touched by war also come to make a connection.
“It surprised me how many people have a story of their own,” says White. “So many people come up to us to share their personal connections, and unfortunately, their losses. Having those moments—it’s powerful.”
Reno, who has been part of Trail to Zero every year since its inception, openly shares his story of struggle and salvation with those he meets along the ride. He says, “Trail to Zero is one of the most important things in my life because if we don’t do something about veteran suicide, there’s going to be no one left writing our history. Horses helped bring me home. Riding Trail to Zero with my brothers and sisters, telling the world about the dark places I came from and where
I am now—hopefully bringing someone a little bit of hope—that’s the least I can do.”
Often, the connections made during Trail to Zero set others on the path to healing. White says that after every ride, BraveHearts’ inboxes are full of messages from those seeking help for friends, family members, or themselves.
“If there’s just one veteran we can keep from becoming a statistic, it’s worth it,” she says.
This year will be a banner year for Trail to Zero. The aim is for each ride in 2020 to see 20 riders on 20 horses riding 20 miles. White hopes the program will continue to grow and gain momentum, inspiring veterans to seek equine-assisted healing.
BraveHearts will keep doing Trail to Zero, she says, until there’s no need for the ride at all.
BraveHearts’ Trail to Zero rides bring the overwhelming statistic of 20 veterans committing suicide per day to the forefront of Americans’ minds while also helping to educate veterans and Americans about equine-assisted services. Learn more about Trail to Zero and where rides are taking place at trailtozero.org.
The PATH Intl. Premier Accredited Center, based in Illinois, provides equine-assisted activities and therapies to children and adults. They also provide innovative services to meet the unique needs of military veterans and their families. Learn more at braveheartsriding.org.
BraveHearts was a 2019 grant recipient from Feed it Forward™, Nutrena's giving program that provides support for organizations promoting the life-changing bond between animals and people. Learn more at feeditforward.org.