Saratoga Warhorse expands program
Active troops who assisted COVID response invited to heal
Retired U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Steve Houghton was in a bad way.
The veteran, living out of his truck in Georgia, was suffering from PTSD after tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Plagued by injuries, including the loss of an eye after encountering IEDS, he simply wanted to withdraw.
“It was the worst time of my life,” Houghton, 43, recalls. “I was at the bottom. I was shutting everything off; I just wanted my life to be over.”
And then, he said, “a miracle” happened. His friend, a battle buddy he met in group therapy, enrolled him in Saratoga Warhorse, a program started in Saratoga Springs that now has satellite locations in South Carolina and
Maryland. And it was that experience, one that places a struggling veteran in a round pen with a retired racehorse, that dissolved the constant pain and anxiety that Houghton was living with.
“I felt totally relieved right away,” Houghton said. “I literally felt I didn’t have anything to worry about. It was so powerful.”
He credits that experience with helping him put his life back together. And he’s not alone. Since 2013, the nonprofit has worked with nearly 1,300 veterans who suffer from nightmares, depression, anger, withdrawal and other issues caused by trauma.
Allison Cherkosly, executive director and CEO of Saratoga Warhorse, who also served in Afghanistan, said the program is simple, but magical. A veteran enters a pen where a thoroughbred that is as tense as the veteran is. The veteran’s job is to connect with the horse, to get him to trust him, to allow him to touch him. Cherkosly said that act, which can take between 5 to 45 minutes, unlocks a physiological healing.
“When I first started with Saratoga Warhorse, I found it hard to believe,” she said. “I’m a naturalborn cynic.”
But she has seen that the program “triggers a relaxation response ... that happens when the horse is willing to connect with the human,” said Cherkosly. “The horse is kind of a gauge of things we cannot see.”
The one-time, three-day program, which is free to all veterans, has been so successful that what started in Saratoga Springs has grown to include locations in Aiken, South Carolina and Cockseyville, Maryland. This month, the program is expanding once again. It is now inviting all active service members who retrieved and dealt with the remains of the COVID -19 dead to participate. According to Cherkosly, more than 50,000 troops across the country were activated to support frontline workers in mortuary affairs, as well as building temporary hospitals and manning testing sites.
“It’s naturally traumatizing,” Cherkosly said. “It’s the uncertainty, the constant fear of what’s going to happen the next day or the next minute. The worry is you won’t come home or in this case you will bring it home to your family. In the first weeks of the pandemic in New York, there wasn’t any information other than this is very scary. … There was constant stress.”
And that stress, Cherkosly said, floods the body with adrenaline and eventually locks a person in a semi-permanent state of survival mode, which leads to hypervigilance and anxiousness.
“It’s beneficial in a military setting,” Cherkosly said. “But outside of that environment, it is a burden.”
The free program, that includes travel, lodging and meals, serves five or six veterans at a time. Of course, the capstone is the encounter with the horse, which Saratoga Warhorse does not own. Rather the program unfolds at a number of farms where rescued thoroughbreds are living. The horses are not trained in the process and usually are only used one time.
“It’s a completely authentic process,” Cherkosly said. “When they go in the round pen, the veteran is giving off nervous energy. The horses, prey animals, are intuitive and can smell the adrenaline rush. They will stay as far away as they can. The veterans have to work their way through the reaction.”
It’s not just therapeutic for the veterans. Cherkosly said it benefits the rescued horses too, whom she said, after the encounter become more adoptable. She has found the horses have a lot in common with the veterans.
“They are trained at a relatively young age,” she said. “Their training is completely immersive. It’s all they know and all they do. They are kind of lost too when they stop racing.”
In testimonials shared on its website, veterans said the Saratoga WarHorse experience led to mental and emotional healing, relationship mending and fostering of trust in humanity. Most expressed that it changed their lives. Others that it saved theirs. And that is why she is pleased Saratoga Warhorse can expand to those on the frontline of the pandemic.
“It’s a unique opportunity,” she said. “We are setting the bone. It’s the critical point of intervention ... an effective way to end the long term negative consequences of trauma.”
Houghton found it to be so valuable, he insisted volunteering for the program. He now serves as the program coordinator in South Carolina.
“This is something that is so therapeutic,” Houghton said. “I want every veteran to experience it.”
“It’s a completely authentic process. When they go in the round pen, the veteran is giving off nervous energy. The horses, prey animals, are intuitive and can smell the adrenaline rush. They will stay as far away as they can. The veterans have to work their way through the reaction.”
— Allison Cherkosly, executive director and CEO
of Saratoga Warhorse