Ridin’ high with Mane man Mark!
STABLE HAND IS not a role you would normally envision for Yankee Mark Teixeira.
But the switch-hitting first baseman looked almost ready to join the cast of “City Slickers” Monday morning, when he and a small group of Bombers players and coaches volunteered their time at Flying Manes Therapeutic Riding in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, which kicked off the team’s fourth annual HOPE (Helping Others Persevere and Excel) Week.
“Do a couple laps?” Teixeira asked Flying Manes cofounder, Stefanie Dwyer, as Teixeira helped guide a white pony named Avery around a small exercise ring, with 9-yearold Owen Atkins in the saddle.
“I think you got it!” Dwyer said to Teixeira.
Atkins, who has cerebral palsy, is one over two dozen riders enrolled in the Flying Manes program, a nonprofit founded in 2009 by Dwyer and her husband, Bricklin.
Children over 4 and adults who suffer from physical and mental disabilities are eligible to take lessons at Flying Manes, which allows participants to do a variety of tasks, including grooming and care of the horses. “As a parent of a child with a physical disability, you have to search for the programs that are out there,” said Dan Atkins, Owen’s father. “The most important thing is him being part of a team. It’s the whole package — physical, social, emotional.”