TAYLORSVILLE, Ky. (LEX 18) — Horses are working all around the Bluegrass state and one program at a farm in Taylorsville is utilizing horses to help veterans.
This equine therapy program is through Veterans Club Inc. The program is helping veterans with things like PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and other life challenges.
In six years so far, they've helped thousands of veterans, first responders, and their families.
Veteran and Founder of Veterans Club Inc., Jeremey Harrell, knows how challenging it is to transition back to life at home after combat overseas.
"I would try different modalities to try and overcome that, but nothing really stuck. And then I went out to Kansas to a horse farm and spent a weekend with horses, and I was like, wait a minute, I don't want to leave the barn, there's something to this," Harrell said.
And he thought horses could really have a profound effect on other veterans, especially in Kentucky.
So in 2017, he started the equine facilitated mentoring program.
"So to date, we have helped over 38 hundred veterans, first responders, and their families through our program," Harrell said.
Thomas Rierdon is one of those veterans, along with being a therapy mentor. He served in the first Gulf War and then worked as a firefighter and EMT. Just three years ago, life was a lot different.
"I had three jobs and I was a work-o-holic, and that's what I did," said Rierdon. "I came out one day. I told my family I'd come out one day. And that's it. I usually just sat in my basement."
But that one day in the barn and with horses and other veterans made all the difference.
"Long story short, here I am three years later, and I'm now part of the team that puts on the program. I've cut down my medicine from 14 meds to three meds, so I'm not living in a world of fog anymore, because of these animals," Rierdon said.
The horses live on the farm full time and among them, a rescued Mustang and some thoroughbreds.
Harrell said, "It just makes sense, where we are."
The merging of work with veterans and horses.
"It makes the Derby extra special. Because not only do the horses do what they do there, which is miraculous, but I know what these horses can do even long after their days of racing are over," Harrell said.
The impact Harrell hoped this program would have, is being felt.
"I grow every day," said Rierdon. "I'll see someone come in like I was when I first started. I go up and talk to them, even though they don't like it. And by the end of the day they're smiling, they're outgoing."
Among all sorts of therapies out there, Rierdon explained how this one changed his life.
Horses help provide something especially unique.
The program director and founder said the equine therapy program has helped nearly four thousand veterans in the past six years and 681 came through the program last year.
Veterans Club Inc. provides these equine sessions about three times a month.
