Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Victoria Taylor, student content contributor and senior journalism major.

Joining me is KAMU host Joe Socol.

Hi, Jay.

Hey.

You're.

We've swapped roles here.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm getting this down.

So today we're learning about the Courtney Cares program at Texas A&M.

Courtney Cares is a horse based program available to all ages with physical and cognitive conditions in the Brazos Valley area.

I will stop explaining and leave it to our guest, Craig Huffines, the director of the Texas A&M Institute for Equine Sciences.

Welcome, Craig.

How are you?

Wonderful, Victoria, it's great to be with you and Jay this morning.

Okay.

So, Craig, could you kind of first share with us your background and how your life has led to your current position at A&M?

Well, I'm a Texas Aggie graduate.

And, met my wife in animal science.

We were both animal science, degree graduates, in the in 1990, class of 1990, went to to graduate school at Colorado State and pursued, a career in the in the cattle industry.

My interest was, growth and development, efficiency of production and all of the things that go along with producing a high quality, efficient beef source protein source.

And so from that, I spent about, 24 years with the American Hereford Association out of Kansas City, working with producers, on genetic research, branded beef and some and things of that nature.

So after a long period of time there, I got a call from the American Quarter Horse Association out of Amarillo, and they were looking for an executive.

And so, I remember as a kid growing up with horses that I would get the magazine from that Quarter Horse Association.

What a neat honor it would be to go back to Texas and and work for them.

And so my wife and I relocated to Amarillo when I spent seven years with them.

And then an opportunity came up to go back to Colorado State, into academia.

I never really thought about going back into academia, but this was an opportunity that I thought would be very interesting to to really give back to students, share my experience in industry, try to plug them in to internships and professional development.

And so I went back and helped, the Colorado State Animal Science Department run their equine program, there for about two years.

And then I got a call from Texas A&M Agrilife with this opening for the Institute Frequent Sciences, and there was no stopping us.

We had to get back to Texas and, and back to Aggieland.

And so it was really, fortuitous for us to to really create a career in, in the livestock industry than the equine industry and then wind up back in academia, where we're supporting education and use, development across the state, working with students on research projects.

We work with the vet school, in animal science, and we've developed some collaborative relationships across the whole entire system looking at how the horse can impact human health and, and how we can impact the welfare of the horse.

So it's been a it's been a wonderful ride and journey.

So, so, so how do you describe the Courtney Cares program?

To people who are unfamiliar with, with the services and with the science, how do you go about explaining that?

Great question, Jay.

Courtney Cares was started 14 years ago.

Unfortunately, one of her former students, Courtney Grimshaw, had passed away.

She was a dynamic animal science graduate that made her way through the the world of, petroleum.

The petroleum business, spent her time in Kazakhstan and development and, tragically lost her life.

And so she had wanted to build a equine assisted service center, near Taylor, Texas, and had bought her farm and, was planning on retiring and going back.

And when she passed, her family, of course, were devastated.

And they sold the farm.

And with the proceeds of that, they, submitted a request to the chancellor to develop an equine assisted service program at Texas A&M.

The first thing that was started was a biomedical science class B, BMS 380.

Where as an elective biomedical science students, could be introduced to horses, the behavior of horses, how to interact with horses.

And of course, there's a, really strong leadership component component with that, the safety, and, of, of horsemanship skills.

And then how to introduce that horse to a, to a participant that has some disability.

And so, the university partnered with, Ride on Center for kids out of Georgetown, Texas.

Doctor Nancy Kronick is the founder of that.

And so she and Doctor Priscilla Lights are her physical therapist.

And they come over and instruct those students on this deliverable of equine assisted hypnotherapy, however you want to phrase it.

And so the students are actually participants in that.

And then they're about 17 families that bring their children in, with a variety of different, maladies.

And, and they are provided, weekly service, you know, hour long therapy sessions, with the students in the lead as side walkers, as horse leaders, and then the backup of certified therapy riding instructors and, of course, her therapist.

And so, that's been it's really been about education and service.

And now since the institute has taken over, it's blossoming into more research.

And so we're, we're engaged with kinesiology and sports, sports, management department.

We've been we've been having conversations with the university health services, with, the Veterans Resource Support Program, about how we can potentially augment and, and grow the service of horses in human health.

And we can talk more about that.

So before I kind of hand this back over to you, Victoria, I'm just curious, though, but it's more than just putting people on the backs of horses, like something happens.

So what seems to be happening?

Well, that's what we're we're interested in discovering because we know the impact.

You know, a horse can mimic the movement of a human, walking.

And so say, for example, I was born without legs, but I have mobility of my hips in my in.

And maybe that my thighs.

If you put a child like that on a horse, or maybe a child with cerebral palsy, that's missing this mind muscle connection of some sort, that horse will mimic them actually walking.

And so that physical mimicking of, of, of walking creates stimulus that reconnects in many ways that mind muscle or body connection.

Now, is there something else about that?

The relationship with the horse that gives it more stimulus?

You know, horses can read a person's, level of anxiety or calmness from 6 or 8ft away.

You know, they're very astute at, at really creating sensory of the environment.

And so that that connection with the human being, is what's so very special about horsemanship and the human and human animal bond.

And so is there something beyond the physical, that creates this, this stimulus?

And that's something we're very interested in and exploring more.

Yeah.

So you kind of touched on this, but who tends to be the ideal client for the Courtney Cares program?

I don't know if there is an ideal client.

I think we all can become a benefactor, when we involve herself and and with horses.

And I can tell you that if you just.

Last week, we closed out our final lab with the biomedical science students, and we we do a roundtable conversation about what was the impact of the class for them in two a person, they will tell you that there was a calming effect in all of the angst and anxiety of being an undergraduate, putting pressure on yourself to try to get into a professional school.

The finals that are coming up, all of those things that happen.

We all deal with anxiety differently.

And they were suggesting that when we were here, it was our place of peace.

We were able to put our hands on that horse.

We were able to learn how to breathe.

We teach some breathing exercises, how to moderate those anxiety and those feelings so that they can be calm around a horse so that that horse can connect with them.

And so, they all, you know, gained a benefit in terms of anxiety management, but they also created, a relationship with a child that had a disability.

And we tend to sometimes put people with disabilities into a box, and they were able to see them as real human beings in a relationship and a friendship that evolved, which for those who were going to medical school or nursing school was very beneficial because that that health care provider relationship with, with a client or it is incredibly important to trust and in the healing.

And so, so there were so much, benefit for the student.

But when you when you talk about ideal, you know, veterans can benefit from this, when they come back with, emotional issues, trauma victims can benefit from this.

We're talking in university health services right now about the epidemic of anxiety and depression on campus.

And it's a serious issue.

And so can we augment counseling services with horsemanship, with things outdoors under the sun that are nature prescribed, that could, impact, you know, how we can teach students how to moderate themselves.

And so there's countless physical therapy opportunities for for folks as well.

Would you talk a little more about who is actually delivering the therapy?

And, you know, what is the horse's role throughout the process?

Horses just just walk horse.

Or is it is a little more sophisticated than that?

It's a great question.

Great question.

So, so we have partnered with Right on Center for kids for the moment for less over a decade, where Doctor Nancy Kronick and Doctor Priscilla Lichi have brought their physical therapy expertise to to Courtney Cares.

Along with that is a team of certified certified therapeutic riding instructors.

It's a very trained and certified skill set that, you know, we really so that so Mister Bob Burns, who used to run Parsons Mountain Calvary.

He's one of our therapeutic riding instructors.

And so we have really good hands on teaching him about the horsemanship.

And then we have the backup of physical therapists that support that therapy piece.

Your next question was, how how did the horses participate in that?

And so we have to have a special horse, the Parsons Mounted Cavalry horses are exceptional.

Not all of them will qualify.

There's about 73 or 4 horses at PMC, but there's about 20.

We have Indentified that have the disposition and the willingness to want to, sustain the kind of pressure we put on them with all of these students around them, putting them through a ramp, you know, to to be able to mount a participant on them.

A lot of noise, you know, a lot of energy, a lot of activity.

And we want them to do it and follow our lead and with discipline and with calmness.

And so these horses that originally came from the Texas Department of Corrections, where they breed horses over in Huntsville, they're wonderful horses.

They have a cross between a Quarter Horse and a draft horse.

They're they're a little larger, heavy boned, healthy and have a great mind, really good calming mind.

And so these special horses we've selected, create trust, trust with the participant and, and with the students.

So some of them are dual, dual purpose horses, the cavalry.

And also for this program.

That's right.

We lease them from the parson.

So so yeah.

So I work with with James George, their, their horse manager over there.

And so with support of the Corps cadets, they help us out with those horses.

Interesting.

Okay, so if you're just tuning in, I'm Victoria Taylor, and our guest today is Craig Huffines, director of the Texas A&M Institute for Equine Sciences.

And we're talking about the Courtney Cares program and how it benefits its clientele.

So our there are there any trends that you're noticing toward who the horses seem to benefit the most?

Out of all the groups that the program serves?

You know, I think we're I would say that the the art of equine assisted services has gone back 40 or 50 years, and it probably started at some point where there was an assumption that that whatever activity we had around horses created a calming effect and is a form of exercise, physical activity that could be augmented into some sort of physical therapy, but over a long period of time there was no research to back it up.

And so what we're seeing today is an enormous effort to bring in science, basic science, to begin to understand what is actually happening.

And so one example of that is a pilot project that we started last year with Doctor Deanna Kennedy.

Over in the kinesiology department.

She works in the area of Parkinson's disease.

And so she was very interested in what equine assisted hypnotherapy could do for a Parkinson's patient compared to what they normally do.

And so they have a boxing lab down in Wellborn where, there's about 18 of these Parkinson's patients that go and they have a boxing coach.

And so that exercise and energy creates a stimulus that mind to muscle connection, that that gives them some prolonged periods of balance, strength and endurance.

And so we we did a little project last year, 20, 20 minutes on a horse with nine of those participants.

It was exhausting for them, just those 20 minutes.

But, Doctor Kennedy's preliminary data showed, an incredible improvement in balance traits.

Their gait and then prolonged strength and stamina and endurance of maintaining balance and gait.

So those are things that we lose when we are Parkinson's patients.

And so, she has, a massive amount of data.

She continues to go through with that.

And we're looking at down the road, advancing that technology and maybe looking at brain sensors, they call them fnirs, where you can put a cap on and it measures blood flow from the brain to see what's firing and begin to actually understand what's happening physically and physiologically.

That creates that stimulus.

And what type of exercises do it better than others.

We'll also look at a robotic, engineered horse that has the movement of a horse actually was designed here by our mechanical engineering department, where you can look at the movement of a horse, of a horse, on a mechanical horse.

And do you get the same response on a mechanical horse versus a live horse?

Now, that's going to be an interesting study.

So that hasn't been tested just yet.

No, no it hasn't.

We're probably a year away from doing some of that.

But we've been talking about okay, well it's expensive to do it on horses.

But if we can duplicate what's done on a horse mechanically now that's a game changer.

Interesting for therapy.

So you bet.

So what kind of happens when a successful round of therapy through Courtney Cares is finished, but the client no longer has access to the horse?

Do they backtrack or.

Well, these these, families have been many of them have been coming for about ten years.

And so we've seen advancement, core development, particularly with, a couple that I recognize, a couple of young ladies that have cerebral palsy.

What I've seen is they have straightened up when they ride.

They hold their shoulders back.

They have built core, they have strength in that core.

And their their response to commands like pushing a button or, putting a ring on a hanger in the arena.

Has advanced.

And so what we what we have seen is progression.

What we don't know is if they leave, do they lose that progression or do they go to a different therapy?

And I can tell you the commitment of these parents is incredible.

They don't hold back.

We're just one of many of the therapies that they take their children to.

And I, I've just gained an amazing amount of respect for those families and what they're willing to do.

So what role does health insurance play in all this, if at all?

At this point it doesn't.

And so that's another reason why I think the science is so important.

You know, there was a time when chiropractic care was not paid for by insurance, but over time through science, sports medicine, we began to understand that there's a lot of things about chiropractic care and in sustaining that neurological connections very, very real.

And so that's why I think it as we advance these research projects and find the actual proof in how it works, then perhaps we can go to the state of Texas and see if we can ask for, you know, Medicare to come in and, and help support some of those families.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you have any cool stories that you've witnessed from the direct impact that horses have had on the patients?

Well, just two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago now.

The ride on center for kids, our partner over in Georgetown had a young, I want to say she was about two year old girl born without legs.

And of course, she couldn't walk.

And, she, they put, prosthetics on her and, she, she really couldn't get a handle on how to move those prosthetics until they put her on a horse.

They put her on a horse for about two weeks, like four sessions, and she start taking off with those prosthetics.

Now that, I mean, those bring tears to your eyes.

I mean, when you see the impact and what it can do to lives, it's just incredible.

I think the other piece to this that goes unnoticed is, you know, what it can do for veteran care.

We have some veterans that come out on Wednesday nights, and get involved in their horsemanship programing.

And I think if you told them and I know, Colonel John Fleming, who runs our Veterans Resource Support program, has been a part of that for 4 or 5 years.

And he'll tell you what it means to him in terms of recognizing those things.

Anxiety of thoughts that are kind of taking you away from the world.

That whatever trauma that comes down that pike and and so you don't see that in veterans, you don't see that in students that are facing anxiety.

They look normal, but inside they're churning.

Yeah.

The horse can see it and the horse will respond accordingly.

And if you're amped up and you're not present, horse won't have anything to do with you back.

They'll try to get away from me and so as a prey animal, that's what they're wired to do.

We're predators, so we act like a predator.

It's obviously going to reflect on the behavior of that horse.

And so that's informative to a person who's dealing with something, whether it came from trauma, some level of anxiety and stress, resiliency issues.

So those are things that that I think are quite remarkable that you don't see.

But they'll they'll tell you about it.

They'll tell you how it's affected them personally, whether it's the campus community, what's the broader community.

Sounds to me like you need more horses.

Yeah.

You need more people who are trained to to facilitate this care.

All it takes is money, right?

How do you guys build the funds needed to do the things that you want to do?

That's a great question, Jay, and I appreciate you asking that because, in order to do this, it takes outside funding.

Yeah.

And so we have some wonderful donors who, continue to support us, on our basic needs every year.

We also are chasing an endowment and so what we'd like to see is an endowment, first year, $5 million, which would basically the earnings from that would take care of our annual operating, and then the second 5 million would bring in faculty that, that we can build, you know, additions or coordinators and, and long term coordination, so that we can collaborate more with perhaps it's the med school, perhaps it's our psychology department.

And perhaps it's a deeper dive into kinesiology and, and and sports medicine.

All of these are opportunities and so but it takes dollars and, you know, some people gravitate toward better.

And here and we have it some people, gravitate toward a desire to support, children with disabilities.

We have that, we have an epidemic in the state, with youth anxiety.

So we're going to be really interested in developing youth programing, not just here in Texas A&M campus, but how can we deliver equine assisted learning to children with a variety of different backgrounds, and teach them resiliency, teach them how to take control of their life to build confidence, to grow and be prepared to go to college or go to trade school.

And so all of these are opportunities that we're going to be presenting to donors to help us out.

And how do you deliver this in other places besides College Station, Texas?

Another great question.

Yeah.

There's about 68 to 70, certified centers around the state.

Some of them quite large East-West out of downtown Dallas.

Sears has three locations outside of Houston.

You have the right on center for kids we've talked about in Georgetown.

There are centers in El Paso and San Antonio, and at Texas Tech in Lubbock, at Tarleton State, our our partner over in Stephenville, there are several.

And, you know, we we believe there's opportunities to partner, to share information, perhaps as far as youth development, create a coordinated effort to deliver equine assisted learning to youth, across the state.

Maybe that's partnership with Texas 4-H.

And, Texas vocational agriculture.

There's a there's a lots of opportunities to be able to partner with a horse to provide human growth.

Human health.

And so that's what we're we're excited about.

Just one last quick question.

How would you kind of compare horse therapy to dog therapy?

Well, that's another great question, Victoria.

You know, dogs and horses are very different.

Dogs are predators, right?

They have a different personality.

They respond to feed to food.

You know, you can train a dog if you have a snack in your pocket.

You can train a dog to do anything with it.

With food, it's very different.

Horses are, prey animals.

And so, how do you teach and train them?

Are much different.

In order to be able to to engage with the horse, they have to trust you.

They're herding animal.

They're.

I have a heightened sense of senses of around, of the environment around them.

They can read body language six, eight, ten feet away.

Their first instinct is to bolt, to run when they're scared.

When they kick it, something it's not out of, you know, just pure meanness.

It's out of just a reaction to a stimulus.

And so there were real different.

And so, so they're looking for a leader.

And so what happens in a herd of wild horses is leaders are established because the herd trusts that leader.

And so as a human, we're looking to to create that trust.

And if they trust us as someone who's going to keep them safe, they will do anything you want them to do anything.

And so that's what we're teaching these students, is how to become a leader.

So what we teach veterans, you know, they were once leaders.

They might have lost that leadership skill.

And we're trying to give it back.

And so horses are really good at teaching us how to do that.

It's also harder to ride a dog.

Yeah.

There you go.

There you go.

Thank you so much.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggie Lands Public Radio 90.9 KAMU-FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

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