Recovering with Ruby

My daughter, Kelly, was a bright and cheerful teenage girl who has her whole life in front of her. Sometimes her autism caused her to struggle with normal life, and sometimes she just lived a normal life without any issues. However, in 2024 catatonia (which we recently learned can sometimes come along with autism) took hold of her mind and body in a drastically life changing way. It took a very experienced medical team and many months to understand what was happening to her, and it took even longer to start the healing process. There were weeks when we didn’t know if she would ever come back. She did, but not all the way; and not without a lot of help. With an extra bit of luck, we discovered that her ever growing team of medical experts needed some special help. The most recent additions to her team were a couple of non-medical, four-legged, health care specialists. A few highly treasured horses. These special horses knew nothing about medicine. All they cared about was carrying Kelly one step at a time toward a brighter future filled with increased mental and physical health.

During the eighteen months following Kelly’s release from the hospital, a friend of the family let Kelly ride her horses. She had watched what her horses were doing for Kelly and decided we needed one of our own. At the end of 2025, she gave us our new horse, Ruby.

We found a local boarding stable nearby that had a vacancy, and in January 2026 Ruby arrived. She came with a few issues of her own. Out of shape and semi-retired in a pasture for over a year, Ruby needed some help of her own. The cold icy winter exacerbated Ruby’s stiff pre-arthritic hind leg and a sore front hoof. As is often the case, we needed to work on rebuilding the horse as much as healing the rider she was about to carry.

I decided to write down as many of our working sessions as I could. My goal is to test my theories about using advanced classical dressage movements combined with neuroscience as a form of therapeutic horse back riding. I call the work I do with Kelly and Ruby –Equine Assisted Neuro-Rehab. The focus of this work, as I see it, is to use a series of specifically designed exercises and the movement patterns of a classically trained horse to stimulate Kelly’s brain to not only repair and heal but also grow and mature beyond the deficits caused by her neuro-developmental conditions. If riding horses helped the medications and medical treatments advance Kelly’s recovery, couldn’t the same horse riding approach be used to accelerate her mental development?

Kelly’s journey with Ruby continues still. I take as many notes as I can to record what works, what doesn’t work, what we are learning about Kelly and Ruby. Some entries are focused on Kelly’s health. Some are centered on training needed to bring Ruby to the level required to stimulate Kelly’s mental function. Many entries are written the same night, some from notes, some weeks later after a gap where daily life just got in the way. This journal contains every breakthrough and every setback – the good, the bad, and the boring. Sometimes the only thing worth recording is that we showed up. Ruby’s training and Kelly’s recovery are intertwined and inseparable in these pages. Neither story is finished.