Horse therapy builds new pen to expand services

This semester, the horse therapy services at Miami are changing as the construction of a new round pen nears its completion. With this new addition, students will have more freedom moving the horses around during their sessions.

According to Riding Director Heather Pinnick, construction of the new round pen started in late July, and she’s hopeful the pen will reach completion in the coming weeks.

Construction was temporarily halted due to the recent rainy weather, but will be completed after the installation of the footing to make the ground level.

“We needed the round pen space to be able to do some of the other types of therapy,” Pinnick said. “Right now, it’s just very basic with the grooming and the talking [during] the one-on-one session.”

During a standard session, the equestrian staff will pick one of their five to six horses they typically use for therapy. The students will then bridle the horse, cross tie them, use combs and pick at the horses’ hooves. The round pen will allow these sessions to evolve from just grooming in the stalls to being able to let the horses walk around freely.

According to Pinnick, interacting with the horses is a useful activity for students who have a hard time making eye contact or who have something difficult to share; she says it’s easier to talk when the students have something else to focus on and do with their hands.

Pinnick saw this firsthand when she worked at a therapeutic riding barn in college. While working there, she witnessed a non-verbal middle school girl gain the confidence to speak and interact with Pinnick while she was on the horse.

“We talked and we talked about the horses and what their hair felt like and what color they were, and it was so interesting that the horse created that vector for us to have a conversation, whereas she wasn’t able to do that without the horse,” Pinnick said.

When an alumni approached Pinnick in the fall of 2024 with the idea for implementing a horse therapy program at Miami, she immediately started discussing the possibility with Miami Student Counseling.

Since the successful pilot program in spring 2025, horse therapy has been a staple for Student Counseling Services.

Senior Staff Counselor and Co-Coordinator for the equine therapy program Sami Goodpaster became certified in horse therapy in 2025 after completing a week-long intensive training that combined both classroom and hands-on learning.

Since implementing horse therapy into her practice, she has seen the psychological effects that horse therapy can bring: confidence boosts, trauma processing, development of social skills and anxiety and depression management.

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“I’ve been able to see [psychological benefits] over the progress data that we’ve collected,” Goodpaster said. “We’ve seen reductions in self-reporting of depression, anxiety and social concerns across the board with all of the students we’ve met with so far.”

Both Goodpaster and Pinnick said these psychological benefits are enhanced by the horses’ emotionally intuitive nature. The horses can pick up on students’ emotions — they can even nuzzle up and provide comfort to students if they sense sadness.

Hunt seat member of the equestrian team and sophomore Caroline Stanwood has experienced moments where her horse, who was usually very mouthy and would accidentally nip at her, would know to change his behavior based on Stanwood’s mood. If he could tell she had a bad day, he would know not to nip at her.

“I think [horses] do a very good job picking up on humans’ emotions,” Stanwood said. “I think everybody always says that about dogs and cats and things, but I would say I have seen it the most, being able to tell if I have a bad day, [in horses] — the horses always know.”

In addition to offering individual horse therapy sessions, the equestrian center offers three drop-in therapy events a year — two in the fall and one in the spring. Students are invited to bring their friends down to the equestrian center to feed treats to the horses and check out free “horse swag,” according to Goodpaster.

“I thought that after the first couple times, you know, the attendance would fade,” Pinnick said,

“but this last one we did the Friday of classes starting, there were over 200 people that came down.”

The second drop-in session for the fall semester is scheduled for Oct. 2. Students can sign up for individual horse therapy sessions throughout the semester by calling counseling services to set up an initial consultation or schedule an appointment online via their website.

“I hope [students] are able to feel like what me and [other equestrian team members] feel when we go [to the barn],” Stanwood said. “No matter if it’s five minutes or five hours, just being down at the barn with the horses and being able to forget about everything else that’s going on, and … [take] a breath and being able to reset from time spent at the barn.”

worthia3@miamioh.edu