Women of Steel (and Titanium, etc.): Unbreakable

Two women with broken backs; a woman showing off a four inch bolt just removed from her hip, one riding while wearing a knee cage, several with artificial joints, and on and on. In Florida this season it was driven home to me that women who ride horses lie to their doctors, have astonishing pain thresholds, and shrug off injuries that normal folk would allow to change their lives. Can it be a coincidence that therapeutic riding programs have for years demonstrated an inexplicable ability not only to aid in healing the injured, but also to cause the disabled and autistic to blossom? I recently read of an autistic child who had never spoken a word, when put up in front of his father in the saddle, began to spontaneously chatter away as if he had no issues at all, and would always hold conversations only while riding. Eventually that talking carried over to his earthbound life.

There is an old saying that the best thing for the inside of a (wo)man is the outside of a horse.