Heads Up Therapeutic Riding Center in Pittsboro is closing

Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:10:39 -0400
From: Shirley
Subject: Heads Up Theraputic Riding Center Closing

I was very sad to learn today that the Heads Up Therapeutic Riding Center in Pittsboro is closing. It’s a great program that has benefited so many people, children and adults alike. For anyone who is unfamiliar with them, Heads Up is a Path International premier accredited center which was formed here in Pittsboro in 1991.

Path stands for Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship. They provide therapeutic equine-related activities to individuals with physical, emotional or developmental disabilities to enhance positive reinforcement and encouragement towards independence. Many, if not most of their clients, are children with disabilities.
I had just started to volunteer there with some of their young riders and was loving it.

Their activities included Camps (Summer, Day, or Other), Competition (Special Olympic, Paralympics), Grooming & Tacking, Ground Work, Recreational Riding, and of course, Therapeutic Riding. They also offered general English and Western riding lessons and that’s how I found them. Their instructors were extremely professional and well qualified. This seems like such a loss for our community and I don’t understand why they are closing. Apparently, no one is sure about that. To my knowledge, they had no association with state or local government and were supported as a charity solely by donations and the money they earned through their services.

If any of you have stories about how Heads Up helped your children, it would be a good time to share that and to thank them. I myself will always be grateful. They gave an old gal with bad knees and a hearing loss a chance to fulfill a life long dream. They will be gone very soon. I will miss them so much. My instructor was fantastic but more than anything, I will miss the horses.