Elise Young returned to horseback riding after more than two decades away, following a traumatizing street attack in her Trenton neighborhood in 2021. Photo: Courtesy of Elise Young
Nick dipped his head as I slid the leather bridle over his nose and muzzle, then toward the top of his mane. He fluttered his eyelids and sighed, his breath warm on my hand.
“A lot of horses don’t like their ears touched,” said his owner, who was allowing me to use him for a riding lesson, “but this guy loves it.”
It was my idea to give Nick one last scritch. And it was Nick’s idea, when I stopped, to chomp my arm to demand more. Rubbing the damp spot on my sleeve, I fought hot tears of embarrassment.
I had come to this stable with a purpose: to tap the emotional-healing potential of horses, 15 months after having been brutally assaulted by a stranger. For decades, science has documented the benefits of horse-human interaction for trauma survivors like me. But now, I felt like a dork in my new safety helmet while women half my age, sleek in their breeches and custom-made tall, black boots, readied their own lessons.
That I was no rookie rider stung even more. Bullied as a youngster for a facial birth defect, I had found refuge fussing over horses; as an adult competing at equestrian shows, I had gained self-confidence. In my 30s, however, home and career took priority. For more than two decades my equipment-jammed tack trunk cluttered a basement corner.
From time to time, I opened it, the liniment odor like a portal to a world that had embraced me, only to see me vanish.
It was the 2021 street attack in my historic Trenton neighborhood—followed by long months of concussion rehabilitation and then craniofacial reconstruction—that supercharged the ache to ride again. In a session with a psychotherapist, I was asked to talk about my stress level.
Instead, I reminisced about tossing hay from a loft where alfalfa and timothy fragranced the air like spring, no matter the time of year; following wooded trails and leaning in the saddle to pluck blackberries, soft and warm in the July sun; bonding with animals and ageless horse girls.
The counselor ended our appointment with a suggestion: Listen hard. Horses are calling you back.
That was the end of our sessions.
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It’s widely reported that Hippocrates—the father of modern medicine, whose name refers to the Greek word for horse—spoke of riding’s “healing rhythm” for those with illness. In the 1960s, the field of equine therapy took root when a Danish Olympic dressage silver medalist, Lis Hartel, credited riding with boosting her physically and mentally against polio.
Animals in general comfort humans on a microscopic level, triggering the brain to release soothing chemicals. Horses, though, have a distinction that sets them apart from dogs, cats, birds and the rest of the therapeutic menagerie: their sheer size.
“You’re working with an animal that’s so much larger than you,” says Ellen Rankins, whose 2023 Rutgers University animal-science doctoral research focused on the biological responses of horses used in a Monmouth County program to help military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “This is an animal that doesn’t have to do anything we ask it to. It can very easily refuse those requests, and there’s not a lot you can do about it. To have that connection—and have that horse be willing to work with you—is a very powerful thing.”
In a 2017-2018 study by Slippery Rock University, researchers found reduced cortisol, a stress hormone, among teenagers and adults with autism who were using horses for recreation. Scientists at the University of Arizona, in a 2021 study at a retirement community, learned that horse and human heart rates can actually synchronize, “suggestive of social connection.”
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On my first day back, Nick’s nip jolted me from the reverie, setting off a panic wave—just what I’d been trying to overcome. I flashed back to my Trenton neighborhood, where, in September 2021, a young woman, unprovoked, beat me and left me bleeding in the street three doors from my house. If I couldn’t fend her off, how would I ever feel safe among unpredictable horses, most notably, a half-ton Oldenberg champion show jumper with itchy ears and a taste for human flesh?
I rode in the lesson that day, somehow, and signed on for more. Three months later, I bonded with Victoria, a British warmblood jumper that was available for lease, a common equestrian arrangement. As I coddled her like my own, I found a new calmness. The wild fear of crowds and loud noises eased. I talked less about my attacker and her criminal case, and more about my giant new partner and the molasses gingerbread treats I baked for her.
It should have been enough to bask in what my friends were calling “horse glow.” But I needed an answer: How, exactly, was a stable doing the work of a shrink?
Photo: Courtesy of Elise Young
A dozen years ago, Anna Gassib, a longtime equestrian and licensed associate mental health counselor, started a program called A Stable Life. About 15 clients a week come to her equestrian center in Leonia, Bergen County, to help tackle addiction, anxiety, trauma and other challenges. Though she and I had never worked together, Gassib gave an instant read on why I clicked with horses, long ago and now.
“When you opened up those tack trunks in your basement, you got that smell,” she told me. “And it’s not just the smell. It’s the memories of all the goodness that comes back. That unconditional acceptance, whoever you are. Horses didn’t care that this kid had a cleft lip. What went through their minds was, Here comes a little human. She wants to take care of me, and she’s happy to see me.”
In this country, about 62,000 people a year turn to horses to promote well-being, according to the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International. People with paralysis, multiple sclerosis and other physical challenges gain muscular and circulatory benefits, studies show. Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders can find focus, and those with depression and anxiety can see their symptoms ease.
Illustration: Raul Arias
One New Jersey barn, Serenity Stables in Atlantic Highlands, has treated more than 2,500 military veterans since 2015. It’s among at least a half-dozen Garden State equine programs that have found a niche in helping combat personnel, an estimated 16 percent of whom returned from Afghanistan and Iraq with PTSD, according to a study published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
On a late summer afternoon, a group of four ex-military combatants from Samaritan Daytop Village, a residential addiction-treatment center in Manhattan, arrived at Serenity Stables for a two-hour session called Combat to Calm. Founder Rene Stone’s approach—not riding, but grooming and walking the horses and meditating alongside them—helps participants focus on partnerships, often with animals they’ve never experienced.
“Horses are prey animals—even when they’re grazing, they’re always on the watch,’’ Stone says. “They show these guys that you can be at peace and still be aware. It’s a great lesson on how to live life.”
At the session’s start, the men walked among the stalls. “I want to see the pony,” said Tony, while Red, a fellow Army veteran, stroked a tabby cat. “You want attention?” Red said to the tabby. “I always want attention, too.”
If humans appear to be relaxed during such encounters, researchers are curious whether horses, too, may be benefitting. In the 2023 study by Rankins and other Rutgers animal-science researchers, the therapy horses’ hormones and other stress indicators measured no higher or lower than those in a control group. The team suggested further analysis with a larger number of horses and veterans. At the same time, according to a research summary, “Symptoms of PTSD decreased significantly in the veterans who participated in this study.”
In all my years around horses, I had no idea that my happiness had a scientific basis. All I knew was that I was physically fit and having fun.
Around the time I started to ride again, my attacker, in jail awaiting trial on felony charges, was showing signs of serious psychological issues. She was transferred to the high-security Ann Klein Forensic Center in Trenton, which treats the most dangerous mentally ill people in the state’s legal system. Just shy of three years after the assault, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
A week after the court ruling, I headed to the stable to ride. I took a detour past Ann Klein, a brick fortress set behind chain-link and razor-wire fencing. My attacker and I have little in common, but this we share: We’re wounded, in very different ways, and trying to heal, each in her own place.
In the tack room, I opened my trunk to gather my helmet, gloves and grooming kit. I fetched my saddle, bridle and safety vest from their racks, then zipped my boots and tucked three peppermints into my breeches pocket, one for Victoria and the others for her pasture mates. As I walked toward the paddock, the sun popped up from behind the clouds and I shaded my eyes, bracing for the dizziness and nausea that sudden bright lights cause after my head injury.
But I was fine. Steady. The three mares, smelling the treats, met me at the paddock gate. One nickered. It was my friend Victoria, and I laughed back.
Lifelong New Jerseyan Elise Young is the author of Victim EY, about her attack, at EliseYoung.Substack.com.
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