Balancing the dreams of the mind with the realities of the body.

Ripley, a 19-year-old lifelong equestrian, founded Balanced Horses Healing Humans, or BHHH, after her own search for a horse trainer who could work with a disabled rider brought to light how inaccessible this sport can be. Struggling with her own chronic health issues and disabilities, horses were a lifeline and healing, and so BHHH seeks to keep horses accessible to others like herself. 

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BHHH works on two fronts, the first being adaptive riding. BHHH and Ripley work with riders with all types of disabilities, across many disciplines, to help ensure they can continue around horses and still be safe while maintaining their independence. From riding lessons to her training program, where she produces horses safe for disabled riders, she specializes in all the weird and wild quirks and challenges that come with disabilities, mental and physical. 

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Secondly, BHHH also offers Equine Gestalt Coaching, which is a method developed by Melisa Pearce, one of the core founders of the horse-human healing movement, which began in 1989. The experiential nature of this method allows the horse to act as an active partner with the coach in the client's exploratory process. The integrative approach of equine interaction combined with positive coaching, somatic awareness guidance, and Gestalt methodology assists the client in examining his or her life and choices made with a focus on designing a positive future.

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This is designed for everyone, horse person or not, and while Ripley specializes in those with complex health issues, she works in depth with a lot of our military families and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. But at the end of the day, BHHH exists to serve and spark change. Each change, like tossing a pebble into a raging river. We may never see the river change its course, but we know it's happening, and so BHHH will continue to spark change, to serve, and to throw pebbles into the raging river we call life. ​