Saddle Up! Equine Therapy For Special Needs Kids

PINELLAS PARK, FL --"He's tied too loose. If he can put his head down, he's too loose."

The sounds of the country mean just another typical day for campers at Saddle Up stables. From pot-bellied pigs on the run, to chickens, and worms.

"It's real," says camper parent Tammy Berk. "You smell everything. You feel everything. It's hot, it's sticky, it's dirty, it's great. They love it."

Here kids don't just learn to ride.

"Look at all that junk that's coming out of there!" says Kellie Sipos, as she instructs a thirteen year old how to clean a pony's shoe.

Even drenched from a morning downpour, Sipos keeps camp moving right along. As normal as it looks, you'd never know these children actually carry a range of mild mental disablilites. Therapy camps for them tend to be hard to find.

"I think with this group it's more making friends and just having the chance to be like every other child out there," says Sipos, who has become inspired to provide disabled camps along with able-bodied camps at Saddle Up.

"I'm a firm believer in God starts something with you in the beginning and I look back now and everything that I've done all my life is kinda been just molding me toward this moment here."

A local photographer, Berk clicks away as her 13-year-old daughter, Angela, rides.

"I haven't seen her not smile all week," says Berk. "Just watching her with the reins and hearing her coming out and knowing what to do as far as grooming the horses, everything, she's just really learned a lot.

"I like riding the horses," says Angela. "They're pretty animals."

Emotions overrule words on what Berk knows the camp means for her autistic child.

"It just makes me smile, "says a teary Berk. "It's pretty cool. She can just enjoy and be a kid."

A regular kid at camp.

"As the word gets out,"says Berk. " I just see Kellie having a lot of these weeks in the summer."

This was the first year for this particular Special Needs camp. It costs $200 and runs 9-3 with riding time, crafts, music, line dancing and educational time. Kids learn to care for the horses and make and meet new friends.

Saddle Up has programs for able-bodied and disabled campers. It welcomes volunteers and is currently raising money for a covered stadium so summer thunderstorms don't interupt riding lessons.