Alani sits up tall!

Alani shocked and exceeded all the expectations of her Coaches and Volunteers when – after lots of hard work – she was able to sit up for the duration of her session!

And hold her head up for short periods consistently during the session!

As Alani continued to come for her weekly therapeutic horse riding sessions, her balance and core strength improved immensely and over time her Side-walkers were able to decrease their support. Alani was achieving what was thought impossible!

She was riding not just lengths – but laps – of the arena, with her Side-walkers providing only a visual hold and with no physical support. (She does still need to have someone make a positional adjustment or help put her foot back in the stirrup, but she is able to do so much more than seemed possible when she first arrived).

Alani’s story encompasses what RDA is all about. An increase in strength – and newfound skills to enable her to join in with her family and her community.

Alani is an 8 year old student and the hard work that she has been putting in has all come together to enable her to achieve her big, audacious goal – to sit up tall.

Alani sustained a severe traumatic brain injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident as an infant.

Due to her injuries Alani is non-verbal, has severe global development delay, is visually impaired, has frequent seizures and is reliant on a wheelchair for mobility. Alani has very low muscle tone and is easily fatigued.

Alani’s Mum, Jess, has taken Alani to RDA for several years, and this is what she says.

“Being at Riding for the Disabled has made a huge difference for Alani, both physically and socially”.

And here is what her Coach says about Alani.

“The therapeutic therapy of this activity has provided so many benefits in all areas of Alani’s life.

When she started, Alani needed physical help to sit on the horse and would fall asleep and be slumped over.

We have been very excited to see the vast improvement in her muscle tone over her time at RDA and this has filtered through into all areas to improve her overall quality of life.

Alani has had many struggles during her time at RDA one being her primitive reflex almost stopping her riding due to the physical demand on her Side-walkers.

She has achieved many milestones and goals – including being able to sit up, firstly for a few strides, then to completing lengths of the arena and then to completing laps of the arena and the entire session.

In the past year Alani has gone beyond what we thought could be possible only 18 months ago. She has achieved such strong core strength and balance that she can now ride with her two Side-walkers predominately as visual, with minor position tweaks as needed. As a Coach I didn’t dream of putting this as a long-term goal, due to the struggles we’ve had to get to this point.

Alani has shown strength, resilience and determination, especially in the past year, to achieve what we all thought impossible.

She is teaching all of us while we teach her.”

When you have seen what RDA can do, then you want all riders to have access to the same high-quality service provided by our specialised and highly trained Volunteers and Coaches.

To provide more, we need more trained Volunteers and Coaches. Training enables our RDA people to be confident and capable as they support and encourage our riders to achieve big things.

You can make sure that volunteers and coaches can access training so that they can support riders just like Alani.