On a sunny July afternoon, a 13-year-old girl was lifted out of her wheelchair and eased into a saddle. Her legs, wracked by cerebral palsy, stretched rigidly along the neck of her horse as she settled into place. But after half an hour of riding in a covered arena, her tight muscles had loosened. She headed out on a trail ride with feet relaxed in the stirrups and knees clamping her mount’s sides like the experienced rider she is becoming.
This is a typical scene at Halleck Creek Riding Club, located at the end of a long dirt road in Nicasio. In operation since 1977, several thousand disabled children and adults have come here to enrich their lives and improve their health through riding. The advantages, said co-founder Joyce Goldfield, are many: from the physical therapy provided by the movement of the horse and the independence and enjoyment of traveling through nature on rugged terrain to the camaraderie among riders, volunteers and staff.
“We had two kids come completely out of autism and attend their own grade in school,” said Ms. Goldfield, who retired from leading the club in 1997. “Every kid made enormous strides.”
Now, Ms. Goldfield is raising funds through Kickstarter to help publish a book, begun three decades ago, about the history of the club. Local artist Russell Chatham has agreed that his publishing company, Clark City Press, will contribute the time needed to publish the book if she can raise the funds to cover costs.
“I read every bit of it and she’s done a good job,” Mr. Chatham said. “It’s a really valuable book; it’s telling the story of something that’s been quite a big deal for many years.”
The book, titled “Come Saturday Morning,” contains both the good and the bad, Ms. Goldfield said. “You’re going to laugh and you’re going to be touched and you’re going to cry.”
The title derives from the main time the club took people riding. Saturday morning was sacrosanct.
“My wedding had to be on a Sunday because the people I invited who were involved with club couldn’t come on a Saturday,” said Katie Kruzic, who was one of the first volunteers, along with Ms. Goldfield’s daughter, Cindy. “All through high school it became our Saturday thing—to go out to club.”
The online campaign, which ends on Friday, July 31, has raised $3,265 out of a goal of $20,000. All donations will be refunded if the full amount is not reached by the deadline.
Origin story
The inspiration to start a therapeutic riding club came when Ms. Goldfield, a lifelong horsewoman, spent five months in a body cast after being bucked off a mare named Dill Pickle.
“That made me think, ‘What would it be like to be in a wheelchair for my whole life, and not be able to get out of doors?’” Ms. Goldfield said.
She approached a friend—who later became her life partner—Duane Irving, a quiet cowboy raised on his family’s ranch in Nicasio where the riding club now stands.
At the time, Mr. Irving was showing school groups around the Morgan Horse Ranch in the Point Reyes National Seashore; he often had to leave a kid waiting alongside the school bus because a disability wouldn’t let him or her explore the property. Ms. Goldfield said he leapt at the chance to help get those kids out in nature.
Therapeutic horseback riding, also known as hippotherapy, was a new and revolutionary concept. Neither Ms. Goldfield nor Mr. Irving had heard of it, and though they had to make up methods as they went along, they were convinced that every kid could get on a horse, one way or another. And over the years, they did.
On the day the club opened its doors, 12 kids showed up, including one little girl with no legs. From that point on, staff and volunteers improvised and adapted, whether by building special saddles or using gel pads to shield the amputation stubs of cancer patients and the exposed vertebrae of riders with spinal bifida. One or more volunteers led many of the riders, or rode behind them on the saddle.
“We never had to turn anyone away,” Ms. Goldfield said. “That was what club was about. It was never a never. It is all those nevers that destroy our lives.”
It helped that Ms. Goldfield’s first husband, Elton, was an enthusiastic supporter of the project. As a physician, he provided a medical context, and recruited experts to advise the staff and volunteers.
It was also important to the founders that the program be free and available to all, so they were diligent fundraisers. Ms. Goldfield taught a class in sign language so volunteers could communicate with the hearing impaired.
“Our volunteers were indefatigable—just amazing, amazing, amazing,” she said.
Over time, the programs at Halleck Creek expanded well beyond riding. Many participants came from group homes where they spent all day in front of a television. But through the riding club, kids and young adults were taken river rafting, skiing and to the beach. They camped under the redwoods at the headwaters of Halleck Creek, where they fell asleep listening to the wind in the trees and the chirp of crickets.
“The things we did were foolhardy, some of them,” Ms. Goldfield said. “We threw every kid in the creek sooner or later. We were caught camping during the [1982] Marin County flood, and we had to swim them out on their horses through a raging creek. I was scared to death, but one little girl rode back to me afterwards and said, ‘You know what I’m going to do when I go back to school? I’m going to go up to all the cool kids and ask them what did you do this weekend?’”
Throughout it all, the emphasis was on fun and independence. Mr. Irving, who died in 2012, had a particular rapport with the kids. “Duane would run alongside them, saying, ‘Sit up straight, cowboys don’t slump over,’” Ms. Goldfield said. “He never saw their disability—he just saw those kids.”
Handing over the reins
After 20 years of running the riding club, the couple decided to hand leadership over. They both were 60 when they retired.
“Duane and I talked and he said, ‘If we don’t turn it over to some young person, it’s going down with us when we die,” Ms. Goldfield recalled.
With new leaders, the club has also changed somewhat. Today the rafting and ski trips have been cancelled—though Ms. Goldfield independently organizes an annual river trip in Oregon. The riding program has expanded to operate four days a week, and there are over 75 riders weekly. All told, the club provides over 3,500 hours of therapy a year.
A recent visit to the club reveals a welcoming atmosphere, from the amiable horses to the tidy tack room and the cozy office—complete with horse-print curtains and a postcard that says, “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”
“For most of our riders, this is the highlight of their week,” instructor Mesa Nordbye said. “This is something they can talk about that doesn’t have to do with their disability—it’s one of their abilities! Who gets to ride a horse?”
To donate to Joyce Goldfield’s Kickstarter campaign, which will fund the publication of her book “Come Saturday Morning,” visit kickstarter.com and search for “Come Saturday Morning.” The campaign ends at 4:10 p.m. on Friday, July 31.