Photo by Mike Lamb Certified therapeutic riding instructor Terry Irons interacts with 12-year-old Tenley Birhanvl at the start of her riding session.

Ice, a white quarter horse stood along side the wooden platform as 12-year-old Tenley Birhanvl put her hands around the pummel and horn on the saddle. As she struggled to get her small body onto the saddle, Grandma Bug put her arms around Tenley and Terry Irons helped by lifting her legs and feet.

When she finally is sitting on the saddle, a volunteer is on the other side of the horse positioning one of Tenley’s feet in the stir up. With a big smile on her face, Tenley is looking straight at Irons, who eventually is nose-to-nose with her student.

“I love you too,” Irons says while smiling back to Tenley.

“She wanted to give me a hug,” Irons said.

Tenley isn’t really forming any words together. After eight years of horse therapy at the Lee-Mar Ranch, Irons just knows what Tenley is saying to her.

It’s now time for Tenley’s therapy session riding Ice with the help of Grandma Bug and two volunteers. Tenley rides Ice in the barn for each session that last almost an hour.

Irons is one of two therapeutic therapy instructors at Lee-Mar Ranch Equine Center in Granite Falls. The ranch offers equine assisted therapy inside a large barn off U.S. Highway 212. Lee-Mar Ranch pairs horses and people together in a relaxed and safe environment to improve the physical, mental and emotional lives of the participants, according to Irons.

Most of the participants come from a four-county area. And most of them are dealing with some sort of physical or mental disorder.

Tenley was born with Angelman syndrome, which is a genetic disorder that causes delayed development, problems with speech and balance, intellectual disability and sometimes seizures. People with Angelman syndrome often smile and laugh frequently and have happy, excitable personalities.

“Right now she doesn’t walk or talkative,” said Emily Evenson. Tenley refers to Evenson as Grandma Bug.

“When we first started riding, there were five people — the lead for the horse and there were two walkers on each side just to get her to be able to sit up in the saddle,” Evenson said. “Now we’re down to just one on each side. Mainly because at any moment she could have a drop seizure. And then she has no muscle mass. So she could fall off the horse. Now we hardly even touch her.”

Tenley now has been riding horses at Lee-Mar Ranch since 2016. Watching how the horses react with Tenely durng the therapy sessions — and the physical improvements shown by her granddaughter — has made Evenson a believer.

“Therapy horses are just so calming,” she said.

As Tenely and Foxy make their way around the different obstacles inside the barn, Irons shouts out encouragement.

“Nice and straight,” she says. “Good job Tenely.”

“Good job, keep it going,” she says and then laughs.

Irons has always been a horse lover.

“I’ve always been a horse kid, but never had a horse. I was townie,” she said. “I lived here in Granite Falls until I was 13. Then my folks bought a resort up north in Otter Tail County. I was up there until my kids grew up. I always said when my kids grew up and left home, I was moving back home. So that’s what I did. I have had horses on and off since I was 20.”

Back 2015, Irons attended a horse expo and met a woman who talked about equine assisted therapies. She was with PATH (Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship) and was a certified therapeutic riding instructor.

“We are a PATH barn, but I didn’t know there was such a thing,” she said. “But I was raising some trauma kids a the time, and I just said this makes a lot of sense. So it was something I got really interested in.”

She has joined fellow instructor Julie xxxxx in working on their PATH certification. Besides the numerous courses, they have to work under a mentor out of Hutchinson.

“So a lot of hours, a lot of miles,” Irons said.

Meanwhile, Irons continues to work with students at Lee-Mar Ranch like Tenely.

Irons explains that different activities are set up for the riders. One of those activities are meant to help Tenely develop the skill to press the handicap button at the doorway of her school. At one checkpoint during the ride, Irons instructs Tenely to touch a cardboard card with a picture of the handicap button.

Irons also explained that riding Ice helps Tenely develop walking skills.

“Just doing this, she’s getting all the core exercises. She’s getting leg exercises. A horse mimics the walk of a person. Since she can’t walk for herself, this is helping her get a feeling of that movement. And she’s actually now starting to walk in the rails at physical therapy. She’s actually starting to take some steps. Huge progress,” Irons said.

Even today, Irons and Tenely working through some issues.

“Last fall we had an issue with Tenely because she gets excited,” Irons said. “She was kicking, kicing, kicking all the time She learned. We just work with them and explain and reinforce. She figured out not to kick. She still wiggles a lot, but it’s just different things we work on. Different skills all the time.”

When other students like Tenely start out, each one gets a helmet. Learning how to saddle is lesson No. 1.

“It depends on their level of independence,” Irons said. “But they will saddle and then we walk the horses around a few times to warm them up and we will set up the course. Usually it’s cone or barrels. Sometimes we play basketball. So we will have ball on one end, the course and the hoop on the other end. We play horseshoes. We do all kinds of things like that. Sometimes we will paint our horses. We have finger paint stations.

“Now it’s Valentine’s week, so we will try something with hearts.”

The Lee-Mar Ranch deals with a variety of conditions such as cerebral palsy, autism and down syndrome. Irons said there is a lot of mental health, anxiety, depressions, eating disorders and ADHD.

“A lot of them can just go down in that moment with the horse and focus on the horse — themselves. We have people that you know, they just come and you can see it on them. You can just see it,” she said.

“Last week I had a young man during the fourth session with us and his dad said, ‘the days are just so much better. His mood regulation is so much better. He’s happy about things. He’s talkative now. Coming out of his shell again.’ So it’s really good for a lot of different things,” Itons said.

“It’s all about connections. It’s just seeing the look on their faces,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about. Building those connections.

After completing her session, Tenely makes one last connection with Ice. The volunteers take the salle off Ice and with the help from Irons and Grandma Bug, Tenely lays her stomach over the back of the horse and smiles. Her hands stretched out the hands of one of the volunteers.

“Tenely likes to play over his back and just relax,” Irons said. “She lays on her belly. Just relax for a minute.

Irons doesn’t like to take any credit for how Tenely responds to Ice.

“We let the horse do the work. The horses are the therapists,” she said. “I think it’s kind of a village thing. I think it’s the horse certainly, but it’s also our volunteers. They’re so good. They’re so good with the horses and they welcome the participants and they interact with them. It’s just a very easy, safe place to be. We meet with the participants where they are at (mentally). If they’re having a (bad) day, you know, we’ll accommodate that . It’s the horses mostly.”