Veterans find peace and calm working with retired race horses

For some, the scars of war go beyond the skin and bones and deep into the psyche and soul.

They can affect a veteran’s ability to function in work and social environments. They can affect personal relationships. For groups of veterans in the Modesto area, the best therapy comes through the touch and friendship of a horse.

Working with them, these veterans will tell you, teaches them as much about themselves as it does the animal.

(Click here to donate to Book of Dreams)

“You can’t not like horses,” said Jim Lynch, a Vietnam veteran who served as a medic in the Air Force. “If you are afraid of them, you shouldn’t do this. But if you’re ambiguous, you can work with them. I’m not going to get on one, though.”

Nor will any of the other veterans working with horses to work through their own issues through Healing Arenas. The nonprofit’s twofold mission: helping people by helping retired Thoroughbred horses adjust to life after the track. They have much in common, organization founder Julie Baker said. They spent years in circumstances where they lived by routines and decisions made by others. They learn about each other, veteran and horse, and how to peacefully co-exist and thrive together, but always on the ground and not in the saddle.

“In the military, we expected things to get done when we wanted ’em done. That doesn’t work with a horse,” Lynch said, then joking. “That doesn’t work with the wife, either.”

“If you get real hard-headed here,” said Army Desert Storm veteran Roger Smith, “they’ll resist and get hard-headed back. When you deal with a horse, you need to remain calm and gentle.”

Smith, Lynch and others have completed the program and now are part of alumni groups who continue to visit the arena and work with the horses.

“The biggest thing is that it’s really a safe environment for exploration and interaction,” said Gena Horton, a readjustment specialist with the Modesto Vet Center, which works only with combat veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related issues. “They can mimic those interactions outside the arena as well.”

The Vet Center and Healing Arenas connected shortly after Baker formed the nonprofit in 2014. Baker’s organization also has worked with at-risk teens and probationers, and plans to do more of that in the future. But for now, veterans are the focus.

“We’re looking for funding for other kinds of groups,” Baker said.

They spend time working with the horses in an arena owned by Russ and Jen Hannink in north Modesto, then return to the Vet Center to process what they’ve learned by working with the horses and how they can apply it in their personal relationships.

“It’s calming,” said Howard Stinson, an Army veteran who fought in Vietnam. “Horses are like us. They all have their own personalities. You try to figure them out and they’re trying to figure you out when you’re coming up to them. ‘What does this guy want?’ I feel really relaxed when I’m out in the arena.”

“It brings something out in you,” said Daniel Crowley, a Navy veteran who served in a submarine through five Cold War patrols off of the East Coast and in the North Atlantic. “It’s problem solving. When we first started, we were one for each. Now it’s about teamwork.”

Vet to horse, vet to vet and in vetting every other kind of relationship as well.

This story was originally published November 19, 2016 at 10:47 PM with the headline "Veterans find peace and calm working with retired race horses."