Riding Association uses grant money for barrier-free carriage

By Lethbridge Herald on May 15, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Therapeutic Riding Association will be able to help more people with severe mobility issues interact with horses, thanks to a recent grant from the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta.

The $12,600 Field of Interest Fund grant will go toward purchasing Canada’s first adaptive cart, which will expand access to equine wellness programs to include people in wheelchairs or scooters, with epilepsy, who wear head support needs or are otherwise fragile. The cart acts somewhat like a carriage, being pulled by the horse via two arms that hook onto the horse, and can seat two people and a wheelchair. . 

Kale Hayes, executive director of LTRA, says the project has been in the works for a couple of years, and LTRA is thrilled to be able to finally bring it to fruition. 

“Because we are a fully accessible facility, we have the ability to get someone fully quadriplegic on a horse using a crane system, but there were still a few individuals who could not participate,” says Hayes. 

That includes people with uncontrolled epilepsy, certain health conditions or even some of the aging population hey work with. 

“With a huge team of occupational therapists, recreational therapists, and some engineers, we put together an adaptive cart so that anyone now can experience horses,” says Hayes. 

“What I love about this project is that we did it in stages,” says Hayes. “We had a prototype that let us actually test it and we were focused on user experience.”

One of the tests they performed was quite complicated, as it involved lifting the wheelchair, lifting the person and then transferring them into a different chair. 

“At first we had some staff members testing it, to make sure everyone was safe, and then we took a whole group of volunteers, and we brought down Alberta Carriage Supply to do an actual clinic to teach us how to operate and use it.”

Hayes says they made sure the passengers would b completely secure and safe before offering it to clients, and they were able to get input from volunteers and clients with mobility issues on the prototype. 

Now, thanks to the funding received from the Community Foundation, Hayes says they have purchased the actual cart from the Alberta Carriage Supply. Hayes says there is nothing like it out anywhere else, and thanks to the way its design, virtually anyone will be able to use it. 

“We were working with an occupational therapist, and they said that because of the way the cart works with the head support and different pieces in the wheelchair, and because there is a seat for a support person, there is not a single condition that will be precluded from using it,” says Hayes. 

“This opens up the door to working with seniors, veterans, and a plethora of conditions that we were unable to help with in the past.”