Horsing Around for a Purpose:
Non-Profit Seeks Volunteers, Donations

Edie Dopking said she is living her dream by combining her ongoing medical studies with the equestrian skills she earned while riding since childhood.

Although she opened Quantum Leap Farm, 10504 Woodstock Road, in 1999 as a boarding facility, it wasn’t long before her medical interests prompted her to turn her business into a non-profit organization for disabled adults.

As Dopking, 42, works toward a doctorate in aging studies at the University of South Florida, she said she helps adults with physical disabilities gain strength, flexibility and confidence while they ride horses.

Dopking’s studies focus mainly on the effects therapeutic riding has on older people who have had strokes or who suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Such clients often ride for free in exchange for the data Dopking gathers regarding their mobility.

Dopking also welcomes younger adults with physical disabilities. Those who can’t afford to pay often ride at no charge.

“I felt like (disabled adults were) an under-served population. Once these guys turn 18, a whole lot of funding and programs just go away,” Dopking said.

That is why she and her assistant, Kimm Schmidt, limit their therapeutic classes to adults. As members of the Certified Horsemanship Association, they offer general riding classes to able-bodied people older than age 10 to help fund the therapeutic programs.

Schmidt, who has a second certification through the North American Riding For Handicapped Association, had never heard of therapeutic riding before meeting Dopking. She originally volunteered at Quantum Leap Farm because she was a self-proclaimed “horse person.”

But she said she so enjoyed working with the clients at the farm, before long she was volunteering to help four days a week. She said earning certification was the logical next step.

“To teach someone with disabilities to do something that I love was incredible. (Getting certified) seemed like a natural progression,” she said.

According to Dopking, one of the keys to the success of therapeutic riding lies in the fact that a horse’s gait is similar to an able-bodied human’s gait. Therefore, when a person with limited mobility sits astride a horse, that person’s joints and muscles shift in ways they seldom do in daily life; the way they would if the person were walking.

Dopking said disabled riders often exhibit improvement in balance, lower extremity strength and coordination.

“Riding makes them focus on their abilities and not their disabilities,” Dopking said.

Before Dopking opened the stables to disabled clients, she prepared the facility and the animals for the needs of her riders.

Besides building a ramp to help wheelchair-bound visitors mount the horses, she had to teach the animals how to react to situations that might otherwise startle them.

She shouted and bounced balls near the horses so loud noises wouldn’t make them panic.

Dopking exposed the creatures to wheelchairs and walkers so the equipment wouldn’t frighten them.

“We prepared them for anything we could think of that was likely to happen. I’d even fall off the horses and roll underneath them. I wanted to make sure they were bomb proof,” Dopking said.

Volunteers perform much of the work at the farm, where Schmidt is the only paid staff member. “Forty-one percent of our riders don’t pay, and the ones that do, don’t pay enough to cover all the costs,” Dopking said.

The rest of the money comes from grants, fundraisers and tax-deductible donations.

For instance, members of the Schaarai Zedek synagogue planted a flower garden at the ranch, and the Americorps Hillsborough Reads literacy organization brought children from the YMCA to paint the barn. C & L Value Advisors, an accounting firm, painted the fences around the pastures.

When Dopking earns her Ph.D., she said she hopes her specialized education helps her fund the ranch.

“It should add to my credibility and enable me to lecture at continuing education facilities,” she said.

She said she has no intentions of using her degree to find a new career, away from her horses and clients. The rewards mean too much to her.

“The people who come out here who have acquired a disability come with a head full of ‘I can’ts.’ They are so focused on the things they can’t do anymore,” Dopking said.

However, after two or three riding classes, Dopking said they begin to make a correlation.

If they have accomplished horseback riding, maybe they can participate in other forgone activities.

To find out about volunteering or riding at Quantum Leap Farm, call 920-9250. Riding lessons are available by appointment only, and the farm is open for classes Tuesdays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to noon.

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