Riding Horses Slows Parkinson's

Rick Powell never expected to take up horseback riding in his 60s.

But he didn’t count on developing Parkinson’s disease, either.

“It’s easy to get depressed when you have this condition,” the 66-year-old Temple Terrace man says. “But I get so many benefits from riding the horses, both emotionally and physically. It’s given me a whole new perspective.

After being diagnosed with the nerve-damaging disease four years ago, Powell sought to learn everything about Parkinson’s. Over and over, the research pointed to the importance of saying physically active, to keep the muscles stimulated so they wouldn’t deteriorate.

Giving up was not an option for Powell, a father of three grown children and nine grandkids. That’s why, every week, he makes the trip to Quantum Leap Farm in Odessa.

The farm is home to a stable for emotionally and physically disabled riders. After hearing a presentation by the founder, Edie Dopking, Powell was skeptical but decided to give it a try. The movements and balance required by horseback riding were supposed to help improve his condition.

“I wasn’t convinced at first. I was thinking an mechanical horse, maybe, but not a real one,” he recalls. “But my attitude changed immediately when I met Rocky.”

Dopking says Rocky is one of her most sensitive and instinctive horses, gifted with an intuition about the disabled. An appaloosa with rose-gray coloring, he put the novice rider at ease. For Powell, it was the beginning of a love affair with horses that continues to grow.

“I just love the atmosphere at the farm. If I’m a little uptight when I get there, it all dissolves,” he says. “Horses have a calming effect of people.”

These days, he’s working on trotting and posting, splitting his time between Rocky and Sky, a horse he likens to a teenager.

“Feisty, erratic and wonderful,” he says. “We’ve developed a real bond. Love is a two-way street between horses and people. What you give, you get back.”

Powell, a Christian music composer and record producer, says the disease has definitely slowed its progression since he began riding a year ago.

It has also opened another door for him: He’s now playing bass guitar in the choir at First Baptist Church in Temple Terrace, which he and his wife of 46 years, Sylvia, attend.

“I know this is something I have to live with,” he says of his Parkinson’s. “But I don’t have to sit back and let it overcome me. With the help of the horses, I’m learning how to deal with it in a positive way.”

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