Tag Archives: Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses

Art/Photography, Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Miniature Therapy Horses Inspirational Card Deck

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Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses bring their big love, hope, and healing to more than 25,000 adults and children each year inside hospitals, hospice programs, and with families, veterans, and first responders who have experienced traumatic events. Even during the current health challenges, the therapy horses have been using Zoom and FaceTime to encourage patients and have also been visiting patients outside windows using iPads to communicate back and forth.

Now a unique and magical boxed deck of Miniature Therapy Horses Inspirational Cards with guidebook have been created and are currently on Kickstarter. They feature and will help support the tiny horses of Gentle Carousel.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gentlecarousel/gentle-carousel-miniature-therapy-horses-inspirational-deck

Of all the thousands of Kickstarter campaigns currently active, the Miniature Therapy Horse Inspirational Card Deck was given one of three Projects We Love badges this week from the Kickstarter staff.  We already knew this was a beautiful, one-of-a-kind deck, but a show of respect and enthusiasm from Kickstarter means so much. Projects We Love badges are a BIG deal and we are thrilled.

This has been a challenging year for charities. Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses had to cancel their two main fundraisers in 2020 due to health concerns. Pledging on Kickstarter helps the charity and also brings a BOX OF HAPPY to your home or to a loved one. They are perfect for children of all ages.

Funding past the Kickstarter goal will be used to print even more decks to help Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses in 2021.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.Horse-Therapy.org
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses
www.instagram.com/gentlecarousel

Breeds, Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses – Still Making Visits

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Photo — Scout at Brookdale Chambel Pinecastle, an assisted living facility in Ocala, Florida.

Therapy horse Scout usually visits hospital patients and residents of assisted living programs from room to room. When those facilities close to visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic, what is a 100-pound horse to do?

He brings his 2000-pound Percheron friend Tiny Prince Charming to visit waiting residents through the windows while human volunteers hold up signs with messages of love. Scout could not go inside and residents could not come outside, but they still touched each other’s hearts. Scout and Tiny Prince Charming put their noses on the windows when patients put their hands on the glass.

Scout is a member of Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses. For the last 22 years their teams of tiny horses have been bringing love to over 25,000 adults and children each year inside hospitals, hospice programs, assisted living programs, and with families, veterans, and first responders who have experienced traumatic events.

The therapy horses are also still working in children’s hospitals by using prerecorded programs combined with live video from their farm.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.Horse-Therapy.org
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses
www.instagram.com/gentlecarousel

Breeds, Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses – Virtual Visits

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“There is a pony on the phone for you.”

Many young hospital patients develop a special friendship with a favorite therapy horse over the months of their medical treatment. When the therapy horses can’t physically be with a patient (like after a bone marrow transplant or if they go home between treatments), the horses have made FaceTime calls to check on their young friends.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses is using a home studio to stay in contact with their friends in hospital care across the country.  “There is a pony on the phone for you.”

The horses make individual calls and plans are also underway to have a combination of pre-recorded story times and live feed from the therapy horses to play in rooms for entire children’s hospitals. This would use hospital studios that the horses have already been visiting in person for many years.

Gentle Carousel is also recording reading programs because the horses cannot do their regular library and school visits.

Virtual Fundraiser

Gentle Carousel’s two main fundraisers of 2020 to support the charity have been postponed/cancelled due to the current health situation, including the Walk Like a Pharoah Walkathon and Festival.

Instead of a large, public walkathon, the charity will have a “mini walkathon” fundraiser that can be watched safely from home. Three special horses will make the walk using the track where Triple Crown winner American Pharoah trained at the McKathan Brothers Training Center in Citra, Florida.

Tiny therapy horse Scout, a 2000-pound Percheron named Prince Charming, and The Sundance Kid, a recently adopted mustang who had been living in the wild on public range lands in Nevada, will be filmed while they walk together. The Sundance Kid had been passed over three times for adoption at three separate adoption events, making him a “three strikes” “unadoptable” mustang until he found his forever home.

The volunteers handling the horses will wear masks and keep “one Percheron distance” apart from each other during the walk.

Friends can sponsor Scout, Prince Charming, and The Sundance Kid to support Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses at: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/GentleCarousel.

The “mini walkathon” can be watched on April 27th starting at 7pm on Gentle Carousel’s Facebook page.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses is one of the largest equine therapy programs in the world. Teams of tiny horses bring love to over 25,000 adults and children each year inside hospitals, hospice programs, assisted living programs, and with families, veterans, and first responders who have experienced traumatic events.  A multiple award winning 501(c)(3), the charity is celebrating over 20 years of service.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.Horse-Therapy.org
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses
www.instagram.com/gentlecarousel

Breeds, Community/Charity

The Horse Capital Parade

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For our friends in Florida, an amazing experience with horses is coming soon: the Horse Capital Parade!

Where: Downtown Square Ocala, Florida, the surrounding streets and at the Downtown Market.
March 7, 2020 at 1:00pm – 6:00pm

A vendor village will open at 1pm on the Downtown Square with a beer and wine garden, great vendors, horse breed meet-and-greets, and at 4:30pm, an incredible horse breed parade, the speedy Historic Stagecoach, and the grand finale with the Budweiser Clydesdales. Watch them harness the Clydesdales at 2pm at the Downtown Market. There are also wonderful restaurants with outdoor dining where you can watch the parade.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.Horse-Therapy.org
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses

Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Magic the Sugar Plum Fairy

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Therapy horse Magic celebrated the holidays with her ballet dancer friends on stage for The Magic of the Nutcracker! at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Gainesville, Florida.

The special performance by the Dance Alive National Ballet was for children from the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind. They experienced the all-time family favorite by sitting right on the stage, feeling vibrations through the floor and speakers, and touching the costumes and dancers to see the art through their fingertips.

Magic’s costumes, including the sugar plum fairy and Santa’s elf, were made by a Dance Alive National Ballet costume designer.  Magic was an equine professional both on and off the stage.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.gentlecarouseltherapyhorses.com

*Featured/Spotlights, Equine Assisted Therapy, Publications/Media

Book Release of Mercury & Sirius

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Just because we are different doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. We just need to care about each other. That is the magical message of real-life best friends Mercury and Sirius, a miniature therapy horse and his canine companion.

Therapy horse Mercury works with Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses, one of the largest equine therapy programs in the world. The therapy horses were called in to comfort survivors and first responders of the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL. They helped the tornado survivors of Moore, OK, victims of the fires in Gatlinburg, TN, families in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, and they visit thousands of patients in children’s and veterans’ hospitals across the country each year.  A multiple award winning, 501(c)(3), the charity is celebrating over 20 years of service and brings love to more than 25,000 adults and children a year.

The therapy horses also “bring books to life” for thousands of children each year inside schools, libraries, mentoring programs, at literacy events, and at education resource centers in high crime neighborhoods. Gentle Carousel’s literacy program has a special focus on at-risk readers.

The heartwarming friendship between Mercury and Sirius has been featured in national magazines and on television programs. Now they have a beautiful children’s book scheduled for release on November 15, 2019.  Mercury & Sirius is currently available for pre-order on Amazon (Prime), Barnes and Noble, and other top booksellers.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.gentlecarouseltherapyhorses.com
352-226-9009

*Featured/Spotlights, Breeds, Equine Assisted Therapy

Therapy Horses Magic and Moonshadow Special Guests at Hats Off Day

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Therapy horses Magic and Moonshadow will be special guests on Saturday, July 27 at Hats Off Day at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY. It is the only day of the year that admission to the Horse Park is free. Hats Off Day is sponsored by our wonderful friends at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital and is a celebration of the horse and its impact on the state of Kentucky.

Moonshadow will be driving into the Kentucky Horse Park Rolex Outdoor Stadium in style… in a Mercedes convertible!

There will be fun family activities and free horse farm hats, generously provided by area horse farms and businesses, that are given to the first attendees to arrive. Hats Off Day is from 4 to 10 p.m. at the Kentucky Horse Park, but the Horse Park is free all day. At 7:30 p.m., The Rood & Riddle Kentucky Grand Prix begins. It is a premier show jumping competition held annually at the Kentucky Horse Park for the past 25 years, with a $50,000 grand prize.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.gentlecarouseltherapyhorses.com
352-226-9009

Breeds, Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Therapy Horse Mercury to Be in Live Oak International Parade of Nations and Breeds

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Therapy horse Mercury will be in the Live Oak International Parade of Nations and Breeds on Thursday, March 7, 2019 at the Ocala Downtown Square. He will be one of the horses available for a photo opportunity.

Look for Mercury at the beginning of the parade right behind title sponsor and Grand Marshal, Chester Weber, with the Grandview Clydesdales.  Mercury is in Position #1 and will be just a little smaller than his Clydesdale friends.

There will be lots of music, food, and family fun and over 25 different horse breeds.

Debbie Garcia-Bengochea
Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.gentlecarouseltherapyhorses.com
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses
www.instagram.com/gentlecarousel
352-226-9009

Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Ten Years of Magic

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When a real horse walks into a child’s hospital room it is always a magical experience.

Therapy horse Magic is celebrating ten years of bringing her special magic to adults and children who need it most.

Magic has comforted survivors and first responders of the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL. She worked with the tornado survivors of Moore, OK, victims of the fires in Gatlinburg, TN, child trafficking victims in Washington, D.C., families in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, and thousands of patients in children’s and veterans’ hospitals across the country.

Magic works with medical professionals in oncology units, the ICU, and with occupational, speech and physical therapists as part of the treatment teams for patients who have suffered strokes, traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, amputations, and burns. She brings her love to Gold Star families, is an honorary Sheriff’s Deputy for her years of work with first responders, and even helped teach a class at Columbia Medical School in NYC.

Working indoors would be a challenge for any horse but with her years of experience, she makes it look easy, even in high rise hospital buildings. Magic walks up and down steps, rides in elevators, walks on unusual floor surfaces, carefully moves around hospital and television studio equipment, works in small patient rooms, and stays calm around unexpected sounds like ambulances, alarms, and hospital helicopters… and yes, she is house trained.

Magic also works inside schools and libraries, with mentoring programs, at literacy events, and at education resource centers in high crime neighborhoods. Her award winning literacy program Reading Is Magic “brings books to life” for young readers with a special focus on at risk readers.

Some video of Magic at work:

http://www.today.com/video/miniature-horse-makes-dying-womans-wish-come-true-573356611506

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/pulse-orlando-shooting/therapy-horses-provide-healing-to-medical-examiners-office#

http://www.click2houston.com/news/horse-named-magic-aims-to-lift-spirits-for-trauma-patients

Over the past ten years Magic received awards and honors including:

One of History’s 10 Most Courageous Animals – TIME Magazine
Selected to be a Breyer Portrait Model Horse.
Most Heroic Pet In America – AARP
A Reader’s Digest/Americantowns Power of One Hero
One of the 10 Most Heroic Animals of 2010 – Newsweek/The Daily Beast
2014 E. T. York Distinguished Service Award
One of Seven Most Notable Animal Heroes in the World – The Daily Mirror 2014
Featured in 125 Stories of Amazing Pets: Inspiring Tales of Animal Friendship and Four-legged Heroes by National Geographic – 2014
Autism Paws of Honor Award
Pet Hero of the Year 2016/Florida Veterinary Medical Association Hall of Fame
American Red Cross A Hero Among Us Outstanding Service Award – 2016
Featured in The Book of Heroes by National Geographic – 2017
Ronald McDonald House Caring and Sharing Award – 2017
United States Equestrian Federation/Equus Foundation Horse Stars Hall of Fame

Therapy horse Magic is a member of Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses, an award winning, all volunteer 501(c)(3) charity celebrating 20 years of service.  The teams of therapy horses bring love to over 25,000 adults and children each year inside hospitals, hospice programs, and with families who have experienced traumatic events.

We are looking forward to the next ten years with this amazing little horse.

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.gentlecarouseltherapyhorses.com
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses
352-226-9009

Community/Charity, Equine Assisted Therapy

Awards for Little Therapy Horse Magic

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Therapy horse Magic of Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses received the 2016 Pet Hero of the Year award in Tampa, FL and became a member of the FVMA Pet Hall of Fame.

Magic also received an American Red Cross Hero Among Us Outstanding Service Award in Nashville, TN in 2016 and is featured in the newly released The Book of Heroes by National Geographic.

The tiny horse has helped survivors, medical professionals and first responders of the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL. She has also worked with the tornado survivors of Moore, OK, child trafficking victims in Washington, D.C., and in children’s and veterans hospitals across the country.

http://www.today.com/video/miniature-horse-makes-dying-womans-wish-come-true-573356611506

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/pulse-orlando-shooting/therapy-horses-provide-healing-to-medical-examiners-office#

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses, an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) charity, works with over 25,000 adults and children each year inside hospitals, hospice programs and with families who have experienced traumatic events.

Some of Magic’s other honors include:

One of History’s 10 Most Courageous Animals – TIME Magazine
Most Heroic Pet in America – AARP
A Reader’s Digest/Americantowns Power of One Hero
One of the 10 Most Heroic Animals of 2010 – The Daily Beast
E. T. York Distinguished Service Award
One of Seven Most Notable Animal Heroes in the World – The Daily Mirror
Magic is a Deputy with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.
United States Equestrian Federation/Equus Foundation Horse Stars Hall of Fame – 2015

Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses
www.Horse-Therapy.org
www.facebook.com/TherapyHorses
352-226-9009