Following the 2024 PNHS, the PNHS Foundation awarded grant funding to 41 therapeutic riding centers, equine rescues and other equine-assisted services programs. Now, in the lead-up to the 2025 PNHS, we are shining the spotlight on many of these recipient organizations!

In South Carolina, one of those exemplary organizations is Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding.

What is your organization’s mission? How do you serve your community?

“The Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding community empowers people and transforms lives through therapeutic connections with horses.

CATR is dedicated to providing quality equine-assisted services to the community. Meta Carter and Eileen McGuffie, both accomplished equestrians, founded CATR in 1991. CATR’s program began with three students, a volunteer instructor, a few volunteers and two wonderful horses. Today, CATR employs eight PATH International-certified instructors who work together with 150 volunteers to serve more than 160 children and adults with disabilities each year.”

What are some of the biggest challenges your organization currently faces?

“CATR currently faces a staffing and horse-availability problem. While we currently have 15 horses in the program, we take a lot of considerations to match our riders and our horses based on abilities, size and weights. We only have a few horses who are able to carry taller and larger students, and each horse has a schedule of how many times they are able to go in the program each week, with a workload description based on their age, physical fitness level and other measuring factors.

Overall, the biggest challenge we face as a non-profit organization is that the cost of everything has greatly heightened over the last couple of years. Just the cost of keeping our current herd fit and healthy adds up with vet bills and monthly upkeep such as body work, farrier visits and more!”

How has the PNHS Foundation grant impacted your program’s ability to serve your community?

“The Pennsylvania National Horse Show Grant has allowed CATR to have some breathing room when it comes to our horse-care budget. Our horses are the heart of our program and without them we would not be able to do what we do every day. CATR is grateful for the support of our herd. The grant allows CATR to focus on what each horse might need to help them be at their very best for our students and go that extra mile for them.”

Can you share a success story of a horse or participant who benefited from your program?

“This spring session we held our “Lessons for Life” public high school program, which focuses on building life skills for young adults with disabilities. As part of this program, the students and their instructors are working on the Horse Data Project, where students use their horsemanship skills to gather important details about each horse, such as their color, markings, preferences and height. They even interview our barn manager, Sara, to learn what they cannot observe on their own such as the horse’s breed, pasture buddies and even nicknames. After we completed the data collection, CATR’s intern, Mackenzie, an occupational therapy student at the Medical University of South Carolina used the information to create horse-themed trading cards, so each member of the CATR herd will have their very own “baseball card”.

Mackenzie sent out a survey to the teachers and received the following quote about a student from one of the classroom teachers:

‘Student A is doing great in the classroom. She is not actually my student (was 2 years ago), but I saw how she was struggling with behaviors, regulation and participation in her classroom and asked if we could bring her with us to CATR. She has made a complete turnaround since she started coming to CATR in February. Her parents are also seeing changes in her behavior at home. She had a doctor’s appointment this morning, and her dad rescheduled it because she was so upset to miss her time at CATR.’”

What future goals do you have for your program and how can additional support help?

“CATR would like to add another public school program in 2026, totaling three groups each session from the local school system here in Charleston County. CATR would also like to cut our waitlist by 25 percent next year and also start the plans to renovate some of our barns and office area. Additional support is needed for our facility upgrade as well as continued support for our Student Scholarship Program, and of course, it is important to continue supporting our amazing therapy horses that do so much for so many people here in the Charleston community.”

Is there anything else you’d like donors/grant supporters to know about the impact of their support?

“At CATR, an inviting nicker, a gentle nuzzle and a steady gait are life-changing moments for a special education student, a disabled veteran and a child grieving the loss of a loved one. We have seen time and time again that these unique experiences instill the hope needed to tackle and move beyond life’s challenges. Our donors and grant supporters are a part of CATR’s unique mission to empower people and transform lives through therapeutic connections with horses.”

Want to learn more about CATR? Visit catra-program.org and watch “Walk On” here. In this short film, 4-year-old rider Forrest experiences the therapeutic power of therapeutic horseback riding. Forrest’s progress is documented over the course of his therapy, and you can see the powerful effect that horseback riding has on his body and mind.