Alvaro Gutierrez: Hello and welcome to Project Access For All. Our guest today is Alicia Kershaw. She is executive director of Gallop NYC. Today we are gonna talk about riding horses for people with disabilities, their benefits and everything related to this wonderful organization. So thank you so much Alicia for being with us

Alicia Kershaw: You’re very welcome.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Now we have to ask you first of all a little bit what can you tell us about Gallop NYC and its mission.

Alicia Kershaw: Well Gallop NYCs mission is to offer therapeutic horsemanship lessons to people with disabilities in New York City and we help people walk, talk, think, connect, behave and learn so that they can live their lives as fully and productively as possible all using this wonderful animal, the horse.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Can you tell us about some of the programs you have?

Alicia Kershaw: Our primary program is a therapeutic horseback riding program and it offers horseback riding lessons to people with disabilities. About most of our writers are children so that’s we do work with adults and are happy to work with adults and about half our riders are on the autism spectrum and about most of those are non-verbal kids who are not verbal. We also work with riders with Cerebral palsy, visual impairment, traumatic brain injury and really just about any down syndrome, just about any disability or disorder you can think of, we probably
worked with a child with that who presents that disorder.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Can you tell us how do you prepare the riders for what is gonna be their adventure. How is that?

Alicia Kershaw: Well, it varies. Most of our writers are not afraid. They are very excited. They immediately take to the horse and they are very happy to ride. Sometimes we work with a lot of school groups and sometimes the teachers will request that we come and do a briefing or the teacher will have introduced the children to horses in some way through a book or something. That’s always helpful. We don’t just bring the kid in and throw them on the horse. We introduce them to the horse. WE often have them lead the horse, be comfortable with the horse before we mount them on the horse because it’s supposed to be a fun experience, not a frightening one. The whole point of it is to be positive. When we do have a child that is frightened we just take our time. We once had a little girl who had 15 lessons before she agreed to get on the horse and we did everything. We had this little tiny pony and we were grooming it and it was quite funny, but once she got on, once she made her mind and decided to ride, she now will ride any horse we give her and absolutely adores it, so it was took some patience but the payoff was 100 percent worth it.

Alvaro Gutierrez: I wonder, is there any age restrictions for riding a horse?

Alicia Kershaw: We start at age 4. We have children as young as 1 or 18 months sometimes, but they ride under the supervision of a physical therapist because you can run into some problems with hip displacement if you are not very carefully treating really young children. As far as upper ranges of age, we have a 72 year women with MS so and we have a program for seniors.
It’s called Silver Saddles to help seniors get back on the horse as well so once they’re passed off on by the physical therapist, there’s no age limit really.

Alvaro Gutierrez: What are some of the benefits of horseback riding for people with disabilities?

Alicia Kershaw: Well, the first, I’d like to explain it in sort of stages. So the first stage is the physical benefits and the horse is I’ve had physical therapist tell me the perfect physical therapy tool. It's warm, it's moving. It moves in a 360 degree plane so to speak, axis. When you’re sitting on a horse and the horse is walking, your upper body is doing exactly what it does if you are walking. So we’ve actually had people that use wheelchairs that are able to walk after they ride and we’ve had many people who have walked better after riding than they did before they ride. For people with Cerebral palsy, it’s very the warmth and the way you sit on a horse is very relaxes the limbs of people with Cerebral palsy. So the physical element is big and a lot of our riders who don’t present with a physical disability nevertheless don’t have a lot of physical recreation outlets because they can’t play organized sports which is the primary way people get exercise, at least in the states. So even for people who don’t have a physical disability, the ability to get some recreation on a horse is a very positive benefit. Then you get into areas, and that’s been thoroughly researched and clarified in the literature, then you get into areas that are a little harder to document as far as research, but one thing we do know is that when people are around horses, it’s calming. And not for you apparently, but for others, their heart rate goes down. There are studies showing that people’s heart rates go down when they are near horses. So for a lot of our riders who are very really in a very constant state of anxiety, riding a horse can be very calming and that in itself can allow them to function better and think better. WE actually have kids that are nonverbal who speak when they’re riding. Not, you know, not a lot, but one in a couple dozen I’d say. Then you get to the fact that it’s fun, so kids who are subjected to physical therapy routines or cognitive drills or that sort of thing, you know that can get stale very fast and a lot of people, you know, understandably can get resistant to it. But when they’re riding, its fun they’re able to control this massive animal and they don’t even realize that they’re getting skills worth and skills practice. The skills that we teach in riding are easy to break down in steps so for kids who have problems sequencing or putting a series of steps together into one fluid motion, the way riding work is easy to break it down and help them develop that fluidity of skills. So it’s a combination of factors and then the last thing that we talk about usually is the emotional bond the people feel for horses. It’s a very ancient, historic bond. Horses and people have been together for thousands of years and our riders really do connect with their horse and bond with the horse in a way that is quite unique in their life sometimes and that is also a powerful motivator and it’s a wonderful comfort I think for kids to have this horse that’s kinda in their corner and got their back and they know is there for them.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Alicia, I have to say very serious because they must be thinking so you don’t feel well when you are riding a horse. Let me say that you know what happen was, before the interview, I was telling Alicia for listeners that I will say will do three years ago to try horse backing riding for the first time in my life in New Jersey in a stable where they never had a person with a disability and I’m really blind, so it’s an adventure. I would like to know Alicia what you think about how it happened, meaning I went there, I was calm but then I got on top of the horse and I’m nervous and I feel anxiety, which is very common in the blind community and also I felt a little bit of vertigo and also a little bit of like what is gonna happen? Am I gonna fall? what is gonna happen there and so the people there told me we have never had someone with a disability, we don’t know it’s gonna be, how comfortable you’re gonna be, so were gonna out a person behind you so you are gonna feel more protected and just go with the flow. This is a very calm horse. (Laughter) okay so.

Alicia: When you say behind you, you say another horse? Or on the same horse?

Alvaro Gutierrez: on the another horse and sometimes I would feel, okay let’s say something happens to me, because they are kind of a little bit far away from me. I mean they stay behind but eh so will they be able to take me you know help me on time or whatever, so I was worried for a few things. My question to you Alicia is what is gonna happen with you? But before that like I had no idea how it was the process you know so you freak out if you are not told certain things in a place like mine.

Alicia: I think that what your question raises some very deep questions and concerns about peoples discomfort with disability. People who don’t have disabilities discomfort with disability. I think many people would be embarrassed to sit down and ask you questions like that which is a big problem because in your case, they miss the opportunity to find out how to make you more comfortable. Once of the things when we train our volunteers one of the things we say is you know the person that has the disability that you’re working with, they’re use to it. They know they’re disabled. They’ve had a disability for their whole lives probably or if not for a very long time and you can ask them questions, you can talk about it and they are very comfortable telling you yes I can do this, no I can’t do that. So I think the that’s a problem when people don’t are somehow feel reticent to address it head on. And you know to be kind, I’m sure the
organization you rode with were trying to do something for you. Honestly, there’s so many things I could say starting with there’s not a, there’s nothing someone can do to help you if they’re riding behind you. (Laughter) if your horse took off, they’re never gonna catch up.

Alvaro Gutierrez: That’s what I thought.

Alicia Kershaw: So I think perhaps you were right to be nervous. And it doesn’t just happen to people with disabilities I’ve been in many situations where people were put on a horse that I didn’t think was appropriate let’s just put it that way. So let me shift it a little bit and rather than criticize this organization I don’t know,

Alvaro Gutierrez: Sure

Alicia Kershaw: talk about it in a more positive way of what we do.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Sure

Alicia Kershaw: So first of all we have somebody leading the horse on lessons until the rider is very accomplish. And then we have someone walking on each side of the horse, often holding on to the rider. And we check, you know horses are animals, they’re unpredictable at times. You can’t, they’re not a machine, so you know and they are a flight animal. They’re easily startled so if something if a plastic bag flies under their nose, they’re likely to leap or maybe run a little bit so you know there’s no 100 percent certainty but we check out the horses and we use horses that are what we call “Fiddy proof” because were right in the heart of New York City. And so we only use horse that are very difficult to spoof. We call it spoofing or to frighten. And then we have a person leading them and people walking behind alongside. So should the horse
decide to go too fast or something, there are a number to ways that we can make sure the rider is safe. Then we try to be very attune to the rider. Now it’s a balance. You want to challenge the rider and then in many situations where the rider is initially nervous, but then becomes comfortable and finds a great sense of achievement in becoming comfortable on the horse. So you just have to feel your way a little bit and listen carefully to make sure you’re not pushing the ride too far but you are also helping them overcome their fears. It’s a very intelligent thing to be a little bit nervous when you’re on this big animal and you don’t have any confidence that you know how to stop it if it decides to go somewhere. It’s not a it’s not something to take lightly if you feel that the rider is nervous, but we do have we do find most of our riders get comfortable very very quickly and if they aren’t comfortable, we just take our time and then we let them we had a rider who little girl who, among other things, a very stubborn little girl and it took us 15 lessons to convince her to get on the pony. And we had a good time during those lessons, she groomed, she led, she had a blast, but she wasn’t getting on until she was ready. But once she got on that pony the rest was history. She loves riding she’ll ride any horse now. She’s a terrific little rider and I’m proud of the fact that we had the patience to give her the time for her to get comfortable and ready to do it.

Alvaro Gutierrez: You know Alicia, at a certain point in my ride, someone yelled, “Are you okay?” (Laughter) and that made me less okay.

Alicia Kershaw: yeah (laughter) what do they see that what should you be nervous about? Yeah I know. (Laughter)

Alvaro Gutierrez: I think they thought I was maybe too slow or something. So they were a little
bit afraid and they would see my face like ahhhh ok. So but I do believe and you are the professional I don’t know about this but people who are teaching you who are showing you who are embracing this with you, they have to have patience. You are talking about the little girl needing 15 lessons and you made it happen, not when you want it to be but when she was ready.

Alicia Kershaw: Yeah

Alvaro Gutierrez: I think you have to be careful for listeners, if you go to a stable and things are happening too fast for you and they are not slowing down, understanding your situation or maybe that you are feeling nervous, it’s your first time, not everybody feels the same way or you may have anxiety or whatever it may be, they need to understand your situation Alicia because if not, then you should go somewhere else.

Alicia Kershaw: I would encourage people with disability to look for a therapeutic riding center to start riding. I know there are places that don’t specialize it and they can offer a good experience but the patients issue is really a big one and it’s another thing we talked to our staff and our volunteers about because one of the problems for our riders, especially true of our writers in the autism spectrum, is that things take a lot of time and if you rush them, or even worse if you do it for them, you're depriving them the ability to learn and to acquire that skill, so I suggest to our volunteers that they count to 30 before they help a child do anything. Nobody ever gets to thirty really but give it a long time and I’ve often found that just when I’m thinking maybe it’s not gonna happen this time maybe I’m gonna have to help this child, the child will do what you ask and will take that step and it’s a fantastic moment for that child. You know I tell our volunteers, I know that you can stop the horse, I know you can fix the girth, I know you can pull on the rain, and I don’t really care. It’s the child doing it that is what is important and you’re gonna have to wait and give them the chance to do it. And it really is a great moment when it happens.

Alvaro Gutierrez: now let’s talk about the fear of falling from the horse that almost happen to me in many situations during the 60 minutes. I would like to know in general, parents tell you please be careful with them they don’t fall, how does that work?

Alicia Kershaw: Well this is kind of a more, not kind of, this is quite a generalization, but parents with children with disability can be very protective, but we have were in a we have a national accrediting organization that keeps safety statistics and really the number of incidents are minor and the incidents themselves are minor. A kid might be stepped on or might get nipped by a horse and while we don’t want that to happen, it’s not, you know nothing really dangerous. I think it’s a funny thing about falling off because most people who ride for pleasure or competitively will tell you that you know, until you fall off, you’re not a real rider, so I think sometimes horse people can be a little blaze about it. But we most one time we had a young man riding who was very seriously physically disabled and his mother his father brought him and his mother was very concerned about it and so we said well (they were divorced) so we said well bring mom, you know, let her come see it and when she saw the protections that we had around that rider she was very reassured and she also was able to see how much joy this young man took in riding. So that’s usually our strategy is to invite parents to come see it and explain the safety protections that we have in place and you know, if they’re not comfortable then you know, it’s not for them. But by large, people do get comfortable and they’re very
happy with it.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Do you have any videos online of the rides?

Alicia Kershaw: Yeah, yeah we do yeah! On our website, we have quite a few videos. We have one terrific one set that was the beginning Of a school group and then six weeks later where you can see, going back to our earlier discussion, this little boy who was really unhappy about riding just do a complete turnaround and absolutely fall in love with it. But we have quite a few videos. Various sources on our website and gallop NYC, www.GallopNYC is the website.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Well that is very interesting for listeners to understand the experience by listening. Thank you Alicia and I have a question that because it happened to me before the ride. So I go there and they say what kind of horse do you want?

(Alicia Kershaw laughs)

Alvaro Gutierrez: Do you mean, I have no idea?

Alicia Kershaw: Yeah, exactly.

Alvaro Gutierrez: What kind of you have? Oh well we have many, depending on the level of expertise of the rider. I said, well, hello it’s my first time.

Alicia Kershaw: yeah, you’re a beginner.

Alvaro Gutierrez: The question for Alicia is how are horses divided or classified for horseback riding and how do you know where to a child to put in what kind of horse from another.

Alicia Kershaw: Knowing you’re a beginner, that should’ve been the end that should’ve been all
they needed to know. But I would say if asked that question, I would say I’m a beginner I would like a very quiet horse. Sometimes people do go on rides and they wanna do the cowboy thing, so I think you know, maybe the company was trying to find a horse that was a little more fun. But a quiet horse would be my way of putting it. Horses walk trot and canter and the trot is pretty much a faster walk and then the canter is a completely different gate and quite fast. And, so the ability to trot and canter are dividing lines, so you could say I’m only, I only want to walk or I know how to trot or I’m comfortable trotting but I don’t want to canter. That sort of thing. The horses you’re gonna encounter at a business offering trail rides are gonna be pretty quiet to be honest and they are but they are, sorry about all the ums, but they are very heard about is the phrase we use. Meaning they don’t like to get too far from the group, they often like to be behind on horse and not another, they like to ride with the nose right up on the other horse. And sometimes they get a little irritated if they try and ask them to do anything else so while they are quiet, they also have their own little ways to do things and people sometimes get in trouble trying to manage a horse like that instead of just letting it walk along behind. But our horses are all very quiet and we might have out of 300 riders every week, we might have half a dozen who canter, so it’s very very low key.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Usually, the groups, how many people are in these riding groups?

Alicia Kershaw: Well you could have, it would really depend on your facility. For us, we usually have three riders at a time.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Oh

Alicia Kershaw: And we have someone teaching the class, someone organizing the kids and
three people, one leading and two walking along side each horse. And you know we don’t go on trails we ride in an enclosed area around in circles.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Ah, okay okay. Now I know this common question. You may not have an answer but out of curiosity I’m sure our listeners ask themselves, sounds very fun, how much time may require for me to learn how to ride a horse.

Alicia Kershaw: Ah, well, to be honest most of our riders are never gonna, that we have now, are not gonna learn how to ride a horse on their own so but if you did not have a physical or cognitive disability that made it difficult to handle the horse or understand how to manage the horse. I think you could learn how to ride reasonably well within about 6 months.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Taking how many classes a month?

Alicia Kershaw: Oh like once a week. You can figure out how to stay on and stop the horse within a, probably in one lesson. I would imagine 6 months to really feel comfortable. I don’t know, I learned to ride I think I was about 6. So and I’m 60 so I don’t even remember it. So it’s hard for me to (laughter) it’s hard for me to think back to what it was like to be a beginner.

Alvaro Gutierrez: I was told and again, you know, I’m not gonna say at the stable I mean they did okay they just didn’t know how to maybe handle that I had these issues before going into a horse but they told me, be careful because the horse is gonna sense if you are nervous. And that made not be so great.

Alicia Kershaw: this is I mean horses are, one of the reasons that people and horses have such a deep bond and one of the reasons they work so well for people with disability is there is a level
of communication that is not verbal and horses so very quickly pick up on our moods, I mean they can pick up on anxiety and again they are flight animals so their whole survival depends on them being very very aware of the environment around them. So if you are anxious, it’s not that they’re so much it makes them anxious but they are wondering what is he afraid of. It doesn’t occur to them I don’t think that, you would be afraid of them so they think maybe there’s some cougar you know, tracking them that you spotted and you’re nervous and so they start to get nervous because they fell this anxiety in the air. So it is true that if you can be calm around a horse and confident around a horse, a horse will be calmer around you. Horses in the wild have what we call a pecking water. They have a leadership structure and there is a top horse which is actually usually the mare in charge of the herd and each horse in the herd has this role on this pecking water under her and under or over another horse, so horses spend a lot of time trying to figure out who’s the boss and when you are handling a horse you have to convince the horse in a very positive way, not in a rough way, that you are the boss. And being confident and calm is part of that being the boss because the horse wants to be around a confident calm leader that makes them feel safe but if you’re anxious about riding you know it’s not always the best idea to say calm down when you are scared of the horse because that is usually has the opposite effect. So what we do is that we use breathing techniques so we get kids to take a deep breath and relax. We do talk to them about if you’re calm the horse will be calm, but we try and put it in a positive way and again our horses are, use to, are kids. So they know that if the kid is nervous there still is a leader in front of the horse who’s calm that they take their guidance from so we don’t have to worry about upsetting the horses. If the kid is a little bit anxious at first or if you know we have kids who have stimming behaviors, kids that yell, and our horses are use to that and also as I say they’re taking their cue as the person
leading them and as long as that person is calm, they figure out this noise isn’t gonna hurt me. I don’t have to worry about it.

Alvaro Gutierrez: So you have been riding horses for decades.
(Laughter)

Alicia Kershaw: well I took quite a long break between my mid-teens and my forties. (Laughter) But I’ve been around horses my whole life and I’m very very fond of them.

Alvaro Gutierrez: well, I’m seen so many cowboy movies.
(Laughter)

Alvaro Gutierrez: I have to ask Alicia...

Alicia Kershaw: there’s so much bad writing in cowboy movies but go ahead ask. I’m ready.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Well, when someone like William Holden or John Wayne you know is chasing the bad guys and he’s going very fast, I wonder really those people do that in real life?

Alicia: No! John Wayne wasn’t even that good of a rider. He looked pretty good on a horse but it’s a stunt rider and it’s a stunt horse. Almost always. I’m sure, I’ll get in trouble now, because I’m sure there are riders who could ride and did ride. I want to think maybe Clint east wood but I don’t know for sure. But by enlarge is you see those horse galloping along it’s a stunt rider and now you know you can CGI or whatever they do, they can fake anything now, so its even less likely to be a real rider.

Alvaro Gutierrez: But why, why it’s not real?

Alicia Kershaw: because it’s actually quite difficult to go that fast on a horse. And you are also you’re in a movie set you gotta make sure the horse doesn’t run over the camera. You know the ones who are the most skilled in those cowboy movies are the Indians because they are riding with no saddles they, and no bridles for that matter. And they would lean over the horse’s neck. They sometimes ride actually on the side of the horse you know they just have their knee hooked over the horse’s neck to stay on. I mean those are the incredible riders. The cowboys are just sitting there on top. (Laughter) but it’s actually very difficult riding. WE always actually we work with them war veterans, wounded veterans and a lot of them come to riding lessons with cowboys images and we try and debunk that pretty fast because its (laughter) our horses don’t move that fast anyways.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Why is that in the 60 minutes that I had, if you can see a lot of things happen in 60 minutes, there was two or three horses that were eating a lot of grass and so my friends were like annoyed by that saying oh stop eating, we are moving. Why is that Alicia? Should they eat before the ride or that is just normal or the rider has to control that?

Alicia Kershaw: yeah the rider has to control that. So in the wild horses eat all day. They graze and eat all day and they have very inefficient intestinal systems so they eat a lot of grass and they also poop a lot of grass. It all goes right through them. So the volume that goes through is huge but when you’re riding a horse, the horse is trying to eat. First of all their head is down and when the horses head is down, it makes you feel unbalanced because there’s nothing in front of you, so you want the horses neck and head up to help you feel more balanced and secondly, I’ve had horses that just want to eat all the time when you’re riding them and they are just not paying attention, not paying attention to you they’re not paying attention of the
path, they’re just thinking about food. So it doesn’t hurt them to spend an hour or two not eating and it’s much better for everybody if they don’t eat and once the horse, this is part goes back to the leadership point, once the horse figures out that they can you won’t stop them from eating you’re not in control of that horse anymore and they’ll do whatever they want.

Alvaro Gutierrez: yes

Alicia Kershaw: so for a lot of reasons, don’t let them eat.

Alvaro Gutierrez: for all of us, shouldn’t the people of the stable maybe go and be near the horse and say hey maybe you should stop eating. I’m saying just that Alicia that the rider doesn’t know how to stop that from happening. It would say stop eating, that wouldn’t work.

Alicia Kershaw: No of course not, that doesn’t work. You know again I wasn’t there but things that you someone could do in that situation us someone could get off their horse and lead your horse or someone could lead I you could sit on one horse and lead another horse. So they could’ve done a number of things to stop that horse from eating. There’s also bits of tact, you know, riding equipment that you could put on a horse. At Gallop, we use what they’re called grazing rains, like grazing on grass but they’re really anti grazing rain so there’s straps we hook to the halter and the saddle to keep the horse from putting its head down and that way we don’t nobody has to fret about it all the time. The horse really can’t put their head down to eat. But our horses gotten to a point where they know that if a kid is riding, they don’t get to that’s when they don’t eat. And then when the kid comes off, if we have a minute or two we let them eat for a little bit. And they pretty quickly get into that routine. But here are bits of equipment that they could use to keep the horse from putting its head down all the time or one of them
could’ve gotten off their own horse and helped you or they could’ve helped you from the horse. They may just not have realized you know how much concern how much anxiety you had.

Alvaro Gutierrez: I would like to know what else you would like our listeners to stay with with this talk about what is Gallop NYC all about.

Alicia Kershaw: Well, I’ll say that we spend a lot of time tracking the progress of our riders and while horseback riding is fun and having a relationship with a horse is rewarding and it’s a great experience, what we are really doing it for is to help our riders, like I said, walk, talk, connect, behave and learn better and focus better. And we set up goals so we are very serious about it we set up goals for our riders at the beginning of the usually they ride at about 12 weeks at a time. We set up goals in the beginning and at the end we see how they’ve done. Sometimes a goal is to have fun but a lot of times the goal will be to speak better, to have more a shorter longer attentions span, to respond to instructions more readily, to socialize more, lots of you know we have about 15 goals that we typically use to access a rider. And we do see I just recently put together our results for the last fall and 95% of our riders improved by at least one point on the scale of 5 for their goals, so we really do see very strong results and we have teachers who have sworn to have every kid in their school come ride with us every special needs kid. And parents who really have made horseback riding for their children a big priority because it really it really does work it really does help so that’s the message I’d to leave. That this really is really works and it’s a really serious thing and it’s a tremendous gift to be able to work with people and horses.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Alicia, what you mentioned is important. Let me see if I understand all of this correctly. When you’re talking therapy for people and children, even more importantly than ganals it continuously rides a horse in this environment for weeks and months, it’s like they progress in their development so to speak and by keeping doing this activity it’s gonna continue that effect should those people should those kids never stop riding, what do you think?

Alicia Kershaw: Well there’s been a study that shows the effects last for several months but that eventually, they can fade, so yes, if someone can keep riding as long as they’re enjoying it and its very individual, maybe some kids don’t progress, but as long as they are enjoying it and seem to be progressing, yes I think they should. Particularly with children you know children with disability brains are growing and developing all the time just like everybody else is and so it’s important to be to ride that way for development with the horseback riding and they’re gonna keep developing forever. With adults, I think it’s kinda the reverse, you’re trying to stop the climbs maybe you know but with kids, you can really it seems like we can really plug into their developmental curve and accelerate it or at least ride along it and so I would say yes, keep riding. We have a girl that just graduated from high school and is now in sort of a pre-college program whose ridden with us for 8 years and you know it’s been a great 8 years. She’s a wonderful young woman so and I think she’s benefitted from every lesson. She ended up towards the end, volunteering with us as well. You know it’s been a very rewarding relationship for everybody.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Alicia, tell us how can people contact you through social media, your phone whatever you can give us?

Alicia Kershaw: we’re on it all of it. Our website is www.GallopNYC.org. Its G-A-L-L-O-P which is the horses fastest gate something we almost never do but gallop nyc.org, we’re on twitter we’re on Facebook. I think if you Google gallop.NYC.org you’ll find pretty much all of us. You can contact me Alicia A-L-I-C-I-A @gallopnyc.org with specific questions and including how else to find us and hopefully we are easy to find.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Well Alicia it’s been a pleasure to have you (???) for all. It’s really been very enjoyable and I’ll just say before our interview, yes I will try again my horseback riding experience (laughter) please be nice in the near future when I go back to New York.

Alicia Kershaw: When you come to New York City, you get in touch with me and I will guarantee you’ll have a good experience on a horse.

Alvaro Gutierrez: I will and I will bring my cowboy hat.

Alicia Kershaw: There you go! (Laughter) thank you. I’ve really enjoyed this and I love talking about Gallop and I appreciate it.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Me too Alicia! And for Alicia, remember you can go to Facebook and like us Project Access For All. You can also follow us on twitter at Project Access For all. You can visit our website www.projectaccessforall.org. And if you want to be on the show, you can email us at podcast@projectaccessforall.org. So from Alvaro, from ABS, Project Access For All, thank you so much for listening and have a wonderful day.