Can autistic children who don't or can't ride still benefit from horses?

Why a child might not ride — and why that's fine

Families arrive at this question from very different places. A child may find the movement, the height or the helmet too much sensorily. They may not have the postural control or trunk strength that sitting on a moving horse asks for. There may be a medical reason their doctor or physiotherapist has flagged. Or — just as valid — the child simply doesn't want to, and pushing would break the trust the whole thing depends on.

None of that means horses are off the table. It means the horse meets the child where the child actually is. In our experience and in the sector generally, the moment that changes a child is rarely the moment they get on; it's the moment a very large animal chooses to stand still beside them and breathe.

What the research actually shows

The strongest single piece of evidence in this field is still a randomised controlled trial by Gabriels and colleagues (2015), published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. It randomised 127 autistic children and adolescents aged 6–16 into 10 weeks of therapeutic horseback riding or a barn-activity control group — children who came to the same riding centre and learned about horses, but had no direct contact with the horses.

The riding group showed statistically significant improvements against the control:

• Irritability — effect size 0.42 (p = .05)
• Hyperactivity — effect size 0.45 (p = .04)
• Number of words spoken — effect size 0.55 (p = .009)
• Number of new words — effect size 0.56 (p = .009)

Improvements on the irritability and hyperactivity measures began to show by the fifth week of the intervention.

Here is the part that matters for this question. Because the comparison group sat in the same barn, with the same staff and the same horse-themed lessons, and still did less well, the trial suggests it is contact with the horse — not the countryside, the routine or the attention — that carries the effect. Unmounted work keeps that contact entirely intact. What the trial cannot tell us is whether the riding specifically was necessary, because therapeutic riding as delivered in the study already blends ground-based horsemanship with mounted work.

That precise gap is now being tested. In October 2024 the Human Animal Bond Research Institute funded a team led by Dr B. Caitlin Peters (Temple Grandin Equine Center, Colorado State University) and Dr Robin Gabriels (University of Colorado Anschutz) to run the first study to randomly assign autistic young people to mounted versus unmounted horse interactions. Twenty-four autistic young people aged 6–16 will each experience three conditions: horseback riding, grooming a horse, and interacting with a life-sized model horse as a no-horse control.

The reason the team gave for doing it is the honest heart of this guide: autistic young people who were unwilling or unable to ride had previously been excluded from equine-assisted services research altogether. The study is designed to inform a fully unmounted protocol so that more children can take part at all.

Meanwhile, a 2024 scoping review in Issues in Mental Health Nursing (Cleary and colleagues) pulled together 16 articles from 15 studies on equine-assisted therapies and the mental health and wellbeing of autistic children and adolescents. It found reported benefits for children and for the people around them — and was clear that the field still needs stronger research. Our full evidence guide goes deeper →

Five ways to be with a horse without riding

Non-ridden models are already established practice in the UK. Track Clinic in Somerset, for example, states plainly that no riding takes place in its equine-assisted sessions and that no previous experience of or interest in horses is required.

And it doesn't have to be a horse at all

A horse is a lot of animal. For some children the same social opening arrives more easily through something small enough to sit on a lap.

In a study by O'Haire and colleagues, autistic children who took part in an eight-week classroom programme with guinea pigs showed significant increases in social skills and significant decreases in problem behaviours on the teacher-rated Social Skills Rating System — while the control group showed no significant change on those measures. In related observations, the children were more talkative and more cheerful in the presence of the guinea pigs than in the presence of toys, and more likely to look at faces, make physical contact and interact with other children and adults.

This is why Stable Ground is being built around a mix of animals rather than horses alone. The right animal is the one your child can be comfortable near.

How to try it gently

• Ask for an unmounted or "meet the animals" first visit. Any good provider will offer one, and won't push for more.
• Go when it's quiet. Mid-morning on a weekday beats a busy Saturday for a first look.
• Agree the exit plan before you arrive — where you'll go if it's too much, and that leaving early is a success, not a failure.
• Send photos or a short video home first so the yard, the animals and the person are familiar before your child walks in. Local services near you →
• Let the first session have no goal. Standing at the fence for twenty minutes is a completed session.
• Check the medical side. If your child has any condition affecting their neck, spine, joints, bones or seizures, ask their GP, paediatrician or physiotherapist before any mounted activity — unmounted work is often the sensible starting point regardless.

Sources

1. Gabriels RL et al. — "Randomized Controlled Trial of Therapeutic Horseback Riding in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder", Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2015 — PMC4475278 · jaacap.org
2. Human Animal Bond Research Institute — "New Research to Examine Benefits of Equine-Assisted Services for Autistic Youth" (mounted vs unmounted randomised study), 21 October 2024 — habri.org
3. Colorado State University — "New research to examine benefits of equine-assisted services for autistic youth" (Temple Grandin Equine Center) — source.colostate.edu
4. Cleary M et al. — "A Scoping Review of Equine-Assisted Therapies on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Autistic Children and Adolescents", Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2024 (16 articles from 15 studies) — PubMed 39042874
5. O'Haire ME et al. — "Effects of Classroom Animal-Assisted Activities on Social Functioning in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder" — PMC3948601
6. Riding for the Disabled Association — About Us (39,000 participants, 13,700 volunteers, 1,700 coaches, 2,800 equines, over 400 centres; Quiet Corners and Tea with a Pony) — rda.org.uk
7. Track Clinic via Wiltshire Together — equine therapy listing stating no riding takes place — wiltshiretogether.org.uk

Last reviewed: 20 July 2026 · Stable Ground