The Alone Rangers and Silver.

n this issue of the Journal, Gabriels et al. report what appears to be the first randomized clinical trial of theraI peutic horse riding for children with autism. The result looks encouraging: a significant medium benefit compared with a randomly assigned control condition (a non-equine barn activity of equal duration and frequency) using an outcome measurement acceptable to the Food and Drug Administration for drug indications in autism (the Irritability subscale of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist). This report is most welcome and appropriate for several reasons. Throughout modern history, the collaboration, and even romance, of rider and horse have permeated legend, heroics, and triumph of good over evil. Just a few examples are the knight on a white charger (chivalry, after all, is named for horses); the horseshoe nail for which a kingdom was lost; Paul Revere’s ride; the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse (and Notre Dame pride); the idea of the cavalry to the rescue; Roy Rogers and Trigger; and the Lone Ranger and Silver. As work animals, horses worked in concert with their human mentors, as in Man With A Bull-Tongue Plow, or on a more upscale note, the Budweiser Clydesdales. For centuries, horses epitomized speed, power, athletic grace, and dedicated heart, as evoked by the phrases “sport of kings” and later the “iron horse,” “horsepower,” and “Seabiscuit.” The unity of the horse-and-rider dyad was celebrated in movies such as The Morgan Horse and National Velvet. So valued were horses that in the Western frontier, horse theft was often a capital crime based on the theory that stealing a person’s horse put his life in danger on the desolate plains or range. This equine-human link intersected with a more modern interest in pet-facilitated psychotherapy, in which a patient who cannot trust other people first learns to trust and relate to an animal and then to people, or in which a lonely person with depression finds upbeat companionship in a pet. It should not be surprising that equestrians would think of their steeds as logical partners in the animal-facilitated approach to psychosocial treatment and habilitation. After all, horses rival dogs in faithful companionship and exceed them in forming a working unit linked by physical contact and tactile communication. There were good reasons to suspect that horse riding might be useful for children with autism. For one thing, they can relate to the need for preservation of sameness. Horses are known to prefer the same routine, the same stall, the same path or route, and the same habits, similar to children with autism. More importantly, horses are content to be guided by nonverbal communication but are amenable to verbal instruction, allowing children to experience and practice the power of communication by controlling a much stronger force than themselves in ways within their