A safe space for rider mental health in the horse world

Mental Health Awareness Week highlights the importance of community in wellbeing

- By BECKY MURRAY

THE equestrian world has been praised as somewhere that can offer a safe space for riders struggling with their mental wellbeing.

The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (12-18 May) is community, and UK charity the Mental Health Foundation said being part of a safe, positive community is “vital for our mental health and wellbeing”.

Katie Turner, yard manager of Brookhouse Farm Riding School in the West Midlands, told H&H riding schools can provide a “safe space” for adults and children to be themselves.

“After Covid, a lot of people were struggling and they would come here and talk to us because it is their happy place, there's no stress here. They get to be with the animals they love and talk to people they get along with,” she said, adding that a group of teenagers at the yard has taken part in a new “ice bucket challenge”, the #SpeakYourMIND campaign, launched by the University of South Carolina’s Mental Illness Needs Discussion club.