13 year old Rachael Doak from Wicklow is just one of the children who has been attending Festina Lente since the early. age of two.  According to her Mother Sarah Burns, ‘Rachael was born premature and at a year old she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in her legs and we didn’t know if she would ever walk.  At aged two Festina Lente had Rachael doing physiotherapy on a horse, stretching and strengthening her legs, improving balance and flexibility.  It’s amazing what they can do with a two year old on a horse.’

While Rachel can’t do gymnastics, dancing or other conventional school sports like her friends, horse riding has given her a freedom just like another other child.  Rachel explains, ‘On a horse you become one, I remember falling in love with ‘Beauty’ when I was very small  … that horse literally became part of me, my body, the horse was my legs giving me a freedom to be just ‘me’.  Festina Lente is a second home for me, it was so much more than physiotherapy on a horse, it’s part of my story.’