“Its hard to believe that what started with our own ponies in a small arena in … the woods of Hadlyme and … one teacher in a small local school has grown to be such an amazing organization.” – Cyndie Gould, Sis Gould’s daughter, 2023.
During the 1960’s therapeutic riding slowly made its way from England to the United States and Canada. By the mid-1970’s, though acknowledged here to be beneficial, the field was still in its infancy. Meanwhile, societal attitudes toward people with disabilities were finally changing as well.
In 1974, for the nascent field of riding for the disabled, the time was ripe for an extraordinary individual, bonded to horses and experienced in education, to create something unique, necessary and lasting. Sis Gould, High Hopes’ founder was that person.
Pressing friends into service, Sis started with eight students in a special class in Essex. The program, itinerate and relying on borrowed horses, barns, and a cadre of trained volunteers, was called Lower Connecticut Valley Educational Riding Association (L.C.V.E.R.A.). By 1991, renamed High Hopes Therapeutic Riding, Sis’ dream had its own facility, barns, horses, 75 participants ages 2-63, paid instructors, over 100 volunteers, and unlimited potential to serve the community.
Sis remained the same, “…even saying that she was the founder of High Hopes would most likely be refuted by her because she would immediately remind us that it has always been a group effort. She may have been the leader but her magic was that she chose to lead with a sense of humility from behind, shy of the limelight.” -Cyndie Gould, High Hopes Happenings, 2004.
Sis Gould, initiator of a program that has grown exponentially and now celebrating fifty years, was thoughtful, bold, down to earth, forthright and selfless. Sis had a profound understanding of the soft energy of horses. It was apparent in both her work with horses, and in the patience she had for participants, staff and volunteers alike. She also knew instinctively that the inequitable distribution of human frailties should not stand in the way of having a good time. She wanted the program to be fun as well as therapeutic. Sis led by being in the middle of it all, and with riding and her much beloved carriage driving, created a caring, supportive, accepting environment where people with disabilities could learn, grow and experience healing within the horse/human bond.
As Sis’ husband Lytt would put it “Sis was the spark plug – certainly not the noisiest part of the engine, just the crucial part to get it all going.”