Like acupuncture and meditation, equine therapy lives in that anecdotal world where plenty of credible people are convinced it works but can’t prove why. As a medical approach, it’s both older than the Hippocratic oath and newer than Lasik; ancient Greek healers, including Hippocrates himself, prescribed horseback rides as a treatment for chronic pain and emotional maladies, and by World War One it had been adopted by British hospitals to help heal wounded soldiers. Yet in the United States, equine therapy didn’t become widespread until the 1990s, when mental health workers began testing its
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