00:00Lula Bexalevitt was just four years old when she was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis,
00:06an incurable condition in which tumors grow uncontrollably in the body.
00:10She has had seven surgeries since that time, one of which damaged the nerves in her leg,
00:15leaving her with mobility challenges.
00:18Now, she's found one place where she can move just like everyone else,
00:22on the back of a 21-year-old former racehorse turned therapeutic riding horse
00:26named Fittipaldi, or Fiddy, who was helping her to heal both her physical and emotional scars.
00:33From the waist up, you can't really tell I have a disability.
00:37So a lot of people like to ask me, you know, what happened to your leg?
00:41There's no right way to respond to it.
00:43So someone that's having trouble with their walking or if they're in a wheelchair,
00:48you can put them on the horse and that gait, that motion,
00:53sets them on top of the world because they can walk again.
00:57They can actually walk again through this motion of the horse.
01:03When a friend came up with the idea of riding,
01:06it immediately gave me a jolt of excitement
01:10because I've sort of been looking for some sort of athletic outlet
01:16and we tried to play pickleball and it didn't work
01:19and that was very frustrating and you become hard on yourself
01:21for things that you can't help.
01:23So being able to ride has given me so much joy
01:27and so much more confidence and just overall excitement about life.
01:34Fiddy is wonderful.
01:36He raced 25 times.
01:39He has made the transition now to a therapeutic riding horse.
01:44You really do adapt, but, you know, there are things that are just a lot harder
01:48and you don't do it the way that other kids do it.
01:50So it makes you feel different and you don't, nobody wants to feel different.
01:54And when I'm on the horse, it feels so much more freeing
01:58because I don't have to use a crutch or a brace.
02:02The horse is moving how I tell it to move.
02:05It's a great feeling to do it with another being, right?
02:09Like the horse is supporting you and you're supporting the horse and leading the horse.
02:13So it's such a great bond.
02:16Tallulah is, she's amazing.
02:18She loves Fiddy already.
02:21She loves being here.
02:22She loves the idea of being able to do a sport that she could excel at.
02:28You can get that emotionally.
02:30She gets a lot of just love from Fiddy and gives it to him.
02:35This is a pretty big change for my life.
02:38I think I had put myself in a box a little bit before this.
02:42It's negating a lot of my life where I've felt like,
02:46okay, I can't do this because it's going to be harder
02:50or people are going to look at me weird or I'm going to have to do it differently.
02:53There's a freedom that I hadn't experienced before
02:56with just doing it and being able to do it in a way that I want.
03:02So it just reinforces how great of an animal horses are.
03:06The benefits for every type of human they can provide,
03:12I think is really special.
03:13Very, very special.
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