Reno Veterans Can Find an Eight-Week Horse-Centered Mental Health Program

A horse is not impressed by a résumé, a rank, or a practiced answer to “How are you?” In a Horsemanship For Heroes Healing Class, the work can begin on the ground, beside an animal whose attention asks for the same thing a person in pain may have trouble offering anywhere else: presence.

That premise carries more weight here because Karolyn and Scott Hooper know military life from the inside. The retired Army veterans left service in 2016 after a combined 49 years in uniform, then found their own healing through horses, according to the organization. In 2023, they founded Horsemanship For Heroes in Reno to offer veterans, emergency responders, and their immediate families a free place to work through invisible wounds.

This is Reno veterans mental health support with dirt on its boots and clinical care in the room.

The Hoopers built a program for people who may need a route into healing that asks them to do something, notice something, and build trust with a living creature before they have words for every hard thing.

Horsemanship For Heroes

Supporting veterans’ mental health in Reno

Horsemanship For Heroes provides Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy & Learning, with sessions held on the ground and, when appropriate, in the saddle. Its weekly Healing Classes last 90 minutes and run across eight weeks, free for veterans, emergency responders, and immediate family members. The organization says the work supports resilience, emotional regulation, self-confidence, communication, and trust.

That structure matters. A horse gives immediate feedback to a person’s movement, energy, and attention. The class gives that interaction a container. Kelly Dawson, the organization’s clinical supervisor, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than a decade of mental health treatment experience, according to Horsemanship For Heroes.

The organization also runs HorsePower, an equine-assisted learning program for employee teams focused on leadership, team dynamics, and productive work. Still, the center of gravity is clear: free healing classes for people whose public-service roles have often required them to keep moving.

A veteran-built program with standards behind it

Horsemanship For Heroes reports that it is a PATH Intl. Premier Accredited Center, a meaningful marker for a program using horses in therapeutic and learning settings. The group also works alongside partners including VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System, the Reno Veterans Center, Nevada Peer Support Network, and Wounded Warrior Project.

KOLO 8 reported in January 2025 that the organization had expanded outreach through equine therapy for first responders and veterans. That expansion puts emergency responders alongside the veteran families already eligible for the eight-week classes, widening the circle without losing the program’s original point of view.

Horsemanship For Heroes offers 90-minute Healing Classes across an eight-week cycle at no cost to participants.

Free care still requires a cared-for herd

The invitation to participants is free. The horses, clinical integration, and program operation require steady backing. Horsemanship For Heroes currently seeks monthly gifts through Operation Stable Support, along with financial support for hay, feed, supplements, farrier care, and veterinary needs. Donors can also fund licensed mental health integration for an eight-week program term. The organization states that one full eight-week term can serve twenty participants.

That is the giving case. Fund the unglamorous, essential work that keeps a horse healthy and a clinician available, and a veteran or first responder can arrive at the arena without receiving an invoice. Support Horsemanship For Heroes through Operation Stable Support or a gift for herd care, so the next participant still has a horse waiting beside them.