We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allie Sarnataro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Allie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

We currently manage our own social media. We have Facebook, Instagram and now Tiktok. I think it depends on each company how they’d like to manage their social media. But personally I think someone from within the company who knows the heart and soul of the program and can share the stories.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

My name is Allie Sarnataro, I got involved with therapeutic riding as a volunteer. The first day on the job volunteering I fell in love with therapeutic riding as a whole and how it changed not only the riders but the staff and all the volunteers as well. I remained a volunteer for 8 years until I decided I would like to make this my career. I worked my way up through different therapy centers from an instructor, to a program coordinator, volunteer coordinator, program and volunteer director and now Executive Director of Ride Above Disability.

Ride Above Disability Therapeutic Riding Center is a PATH (Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship) member center that teaches recreational riding to children and adults of all ages with special needs. We opened in our doors in April of 2014. The idea behind Ride Above was to create a place where the entire family could come and feel welcome, relax and enjoy their time at the ranch. While special needs riders are our focus, we also teach siblings and parents who are interested, which gives our families an activity they can share together. Ride Above is a place for family and community, not just for our students but our volunteers and instructors as well. Everyone at Ride Above is committed to changing lives for the better, no matter who you are. We look at every person that is involved and see ability. With a dedicated staff, Ride Above Disability strives to make a difference in the lives of our riders as well as the community of San Diego.

Each rider gets an individualized lesson weekly that is tailored to their needs and goals. For some this is working on verbal communication (we’ve had clients whose first words were spoken while on the back of a horse), while others build the core strength they need to be able to walk without a wheelchair or walker, and finally some are really expanding their riding skills and going to local competitions.

We serve students age 4 to 104 with physical, emotional, social, and behavioral disabilities. Some examples of the disabilities we work with are ADD/ADHD, traumatic brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cognitive defects, autism spectrum, amputations, cerebral palsy, behavioral problems, learning disabilities, hearing, vision and speech impairments, anxiety etc.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Katie Cram and Wayne Jackson are the other two co-founders of Ride Above Disability Therapeutic Riding Center. We actually met at another local therapy center where Wayne and I started as volunteers and Katie was working. I eventually began working there as well and then we remained friends and stayed with each other throughout the years in different aspects of our lives, careers and other therapeutic riding centers. In 2014, we decided we were ready to take on the venture of starting our own therapeutic riding center and knew some things we wanted to change or do differently.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Honestly, word of mouth from current riders would probably be our number 1 resource. We get a lot of inquiries from doctors offices, PT and OT offices, google searches for the area, event booths we have around the community. But I would say our students are the best advocates for the program and how riding benefits them. They are always recommending us to their friends, school mates or those who they think would benefit from therapeutic riding as well. We currently have a waitlist of 45 students waiting to join our riding program.

Contact Info:

• Website: radtrc.org
• Instagram: @rad_therapeutic_riding
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/radtrc
• Other: tiktok: ride_above_disability