A Lifelong Love Of Horses Has Always Guided Ruth Menor Of Vinceremos
Who knew that a little girl’s love for horses would one day turn into a passion that would positively affect the lives of hundreds of people in South Florida?
Ruth Menor, known today as the founder of the Vinceremos Therapeutic Riding Center, probably didn’t contemplate the future with much seriousness back then. She was just a happy girl with a deep respect for the equine friends she played with every day.
Growing up on a 500-acre dairy farm in Michigan was ideal for Menor, the youngest of four children. As the baby in the family, she often found herself paired with horses for playtime, rather than older siblings with other interests. She loved everything about the three horses that lived on the farm, riding them every chance that she had. She learned their ways, and they formed a close bond.
“My dad bought me a pony before I could walk,” Menor recalled. “Actually, he bought my brothers and sister a pony before I could walk, and none of them were so inclined. It ended up being my passion.”
Menor has trouble pinpointing why she had such an affinity for horses, but attributes it to several reasons, including the remoteness of farm life and the lack of playmates her age living nearby.
“In our therapy world, we call it authenticity. They [the horses] sense who you are. They sense your intent. They just have an innate sense about who you are, and when they have that confidence of you being authentic; you know, kind and loving, those are the things that they respond to,” she explained.
Menor never had riding lessons, but figured it out on her own, with the help of a naughty Shetland pony named Prince. She learned quickly to avoid the area of the yard where an apple tree grew, to prevent Prince bucking her off in favor of the apples. It is an amusing story, but also one that provides insight into a learning curve about horses that Menor mastered over the years on the farm. “I had a wonderful time of being out in nature and having that connection with my animals,” she said.
Life changed dramatically for Menor and her family when she was 12 years old. Her father passed away following a tragic farming accident. It was perhaps at this sad time that Menor began to experience the therapeutic aspect of horse life.
Her family moved from the farm and away from Michigan. Her mother, understanding the important role that horses played in her daughter’s life, arranged that she would always have a horse friend. They were unable to take the farm horses with her when the family relocated, but Menor’s mother knew that purchasing a new horse for young Ruth would help after losing her father and moving away from the farm.
“She knew that it was the thing that would help me to make those transitions to another kind of life, which was in a suburb, you know with sidewalks and neighbors within 15 feet of us,” Menor said. “I always had my horse friends.”
But life was very different. “It was quite a shift from having your horse in the backyard, to moving some place where it had to be stabled, and I had to go visit it,” she said.
Following the loss of her father, Menor remembers her mother making very wise decisions. Although there were changes, they didn’t come too rapidly.
“When you’re 12, you don’t think of all these things. It’s just how life is. But when I was 40 and had kids, I thought about what that would be like,” she said. “It was good to have that perspective and to know that it was a lot to manage.”
Menor’s attachment to horses was further influenced at a therapeutic riding center near Battle Creek, Mich. The Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center was a place where Menor’s mother felt her daughter would have fun, but Menor went far beyond what her mother intended. The facility ended up having a profound influence on Menor, who later graduated from Florida State University with a degree in therapeutic recreation. She returned to the Cheff Center following graduation, where she received her certification as a therapeutic riding instructor.
The year 1982 was a big year for Menor, who married her husband Michael, the brother of a good friend. Though she is credited with founding the Vinceremos Therapeutic Riding Center, Menor is quick to explain that she considers herself the co-founder, since her husband greatly supported the idea in its early days. When Menor began Vinceremos, there were just a handful of therapeutic riding centers in the state, and none near the Wellington area. The concept was completely foreign to the community at large. She and her husband had taken a huge leap of faith.
“I think I never considered it not working.” Menor said. “We just were going to make it work. It was going to happen.”
She believes it to be the grace of God regarding the success of the center and its current location.
“When we started in 1982, there was not the significant horse community that it is now, but if I had been really strategic about planning it, this would have been about where I landed, right here,” Menor said.
It was also well-timed due to the coming growth of the therapeutic riding concept.
“In 1982, children were just beginning to be diagnosed with autism, and no one really knew what to do with them,” Menor recalled. “You know, it’s interesting. With a horse, you deal with a non-verbal world, reading their behavior and creating an understanding. With some of our autistic clients, that’s what we do. We’re very conscious of what it is in their environment that is affecting their behavior, because often times they can’t verbalize. I was effective at working with those riders and children, because that was the world that we worked in, and I was accustomed to that.”
In the early years, Menor didn’t receive a paycheck, but eventually began to see the organization take shape and grow. At its origin, Vinceremos — which comes from the Latin for “we shall conquer” — started in a friend’s backyard with three horses and one client rider. Today, the therapeutic riding center has 21 horses available and provides a conquering spirit to approximately 140 clients each week.
Menor, currently the chief program officer, sees the mission of Vinceremos as a simple one: “Just to have everyone who comes here to not feel like they’re being treated as someone with a disability, but as someone who is just coming to ride. To have our clients be proud of their accomplishments. We never focus on the disability, but on the ability.”
The Vinceremos Therapeutic Riding Center is located at 13300 Sixth Court North in Loxahatchee Groves. For more info., call (561) 792-9900 or visit www.vinceremos.org.
