How a Horse Provided the Key to Healing for an Autistic Boy

Rupert found his soul mate in Kristin. Marriage suited them and they looked forward to starting their family. They were thrilled when Rowan was born, a perfect little boy. But as time passed, they realized something was very wrong.

By the time Rowan was three, he'd regressed alarmingly. It was then they received the heart-stopping diagnoses-autism, their perfect little boy was autistic. From then on, their life became a nightmare of caring for a son who was unable to communicate, was incontinent and threw tantrums that kept them locked at home. He was so needy they were unable to leave him.

The treatments for Rowan's autism that they tried were either inadequate, didn't work or were actually cruel. Rupert, who once looked forward to having a son to share his love of riding, gave up his dream of a son to share his expertise with horses. But one day, on a walk in the woods, for nature seemed to calm the autistic Rowan, Rowan got away from his dad. Rupert found him practically under the hooves of a dominate mare in a field of horses on a neighbor's property.

To his amazement, instead of trampling the audacious autistic little boy, the mare showed submission. So began a journey to find and heal Rowan, a story that took the family into the heart of the horse, and into the heart of Mongolia.

As Rowan responded to Betsy, the horse, so Rupert and Kristin grew hopeful that there were answers to Rowan's autism, and that just maybe their autistic son could be helped. When the family came in contract with Shaman healers and found, at least temporarily, the "treatment" given helped their autistic son, Rupert began to research native healers.

A desire grew to take his son to the healers he researched, but it was an impossible dream for these healers lived far away in Outer Mongolia and the trip would be a nightmare of planning, time, money and effort, if they could find the healers at all. But Mongolia held the lure of horses as well as healers both of which seemed to be the key to reaching the autistic Rowan.

Time was not on their side for Rowan was fast growing into an unmanageable size and weight. But the dream did become a reality and, with film crew in tow, Rupert and Kristin began the long, tedious and, sometimes, dangerous journey into Outer Mongolia with an autistic son who made the journey many times more difficult.

They took an autistic son who didn't communicate intelligibly, who, at almost 6-years-old, didn't use the bathroom, who went into inexplicable tantrums, partly due to his sensitivity to his surroundings, and didn't even take his parent's hand to walk.

But a miracle happened on that trip and the autistic son who left for Outer Mongolia was a completely different child from the one who returned.

"The Horse Boy" chronicles the journey of this family to find help and wholeness for their autistic son through nature, horses and healers. A journey that continues as the family now reaches out through horse therapy through The Horse Boy Foundation to help other children.

A story that tugs the heartstrings and shows that commitment, love and determination can work miracles.