The BentonHouse Experience

Reins for Gains sponsored a group of children from Benton House in a summer horsemanship program at Palatine Stables. Reins for Gains is a 501C3 not for profit organization that provides scholarships for all types of therapeutic riding.  Benton House provides social services and a safe environment for children in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.
It was the idea of Dr. Jay Mamon to give back to the community where he was raised. Dr. Mamon was born and raised in Bridgeport,a Chicago inner city neighborhood. His love of horses was established when taking rare field trips with Benton House when he was a child.  At the age of twelve, his family agreed to fund his purchase of half a foal, paying half the $200 asking price, from a family who made weekend visits to an Indiana farm.  But before the foal grew large enough to ride, the family moved, the pony was not seen again, and most equine interests were lost for many years.  As fate would have it, Dr. Mamon's youngest child, Morgan, is an avid horse lover, and her experiences and her quest for her own horse led him to recently find and purchase Huffnagle, an 18 hand Percheron crossbreed, making up for much more than the half he lost as a child. 

RFG worked with Benton House staff to arrange the weekly stable visits, and helped the children get to the stables, where they began to bond and develop trust with the horses there, including Jay's 18 hand Percheron horse, Huffnagle. Their visits included a long, complicated bus and train commute; they worked with and learned about horses.  They learned to groom, painted, led and showered their new equine friends, Dr. Mamon's dream of giving these inner city children experiences with these wonderful animals had become a reality.