STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The covered arena at Swiftsure Ranch was packed with women sporting embroidered cowboy boots and men crowded around a table full of exotic whiskeys ripe for the bidding.

But it was a mother standing on the stage that lassoed the attention of the crowd that turned out for Swiftsure’s annual Cowboy Ball.

The woman described the exhausting carousel of therapies she had juggled for her son Lonnie, including speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy and tumbling classes. She had stacked appointments and dragged her other children to every session.

Nikki Roos, the new vet at Sawtooth Equine Center attended her first Cowboy Ball for the first time with Quinn de la Haye.

And, when those therapies stopped working and Lonnie refused to go, she hit a wall.

"I had to dig deeper. I had to find something else. And that was hard. That was really, really hard," she said. "Until I found this here."

She discovered Swiftsure in 2019.

"It's like walking into this amazing, huge barn and someone saying, ‘Here's your horse, Lonnie.’ What power does that give someone without a voice?!"

Lauren Chiara, event committee chair, had been coming to the Cowboy Ball for years before taking the reins.

Then COVID hit. A few weeks later, a house fire took everything the family owned. They rebuilt their lives in a cramped trailer while construction dragged on. But, even during the shutdown, Swiftsure stayed connected, the staff sending Lonnie pictures of the horses.

By the time the program was able to start up again, Lonnie was struggling. But walking back into that barn changed everything.

"If you guys are my age or older, you might remember the show ‘Cheers,’ " Lonnie’s mother told the crowd. "Norm would walk in and everybody would yell 'Norm!' I swear that's how it is when Lonnie walked in. Everybody yelled, 'Lonnie! We're ready for you!,' and he swelled up with so much confidence."

In the weeks to come, Lonnie learned confidence and he learned self-respect. And, when Swiftsure launched a mothers' support group, his mother jumped at the chance. But, instead of the note-swapping session she expected, program manager Kristy Wood led the moms straight to the barn and told them to pick a horse.

Helen Mehra-Pedersen, who painted the 2025 Wagon Days poster, painted a horse on the spot to be auctioned off to raise money for Swiftsure.

"I thought we were all going to sit down and we were going to talk about the doctors and therapists we liked. No. We were here to work."

Over four weeks, the mothers groomed horses and confronted emotions they hadn't known they were carrying. In one exercise, a blindfolded participant had to lead a horse through obstacles while a partner gave verbal directions — an experience that cut straight to the heart of what it means to trust when you can't see where you're going.

"Kristy dove into the emotion," she recalled. "She really brought it out in us what we are dealing with as a mom of special needs. It was emotional. And I didn't know how much I needed it. It was actually liberating."

That’s all it took for participants to raise paddles in the shape of horses’ heads high to raise funds for the ranch. They bid on auction packages like five days on the Big Island of Hawaii as they chowed down on Flat Iron Steak and Parmesan Stuffed Chicken.

Becki Barnes, Emily Berman and Katie Barnes showed up in their best cowboy outfits.

They bid on a Ferrari dream trip to Modena, Italy, and they bid on a coat rack that longtime Swiftsure participant Doug Cameron, a former rancher who suffered a spinal cord injury, fashioned from horseshoes used at the ranch.

They put their money down on 18kw Horseshoe studded earrings donated by Christopher and Co. and a painting of a horse done on the spot by palette knife painter Hether Mehra-Pedersen. And they even sprung for a Peak Performance Evaluation for their horse offered by Sawtooth Equine Service.

Swiftsure provides free equine-assisted therapy for adults and children dealing with traumatic brain injuries, Parkinson's disease, ADHD, learning disabilities and other challenges. Its 1,000-pound steeds serve as teachers, therapists and confidants for participants who range from young children to military veterans, and insurance doesn't cover the type of therapy the ranch offers.

"The horses are really the teachers, and we're simply the facilitators, and the result is truly magic," one staff member said.

Nikki Roos, the new vet at the Sawtooth Equine Center in Bellevue, having come to the Wood River Valley from Bozeman, took it all in. She trained in Scotland working with its renowned race horses.

“I’m glad to be back with the cow ponies,” she said. “And this—this is so important. people connect with horses.”

Executive Director Kristy Heitzman kicked off the evening with a candid admission that drew laughs from the crowd: she's still scared of horses after taking the reins of the organization more than a year ago.

But, after a year at the helm, Heitzman said she's learned to talk hay and sugar content, change filters and navigate irrigation.

"This place is so special — it provides something special to each one of us individually,” she said. “And we’re expanding as the community grows. We’re adding new horses, new programs. Thank you for believing in our mission, believing in the work we do, believing in the power of the horses and humans.”