MIDLAND, Texas — Casen Blandford is an 11-year-old who is much more confident than he once was.
Casen deals with high level anxiety. He says it's a presence about 50% of the time.
"I'll start shaking and I feel shy or nervous," Casen Blandford said.
His parents say COVID made it worse and he's always been worried about standardized testing.
"Now I just feel like I can do it and I don't have a doubt that I know I'm going to get failing, I know I'm going to do horrible, I don't have that anymore," Blandford said.
That anxiety is now gone thanks to the Therapeutic Riding Center in Midland Texas.
"It was probably the greatest thing we've ever done," Chane Blandford, Casen's dad said.
After his lessons last summer, Casen's been helping out around the place ever since, riding and caring for horses here.
"I clean the water troughs," Casen said. "It helps a lot. If I could come out here every day I would actually."
But for his dad, this means even more.
"He's a special kid," Chane said. "He said, I'm normal. I'm like of course you're normal buddy, what do you mean? And so that's when he told us, he goes, no no, majority of people deal with anxiety and over half of those people have ticks just like me, I'm normal, so it was just, yeah, blew me away."
"I think it's helped him tremendously. As a boy, as the young man he's becoming and as the future man he will become," Chane said.
Casen trusts these horses, these trainers and this therapy, and it's helped him grow in a way he never realized he could.
Because wherever the wind blows, Casen knows how to ride his way to happiness.