help us help others
STaRS depends on donations, grants and volunteer time. We exist both for the community, and because of the community. Our donors and volunteers are crucial to our success.
Program Application and Costs
The first step to joining our program is to obtain a physician’s referral. This is to ensure that therapeutic horseback riding would be safe and beneficial. Once the forms are returned and approved, the rider is placed on our waitlist. Currently, our wait time is about one year. Once a spot opens up. the rider and family/support team are invited to come in for an intake session. During this intake, lessons goals, support needs, length and frequency are determined. Lessons usually start right away after that.
Program Costs
Therapeutic Riding Costs:
Intake session: $105
30 minute lesson: $75
45 minute lesson: $9045 minute group lesson: $100 (pre-paid as a package for the session)
Equine Assisted Learning Costs:
Individual 60 minutes session $155
We require a minimum of 24 hours’ notice to cancel therapeutic riding lessons and Equine Assisted Learning sessions. Cancellations received with less than 24 hours’ notice will be charged the full lesson/session fee.
Notice must be received via email to stars@ponies.ca and to your instructor via email or phone.
“Our goal is to make therapy with horses accessible to everyone who could benefit from it.”
Funding and Bursaries
We are a non-profit entity and strive to keep the costs of our programs as low as possible. However, horseback riding is expensive at the best of times, and we recognize that not all riders can afford the costs of therapeutic riding.
Most of our riders are eligible for funding from various agencies, and we encourage all our riders to explore those avenues, such as The Kinsmen Foundation of BC, Athletics 4 Kids, Janna Epp Bursary, Kid Sport BC, CKNW Kids Fund, Gizeh Shriners of BC & Yukon.
We do fundraise for bursaries to help riders who would otherwise be unable to participate. Depending on the availability of funds, sometimes the wait for lessons is longer. If you would like to be considered for a bursary, you would need to complete a Bursary Application Form. Please note that we recommend that riders have had at least four lessons before being considered for a bursary so that we can properly assess the basic suitability of the program for the rider. If a bursary is approved, the rider will be placed on a three-month trial period so the rider will have an opportunity to experience the full benefits of therapeutic riding while we evaluate the family’s commitment to the program and the lessons, and the family has an opportunity to exhaust any other funding resources.
Depending on the availability of funding, we may be able to extend bursaries for longer periods of time, but this is not guaranteed, and the priority is to allocate the resources to new applicants.
