From a stark orphanage in Ukraine, a country where trouble was brewing, to being named PATH International Youth Equestrian of the Year, Vika Christian has come a long way in a decade. And it was horses who helped her get there.
PATH leads the advancement of professional equine-assisted services to support more than 53,000 special needs individuals, like Vika, through a variety of equine-assisted services.
When Nancy Christian of Budd Lake, N.J., adopted five-and-a-half-year-old Vika, the child appeared to have a lazy eye that interfered with her vision. But after Vika got to the U.S. and underwent a brain scan, it was revealed she actually suffered from a birth defect, septo-optic dysplasia, which made her legally blind.
Horses play an important role in the lives of Nancy and Vika Christian. (Photo courtesy Centenary University)
And that wasn’t all.
“She had a speech impediment as well, and she’s hyper-active,” said Nancy.
“She had a lot of things any ordinary child would have trouble dealing with. The orphanage let her go out in the world with no diagnosis at all.”
Luckily, Vika’s new mother is a special education teacher at the Valley and Ridge School in Blairstown, so she knew how to handle a very difficult situation. Finding activities for Vika wasn’t easy at first, however, as Nancy sought opportunities that would help socialize her new daughter.
“We didn’t last long in dance class; even in day care, we didn’t last,” Nancy recalled.
But then she got some good advice.
“I had been talking to parents in special needs groups, and they suggested I check out riding,” said Nancy.
It started to look like a dead end, because insurance wouldn’t cover hippotherapy, a formal type of treatment utilizing horses and professional therapists, which was out of her price range. Even so, Nancy kept looking and met someone whose daughter participated in Centenary University’s TRAC program of therapeutic riding in Long Valley.
That was a start, but it didn’t turn out to be an instant fit. As Vika tells the story now, when she was introduced to horses, she thought, “What the heck are you doing to me? That’s way bigger than my dog and you want me to do what with it?”
When she got in the saddle, her hyper-active side came through, and it didn’t please the patient Lucy, one of the good-hearted horses in the TRAC program. The mare wasn’t retaliating, she just looked unhappy.
Then TRAC founder Octavia Brown came to the rescue of both of them.
As Octavia recalled, she saw Vika pulling on the reins and bouncing “all over the place, she was out of control. I finally got tired of it and marched over there and said, `Vika, Lucy doesn’t like it when you behave like that. If you do it again, you’re going home.’”
Vika paid attention. That was her breakthough moment.
“It was, I guess, the first time she suddenly took in that another creature could care, and she needed to care about it. And that was the first time she actually regarded the needs of another being as being important,” Octavia mused.
“She puts it as a matter of trust. From that moment, we started to be able to engage the concept of Lucy as something she needed to pay attention to. We laminated a picture of Lucy and she had it under her pillow. She’d come and talk to Lucy about her problems. And Lucy’s caring about what she did was the first real attachment she developed, as far as we can tell.”
As Vika’s mother describes her daughter today, “She is now a going concern.”
Octavia explained, “When you’re brought up in an orphanage in Ukraine and nobody really gives you love or affection, you don’t know how to relate to anyone, and she didn’t. This horse made her able to do that.”
What matters, according to Octavia, is “The fact that the horse is non-judgmental in a nonverbal sense (and) doesn’t try to control you. The fact she learned to care for that horse’s reactions shows you how powerful that silent reaction of the animal is. She didn’t need people talking to her, she just needed the sense that something accepted her for who and what she was, if she would also accept them for what they are.”
Acknowledging the importance of the PATH award, for which there were nominees from all over the world, Vika said, “I am proud to accept this award, but PATH Intl. has given me more than an award. It has taught me trust—how to trust my horse, people, and myself.”
TRAC Director Karen Brittle pointed out, “Anyone who wants to know what the value of therapeutic riding is just has to watch Vika at TRAC. She has a palpable joy when she is at the barn that’s very contagious.”
It is, she said, something that has impacted not only Vika and her family, but also the instructors who have worked with her over the last 10 years.
“You can see how this person who struggles with attention (deficit) and impulse control and other behavioral challenges is incredibly motivated to demonstrate more consistent behavior for the benefit of her horse. She’s become quite a young horsewoman. She’s always thinking about the horse first instead of thinking about what she wants to do.”
Riding became the centerpiece of a life that meshes Vika’s Ukrainian heritage with becoming an American. The Ukrainian government mandates that adoptive parents ensure their child maintains a link with their culture.
Nancy and Vika are learning Ukrainian (Vika’s first language is Russian, which is widely spoken in the eastern part of the country) and they go to a Ukrainian summer camp in the Catskills. It’s been helpful for Nancy that her college roommate had a Ukrainian background, so she can offer advice about cooking and celebrating holidays.
Vika also follows what is going on in her homeland’s war, and she and Nancy write to Volodymyr, the English-speaking taxi driver (he learned the language from video games) who was so kind to them while they were in Mariupol. He is now fighting with the army.
Before adopting Vika, Nancy spent three months in Ukraine learning about the country so she would be better able to relate to her new daughter. She can really empathize with the situation facing Vika, who had been institutionalized all her life.
Her sojourn there taught her “how exhausting it is to try to fit in and learn a new culture.”
But Vika has made plenty of progress. She puts in additional riding time at Freedom Horse in Long Valley and is competing in horse shows. Originally, she was on a leadline; now she’s off the lead and on her own with a horse and a dream.
While many teenagers are saving up to buy a car, Vika’s eyesight condition means she won’t be able to drive. So she’s saving up for a horse. And there’s no question about what she wants to do for a living, something with horses.
For her, and a lot of the children we serve in the program, horses are the one thing that has really, really clicked,” said Karen.
“This is a big piece of her identity. When other kids are talking about ski trips or soccer, Vika has this to talk about. To be honored at an international level for something that drives you is an amazing experience in someone’s life.
“This is something she is good at and works hard at and now she has been recognized. It’s a life-changing moment in a positive way for anyone.”
