Back in the saddle again: Hospice helps Orrville man get one last ride

As one of seven children growing up on a farm in Coshocton, Charles “Chuck” Ridenbaugh loved horses. Horses were used on his family’s farm, and that’s where his love of horses began. At a very young age, Ridenbaugh began breeding horses and breaking wild horses.

It bothered him when people used force to break a horse, Ridenbaugh said. He was a cowboy in his heart. He spent time allowing the horse to get to know him. He learned what the horse’s fears were and how to help work through those fears. For him, patience was the most important component of training.

As an adult, he worked for 35 years at Republic Steel in Massillon.

While he did not become a professional cowboy, he has many tales of his adventures with horses. He traveled throughout the United States, attended shows and rode horseback on numerous trails. He even rode on horseback from Colorado to West Virginia. He continued to train and ride horses into his late 80s, but he stopped because of his declining vision.

He is retired and now lives in Orrville.

Thanks to the care team at Ohio’s Hospice LifeCare, Ridenbaugh, a patient was able to fulfill his dream of riding a horse again. When Marsha Potts, medical social worker, and Paula Barnes, RN care manager, learned about Ridenbaugh’s love of riding, they worked with the care team and volunteers to help him fulfill his goal of riding a horse again.

“When I asked Chuck if there was anything in the world he would want to do, his first answer was to ride again,” Barnes said. “Every week when I visit him, he is always telling me about an adventure on his horses.”

Potts also enjoys talking with Ridenbaugh about his experiences training horses.

“Chuck has an amazing gentle spirit about him,” she said. “I always call him the horse whisperer.”

Sharon Pooler, a volunteer and a board member at Ohio’s Hospice LifeCare, has a friend, Claudia Kuntz, who has a farm with a horse arena. She has arranged for a couple of other patients in the past to visit her friend’s farm. When Pooler contacted Kuntz, she was more than happy to help fulfill the request.

Kuntz appreciated Ridenbaugh’s life was filled with relationships with horses.

“I wanted to share our horses so he could have that horse experience again,” she said.

Pooler arranged for Ridenbaugh to visit her friend’s farm and see the horses.

“Chuck started his visit by brushing and grooming the horse who is named Charlie,” Pooler said. “Then, we helped him up on the horse. He was so elated. For him, it was like riding a bike.”

As soon as Kuntz introduced Ridenbaugh to Charlie the horse, she could see Ridenbaugh had a deep love and admiration for horses.

“I felt very touched by his obvious lifelong relationship with horses as I also share that same love of horses,” she said. “It was so touching as he touched his head to Charlie’s head and stroked his neck.”

“He thought he would never be able to get on the back of a horse again,” said Breanna Fadenholz, mobile care specialist with Hospice LifeCare. “It was an amazing experience. The horse was so gentle with him. It was like the horse knew he had precious cargo!”

After Ridenbaugh’s ride, Fadenholz, started to drive him back to his home. He told her he had not felt like this in a long time.

“He told me he normally would be really tired by this point. But today he felt great, and he never thought he would feel like that again,” Fadenholz said. “He was so sweet and so grateful to everyone who made this possible.”

She asked if there was anything else he wanted to do and whether he was hungry. His face lit up and he suggested Dravenstott’s Restaurant, his favorite restaurant in Orrville. He used to go to the restaurant regularly with a friend, but that friend’s car had broken down, and he had not been able to go for a while.

“When he walked in, everyone was excited to see him,” she said. “He talked about his life and training horses. He expressed how happy he was that he was able to ride the horse.”

Ridenbaugh can’t stop talking about the experience. Barnes, who is Ridenbaugh’s nurse, described how he had tears in his eyes just talking about it.

“He gave me a huge hug and cried, thanking us for the experience,” she said.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Horse whisperer Chuck Ridenbaugh of Orrville takes one last ride