A miniature horse is leaving hoof prints on hearts with therapeutic work

A small horse is spreading a huge amount of joy in Connecticut.

Lacie, a miniature horse, transferred to a farm in Avon from California, and she is already making special connections with people in the state.

It was a heart-warming moment when Joanys Garcia met the little horse Lacie for the first time. Now a bit of horseplay will be a part of the 20-year-old's regular visits to US Horse Welfare and Rescue in Avon, along with other students from the American School for the Deaf based in West Hartford.

Lacie shares a special connection with Garcia because the mini horse is also deaf.

“I feel happy,” Garcia said, using sign language. “She looked at me, I looked at her a little scared. I feel better, I feel proud.”

As a certified therapy horse, Lacie knows how to put smiles on faces. Her owner, Cathy Cooperman, hopes she will do that for people across the state by attending birthday parties, visiting senior centers and working with kids that visit the rescue.

“You want a carrot? Here you go,” Cathy Cooperman, Lacie’s owner, asked the mini horse.

“If it's a help to somebody to spend some time with her, it’s very important to me. It means everything to me for her to do that,” Cooperman, of Bloomfield, said.

Cooperman adopted Lacie and transferred her from California to Connecticut in May. Spreading joy with the miniature horse holds significance to her.

“I rode for years. Horses were everything to me. And then I broke my back, and I was told I could never ride again,” Cooperman said. “This was the one way I could stay connected to horses.”

Cooperman says this small, 7-year-old horse, already has a big history.

“There was a very tiny, tiny horse called Peabody, he was about 16 inches tall. And Lacie was his mother,” Cooperman said.

Peabody was made famous on NBC’s “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” Now, Lacie has found a peaceful home at US Horse Welfare and Rescue.

“He loves Lacie, totally enamored with her,” Susan Mitchell, US Horse Welfare and Rescue founder and executive director, said about another horse named Jo Jo.

Mitchell is boarding Lacie at the nonprofit alongside 16 horses that she rescued.

“When I found out that so many domesticated horses that had been with somebody, had been their pet and their steed, were ending up in slaughter, that really kind of triggered to me how many other people didn’t know,” Mitchell said.

Although Lacie is not a rescue, she will be part of the nonprofit’s therapeutic programs.

“We rescue the horses, and the horses rescue the humans,” Mitchell said. “One girl told her mom, ‘This is the first time my smile is real.’ Which was, there's my moment, very emotional for me to think that this child who is now like 13 years old, has never felt that her smile was real.”

The students from the American School for the Deaf that visit don’t just groom and pet the horses: some even take riding lessons.

Going forward, Lacie’s mission will be leaving hoof prints on hearts. Anyone who wants to book a visit with Lacie can contact Cooperman at 860-989-2799 or coopermancathy@gmail.com.