04/26/2026
It takes one person to start a conversation……..
Thank you Wayne Parker for sharing your story!
What Let’s Rap, better known as Echo has done for me as a first Responder.
Echo, who is an off the track Thoroughbred, became a member of our family on my daughter’s 9th birthday as her birthday gift. My daughter, Riley, had wanted a horse to show for 4-H. She had put in a year of work mucking, feeding, grooming, and some riding, with our friend’s horses. The deal we made with her a year before. If you can do the work with someone else’s horses, you will do the work with your own. Riley held up her end and then some. Now it was our turn. I can’t say I was thrilled. I did not like horses. And I was scared of them. That is another story, for another time.
When Echo came to us I had been a Police Officer for about 10 years. Enough time to build up my fair share of traumatic events. At the time, my department did not de-brief or follow up when a traumatic event occurred. Just bottle it up, put it in a box and close the door.
Because of my fear and dislike for horses, I didn’t really involve myself directly with Echo for the first year or so. In addition to the trauma and stress of the job, I was dealing with the recent death of my mother and family turmoil between my father and I. Things were not going well.
I don’t know why, but one evening I decided to go out to the barn on my own. I didn’t do anything more than put Echo on the crossties and groom him. When I started to groom him I could sense he was as wary as I was, but as we went on , I could sense he was relaxing and then I realized I was relaxed and smiling. Without even realizing it all the stress was starting to melt away. The negative thoughts, the anger and the hurt was working itself out of me. There is nothing I can think of, for me more therapeutic than looking eye to eye with a horse, sensing trust and him letting out that long breath that lets you know it will be better.
Since then Echo has been my therapist. Echo has healed me over and over. He shows me patience, he gives me calm in the storm that 25+ years of Law Enforcement is.
