Every horse-loving parent hopes that their children share the same love for horses as they do. For Renee and Ken Poff of Dover, Pennsylvania, the horse loving phenomenon appeared early for their daughter Ashlyn. Growing up on a farm with a therapeutic riding and breeding facility, it was easy for little Ashlyn to love horses from the very beginning.
“She walked at nine months and has been on a horse ever since,” Renee Poff says. While Renee shows on the AQHA circuit, Ashlyn shows in the lead-line classes. Ashlyn’s father, Ken, doesn’t show, but he is very supportive of Renee and Ashlyn’s love for showing. Of course, living on a horse facility has made horses a very big part of Ashlyn’s daily life. She especially loves when foals arrive and her face is the first thing they see.
On October 1st, 2014, at only four years old, Ashlyn was diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukemia, or ALL. ALL is characterized by the overproduction of immature white blood cells in the bone marrow, and creates intense symptoms that are very hard on such a young body.
For a four-year-old, this would be a very difficult battle, but Ashlyn has fought her hardest and is going strong. At the timen of the diagnosis, Ashlyn’s mom had been setting up the family’s therapeutic riding facility.
“The first thing I wanted to do when Ashlyn was diagnosed was sell the farm and give it all up and just focus on Ashlyn getting better,” she recalls. “But when I asked Ashlyn her thoughts on this, she looked at me and said, ‘Mommy, why would we sell the farm?’ And I got my answer!”
Renee’s facility, Walnut Grove Therapeutic Equestrian Center, provides equine therapy to adults and children with many varieties of disabilities and diseases. Sure enough, Ashlyn herself benefits from her mom’s equine therapy program.
Even so, there are days when Ashlyn feels too sick to spend time at the barn, but a bad day never stops her. Her mother remembers a day when Ashlyn became sick right in front of her.
“After she was done, she looked up at me and said, ‘Okay mommy, I’m ready to go now,’” Poff says. “I was floored at what a champ she was.”
Her determination and resilience inspired a young client of Walnut Grove to launch the Ride On For Ashlyn cause; the family sells T-shirts through the cause’s Facebook page to help fund a new arena for the facility. The Poff’s plan to expand Walnut Grove to include a climate-controlled indoor ring aptly named the Ashlyn Grace Arena so the program can provide its services year-round.
“Horses give Ashlyn something to look forward to. They give her strength and a sense of purpose. They give her something to focus on besides just being sick,” Renee reveals.
During a blood transfusion not long after her diagnosis, Ashlyn turned to her mother while the two were watching the online stream of the Quarter Horse Congress and said she wanted a black horse and a sparkly purple show outfit to go with it.
In a stroke of luck, a friend of the Poff’s had been talking to a seller about a black mare named Beauty. When people found out that Ashlyn was looking for a horse, messages and donations poured in to help get this little girl the perfect black horse. Beauty was shipped to Ashlyn, and today the mare is sweet and affectionate toward Ashlyn, and always comes straight to her little girl in the pasture.
Life on a farm with more than thirty horses does not stop for anything, but nothing has stopped Ashlyn. The Poff’s take every day as it comes and try to keep things as close to a normal routine as possible, for Ashlyn’s sake. Horses are what keep her happy and optimistic every day, even when she feels very sick. Ashlyn’s life and experience would be immensely different without Beauty and her other equine friends because she would not have a lot to look forward to every day.
We can all learn something from Ashlyn and her determination to stay strong and positive in the face of something so life-changing. This experience, which Renee describes simply as “inspirational,” has reminded her that there are “some amazing people in the world that truly care about helping others.”
“Think twice about what you feel the need to complain about,” Renee says. “It would probably turn out those things are nothing compared to what others may be going through. Think about all the little kids out there fighting for their lives; if they can be strong and positive, so should we. Let them be our inspiration.”
Ashlyn’s fight has sparked a movement for her mother’s therapeutic riding facility, and can be the inspiration for many other children fighting cancer everywhere.
If you would like to support the Poff family, please visit www.walnutgroveriding.org or you can purchase a t-shirt through the Facebook page for the Ride On For Ashlyn cause. Both will support Ashlyn Poff and her family and help fund the Ashlyn Grace Arena at Walnut Grove.
Photos © Poff Family
About the Author: Meghan Smith is a rising senior at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania studying creative writing and studio art. She is the co-founder and member of Susquehanna’s western equestrian team, and she shows her AQHA gelding Lopin Radical in western and hunt seat all-around events.
