Old Lyme ― Right around the time High Hopes Executive Director Melissa Lamont took the reins of the nonprofit equine therapy organization with an international reputation, her newest ambassador was getting ready to take the show on the road.

Lulu, a miniature horse with a white coat and a carefully coiffed mane braided on one side, was led on a warm weekday afternoon last month through the High Hopes offices to get her acclimated to humans.

“You look beautiful,” Lamont told Lulu, who wandered with a trainer through the hallways of the rectangular office space built around an indoor riding ring lined with windows.

Lamont said the goal is to prepare the miniature horse ― who is portable enough to jump into the back of a minivan ― for visits to schools, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities and any other group settings where people can experience the physical and emotional benefits of interacting with horses.

“You cannot help but smile when you see this little horse,” she said.

Lamont, 42, was selected through a six-month search to lead the organization into its next 50 years. She started July 1 as executive director after serving since January as operations director.

High Hopes began in 1974 with one instructor, a few volunteers and borrowed horses. The team made it possible for eight students with disabilities to receive therapeutic riding lessons.

Lamont brought the concept for a travel-sized animal emissary with her from Naples Therapeutic Riding Center in Florida, where she had been serving as executive director. The idea of a miniature horse traveling program was quickly incorporated into the three-year strategic plan for High Hopes approved earlier this year.

All they needed was the miniature horse.

Then Stonington-based Light House Therapeutic Equine Services closed the stable doors on its horse program last month, opening up the search for a new home for Lulu.

“Sometimes that happens,” Lamont said. “You put out the good energy and it happens.”

Lulu joins 21 horses who carry out the organization’s mission through programs for disabled riders, students from area schools, veterans, those with Parkinson’s disease and, during the summer, day campers.

Until now, programming has revolved around on-site activities in a facility that has grown to encompass 127 acres with 30 acres of fenced paddocks, 21 stalls, a 15,000-square-foot riding ring and three miles of trails. At the foundation of the program is a therapeutic riding component for those with disabilities who are referred by their physicians.

Lamont said her introduction to equine therapy came when the lifelong equestrian moved to Naples looking for volunteer opportunities. She said her interest in horsemanship, combined with a recreation degree from Pennsylvania State University, led her to equine therapy.

That’s where she met the young rider who would have a profound impact on her trajectory in the field.

“The relationship that we built was really special,” she said of the child whose extensive disabilities resulted from being shaken as a baby. He was 8 years old when he arrived in the ring with a diagnosis that held little hope for him walking or talking again.

“Because it was fun, because he liked to do it, it was one of the therapies he didn’t resist,” she said.

He stayed in the program until he was 18 years old, according to the volunteer who still keeps in touch with his family.

“I heard his first words. I saw his first steps. I used to love watching him laugh when we would trot,” Lamont said. “And that’s what really got me returning and staying involved.”

She went on to become a certified therapeutic riding instructor with the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH). Her experience in equine therapy in southwest Florida grew to encompass program development, community outreach, fundraising and strategic planning before she arrived at High Hopes to oversee operations across 17 staff members and more than 300 volunteers.

She said High Hopes has been influential in training equine therapy instructors from as far away as Israel and China.

For High Hopes clients and the volunteers who work with them ― each disabled rider can require as many as three helpers to walk on either side and to handle the horse ― it all comes down to the relationship they build with the horses.

Lamont recalled her first years cleaning stalls and brushing horses back when she was eight years old. That’s when her mother would drop her off at the stables every Saturday because she recognized the responsibility and resulting sense of confidence that would come from caring for the 1,200-pound animals.

That sense of confidence is at the core of her advocacy for the riders she has devoted her career to supporting.

“This is a therapy, but you don’t feel like it’s a therapy,” she said. “You’re doing something that’s fun, it’s outdoors, it's interactive. You’re with a horse. It’s working your muscles. It’s working your mind. You don’t even know it because you’re having so much fun.”

Lamont has been guided through the transition from operations director to executive director by Alison Zack Darrell, the interim director for the past six months who came back after having led the organization from 1995-2008.

Prior to that, Executive Director Kitty Stalsburg led High Hopes for 17 years.

Zack Darrell credited Lamont for a “visionary” leadership style that will guide the organization into its next half-century. She cited the new executive director’s work establishing relationships with Mitchell College and establishing the Parkinson’s program as evidence of a focus on serving new and different populations.

“I see High Hopes as continuing to impact the greater field of therapeutic riding and horsemanship through training and education, holding on to our very well respected reputation as a leader in the field of therapeutic riding and horsemanship,” she said.

The future is also about staying close to the organization’s roots, according to Zack Darrell.

“And being all we can be within our local community, to those who we can serve and are not yet serving,” she said.

e.regan@theday.com

Editor’s note: This article was updated to correct the spelling of Stalsburg’s name.