The Yankees began HOPE (Helping Others Persevere & Excel) Week Monday by celebrating Flying Manes. First baseman Mark Teixeira, outfielder-designated hitter Raul Ibanez, infielders Eric Chavez and Jayson Nix and pitching coach Larry Rothschild surprised the special-needs children and their instructors during one of their therapeutic horse-riding classes at the Riverdale Equestrian Centre in the Bronx.

The Yankees helped students with grooming the horses and also assisted in leading and walking beside the horses during the riding lesson. The children, their parents and instructors were also to be special guests of the Yankees for Monday night’s game against the Indians.

Flying Manes is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals with physical and emotional disabilities by providing therapeutic horse riding instruction. The program was started by Stefanie Pleschinger Dwyer, along with her husband, Bricklin.

Stefanie grew up in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall. She became involved with horseback riding as a child and began instructing children with Down syndrome when she was 15. Upon moving to the United States, Stefanie became a certified therapeutic riding instructor in the U.S. as a way to help others while sharing her joy of riding. The riding helps the children build strength physically while increasing their self-esteem as they gain command in riding the horse.

“When I was a child, all the maps of the world that we were allowed to see consisted solely of the Soviet Bloc,” she said. “Though we knew there was more to the world, everything beyond those borders felt off limits and out of reach. Children with disabilities and their families often feel like the map of their life has been drawn. But I’ve seen what riding can do. Riding can take children to a world that they always thought was for someone else.”

The organization operates at the Riverdale Equestrian Centre in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. Now in its fourth year, the program has worked with approximately 100 children and young adults.

Stefanie gave birth to her first child June 16, which was five days before she and Bricklin celebrated their first wedding anniversary.