A Great Vault Forward : Disabled: A former circus rider finds the real thrill is helping children with physical problems learn acrobatic horseback techniques.

Toni Amoroso always thought she would end her career riding the bare back of a horse beneath the big top, winning the hearts of the audience as she executed one thrilling maneuver after another.

In fact, the 34-year-old already has had a taste of circus performing, riding with Zoppers Wild and Wonderful World of Horses in the group’s Southern California appearances.

But Amoroso, who runs a Moorpark horse ranch when she’s not teaching stunt riding, has found a new occupation that makes the glamour of circus performing less important.

Beginning today, Amoroso will share her skills with a special audience, teaching a class in acrobatic equestrian skills to students of the Handicapped Equestrian Learning Program.

Started five years ago by Pete Peters, who helped found the Special Olympics in Ventura County, the program introduces hundreds of disabled children to horseback riding at his ranch in Walnut Canyon near Moorpark.

The classes in vaulting (horseback riding routines that emphasize balance) are not restricted to those with handicaps. Anyone willing to join the American Vaulting Assn. and pay $15 an hour can join.

But children with disabilities present the biggest challenge and gain the most from learning the skills first developed by armor-clad knights in Europe, Amoroso said.

“I like the results you see working with handicapped children,” said Amoroso during a break at Peters’ hilltop ranch.

“I like taking kids who have a physical problem and then see them grow and develop as they gain confidence,” she said. “It takes a lot of muscle strength and coordination to do it right. You can’t just sit like a bag of potatoes.”

Before they mount a horse, the kids start on a vaulting barrel, two drums welded together that have handles attached to the sides.

Some disabled children in the program never move beyond the vaulting barrel, but others graduate to horseback.

Vaulting depends on a sense of balance, and some students are eventually able to sit or even stand on a horse. “The goal is to walk, jog or canter without using your hands, just using your feet,” Amoroso said.

The daughter of a veterinarian, Amoroso was a teen-ager when she learned vaulting, a spinoff from the equestrian sport of dressage. Imported from Europe, vaulting is an essential ingredient of horseback riding in countries such as Germany, Amoroso said.

After learning horseback skills from famed stuntman Hal Needham, a neighbor in Topanga Canyon, Amoroso later started the Canyon Vaulters in Saugus. Her first student was a little girl next door.

In her six years with that group, she taught several men tricks that they later used for stunts in films. “What I call ‘down and up’ they call the Pony Express,” she said about a maneuver that involves jumping off a running horse to touch the ground briefly and then getting back on.

For the past 2 1/2 years, Amoroso has worked horses at the Rancho Intocable, up the hill from Peters’ Ranch in Moorpark.

With the addition of vaulting classes to the Handicapped Equestrian Learning Program, Peters, 69, expects plenty of new students to use the 12 horses that are trained to work with them.

After years of helping kids ride horses in Special Olympics competitions, Peters said he plans to keep vaulting in the program permanently.

“When you get hooked with the kids, you just want to keep doing it,” he said.