who helped scout for talented disabled riders to get involved in the program.
Te experience whetted Elizabeth’s appetite for competition. For a girl who could never participate in school sports, being able to compete -- to be an equestrian athlete -- was as emotionally therapeutic as anything riding had done for her body.
“As a 7-year-old little kid running around on the playground, I couldn’t keep up. On a horse, I was like any other kid – I could compete with able-bodied kids; it evened the playing field,” she says.
Elizabeth began taking lessons with U.S. Paraequestrian Team coach Missy Ransehousen and, with the coach’s input, ultimately bought a competitive dressage horse, Mr. Darcy, an 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood trained through Tird Level.
“Elizabeth came into the program with the bare basics: knowing how to walk and trot, how to make correct transitions and circles,” says Missy. “Now she’s putting it all together, really learning the art of dressage and how to be more competitive in the show ring and put together a good, accurate dressage test. She’s got tremendous drive; such a drive and desire to be better that she’s sometimes almost too hard on herself.”
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Holistic Horse™ • June/July 2010 • Vol.16, Issue 67 Also serving the
Equine and their Human Partners: Therapeutic, SportsMassage
Myofascial Release • PhotonTherapy Equine Reiki
Doris Bouchard ~ LCMT, Equine BodyWorker, ESMTI Ron Bouchard ~ Equine BodyWorker, ESMTI
(860) 564-7759
www.equissage-ne-ny.com P.O. Box 247, Sterling, CT
www.holistichorse.com | 13
Elizabeth, who had planned to pursue medical school and a career in pediatrics after college. “Te summer before my senior year of college, I sat down with my parents and said, ‘Tis is what I want to do’,” she says. “We don’t really know whether (the arthrogryposis) is degenerative, though I was told in middle school that I’d be in a wheelchair by age 30 or 35. So there was a
g
timing issue of whether my body will hold up – if I went to medical school now, then residency, I
might not be able to ride by the time I got done.”
Around the same time, she decided to undergo double hip replacement surgery, a somewhat controversial surgery to address her arthrogryposis-related hip problems.
“Riding was the influencing factor in getting the surgery,” she says. “Riding did help loosen my hips at first, but over time, the bone-on-bone contact was wearing them down. I could deal with pain in my daily life, but when it interfered with my riding, I had to do something.”
Te recovery took 1.5 years. For a year of that time, as Elizabeth regained her strength and flexibility, she rode her new horse on
continued on p.14
Equissage New England - NewYork
Equine SportsMassage Therapy Certification
LIFE DECISIONS
etting serious about competitive horseback riding also meant making some serious life decisions for
Elizabeth became interested in paraequestrian
competition came at age 14, when her success in a local show earned her a trip to the 2001 Devon Horse Show; she rode “Ebbtide” in the Dixon Oval as part of the show’s Handicapped Riders Event.
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