sport horse snippets
Aiming High – A Former Surgeon and Eventer Shoots for the 2015 Pan-Am Games
by Amber Heintzberger O
nce a promising event rider and a successful pe- diatric orthopedic surgeon, today Dr. Deborah Stanitski has a goal she once would never have
imagined for herself: a place on the U.S. Para Dressage Team at the 2015 Pan-Am Games in Toronto. In 1998, Debbie and her husband Carl relocated to
Charleston, South Carolina where she took a job as a profes- sor at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). She had taken up hunting to maintain her fitness for eventing, and in 1999 she sustained a life-threatening head injury when she fell while with the Middleton Hounds: her horse hit a jump and she slammed headfirst into a rock and sus- tained a traumatic brain injury. She had been training with current U.S. Eventing team
coach David O’Connor and was working up to competing in her first one-star three-day event when the accident oc- curred. After two and a half months in the hospital—includ- ing nine days in the Intensive Care Unit—she had to relearn how to stand, walk, talk, and even swallow, in order to re- move her feeding tube. She left the hospital hobbling with a walker, barely able to speak. As her health improved, Debbie became active with the
Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding (CATR). “Their direc- tor, Murray Neale, resurrected my riding,” she says. “In the beginning I required two side walkers just to be able to sit on the horse at the walk. My own horse, an off-the-track Thoroughbred gelding, was shipped to a friend in Aiken to ride as he was unsuitable for me at the time. Eventually, at CATR, I relearned how to tack up the horse and to walk, trot and canter.” Debbie is now retired from her position at MUSC and un-
fortunately spasticity in her hands made a return to surgical work impossible. But her ambition did not wane: eventually she started eventing again, at the lower levels. Then she dis- covered para dressage, and hasn’t looked back since. Today she is an active rider and president of the Equestrian Medical Safety Association. She works tirelessly to improve helmet awareness and riding safety, as well as pursuing her new competitive goals. “We’re concerned with all things safety; anything mount- ed and unmounted, barn safety included,” she says. (For more information visit
emsaonline.net.) In 2014 Debbie and her cheeky little Quarter Horse/
Holsteiner cross mare, Tiramisu (aka “Goldie” by Chroesus), qualified for the USEF Para Equestrian National Champion-
72 November/December 2014
Deborah and her mare Tiramisu warming up at the Para Dressage championships at Gladstone.
ships and selection trials for the World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France. Along with her coach, Michelle Folden, and Michelle’s husband, David, they traveled to Gladstone, New Jersey from their home in Charleston. It was the first time that she had competed in such a
prestigious event and the pair lost some points when Goldie became inattentive in the impressive environs. But it was a good learning experience as well. Relatively new to para competition, on Tuesday the
pair scored a 64.9% for the Team test finishing third, a 64% Wednesday for the championship test (fourth) and a 65.2% (fourth) for the freestyle with two points off for entry delay (they had 20 seconds to enter the arena but took 23 seconds). Overall, they placed fourth at the Grade II championships. “I think it’s easy to focus on what you want to improve, but I’m really happy with Debbie’s performance,” Michelle
Amber Heintzberger
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