Event rider and trainer Amy Barrington of Tryon, N.C., has made huge strides in her recovery after sustaining a traumatic brain injury less than a year ago.
Barrington, 52, was hospitalized following a fall from a horse while schooling at home on September 4, 2013. She was wearing a helmet at the time of the fall, but sustained severe bruising and a hematoma on her brain which required surgery. She was placed in a medically-induced coma to help her brain to heal until September 16, 2013.
Now, ten months later, she continues to recover but has resumed many of her normal day-to-day tasks.
“She is doing really well,” reported husband and course designer, Greg Schlappi. “There are still a few things that she is working through. In the first few months, she had a miraculous recovery and things were coming back really fast.
“Now there are a few things lingering. She still has some speech and vision problems but they are improving. We are just impatient.”
Doctors recommended that she wait at least a year from the date of the accident before getting back to riding, although she has been back in the saddle on therapy horses in a highly controlled setting. In the barn, she feeds and cleans like she always has and is also getting back to her students.
“She is teaching a few lessons and everyone that is doing lessons with her says she is spot on and that horse-related words come easily to her,” said Schlappi. “Sometimes other things are difficult for her, to find the words. She knows what she wants to say, but when she can’t find the words, she smiles and laughs and tries not to get frustrated.
“Our son Ben and I are so thrilled to have her home and she is happy and we’re just enjoying having her with us. She enjoys having people around her and she is grinning all the time and having fun.”
Eventers declared themselves part of “Amy’s Tribe” and rallied around Barrington following the accident, holding a multitude of fundraisers and raising tens of thousands of dollars in her name.
“The eventing community is absolutely amazing,” he said. “They literally saved us from bankruptcy. We had no idea we had so many friends through the eventing community.”
Until this past May, qualifying for the USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds let alone actually making plans to compete, seemed like a far-off dream. Going into this show season the AEC was a goal I had set in the back of my mind but maybe only said out loud a few times.
The Millbrook Horse Trials kicked off on July 25 with lower level dressage at Riga Meadow Equestrian Center at Coole Park in Millbrook, New York. There are more than 400 total entries competing at Millbrook, from Beginner Novice to Advanced level. Today the upper level horses cantered down the centerline, while the lower levels headed out on cross-country.
The United States Eventing Association, Inc. (USEA) is thrilled to announce Adams Horse Supply as the new title sponsor of the USEA Adult Team Championships (ATC) at the American Eventing Championships (AEC). The ATC will now be titled “The Adams Horse Supply USEA Adult Team Championships at the AEC.”
The world’s best eventing horses and riders will be first out of the starting blocks when the equestrian action gets underway at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Versailles, France, tomorrow morning with the opening dressage test.