United States Eventing Association

If you would have asked Ruth Rosendaul earlier this year if she would have been competing at the USEA American Eventing Championships (AEC) presented by Nutrena Feeds, let alone finish in the top three in her division, she probably wouldn’t have believed you.

Rosendaul has always had big dreams for her competitive eventing career and has held herself to a high standard, even when challenges got in her way.

“I kept trying and kept showing up, even when it was bad—I just kept trying," she said.

When the results started aligning with her goals at the start of the 2026 season, thanks to the help of her trainer Hannah Sue Hollberg and her husband, professional show jumper Matt Hollberg, Rosendaul was thrilled. And then, while working for the Hollbergs in Florida this past February, she got a headache that wouldn’t go away.

“I started not feeling good for a while. There was a period of three constant weeks of headaches and Hannah’s mom, Sue Burnett, encouraged me to go to the emergency room,” she reflected.

When she got there, she was initially diagnosed with migraines, but the doctor went ahead and ordered a CT scan out of an abundance of caution.

“Turned out, I had a brain bleed,” Rosendual shared. She was rushed to the ICU and diagnosed with a genetic condition that caused a cerebral cavernous malformation, which is when a cluster of blood vessels are tied together too tight and randomly burst. “I had headaches and was dizzy and my right hand was really weak; I couldn’t use the spray bottles in the barn, which makes sense because the cerebellum affects motor skills.”

She was rushed into brain surgery right away at Shand’s Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.

“I’m in Florida with no family, and I have to have brain surgery and in my head all I was thinking was, ‘Well, this is gonna limit a lot of what I want to do this year with my goals.’ I was so nervous and so bummed.”

Hannah and Matt were there with her, however, as her family traveled in to be with her. Thankfully, her surgery went well and her surgeon ordered her to take six weeks off to rest and recover, a task Rosendaul struggled with at first.

“I couldn’t ride, I couldn’t move my neck, and my head was swollen," she said. "I remember getting on social media and being so jealous of everyone. And I knew I wasn’t going to be able to just jump right back into things the way they were. I was going to need months of hacking and trotting into low stuff, and that is when I realized that maybe this was the break I had always needed.”

Rosendaul decided to use this time to work on herself and enrolled in Natalie Hummel’s Limitless Academy, a coaching program that incorporates nervous system regulation techniques and elite level performance coaching to help athletes of all backgrounds improve themselves mentally out of the sport.

“They have all sorts of modules and trainings you can do yourself as well as meetings on certain days, so I did that on my downtime and I came out better for it.”

As soon as she was cleared, she jumped right back into barn life, but at a much different pace.

“When I got back to the farm, my protocol was to wear my helmet all of the time, so I had it on 24/7," she said. "I didn’t do a lot of things I normally do, like handling the horses. It’s been a huge team effort. Hannah rode my horses for me, and so many people helped me out.”

Her first show back was at the Novice level in May, where she and her 9-year-old Westphalian gelding DePino Grigio GSF (Der Graf x Confetti) placed fourth. They had Novice runs in May where she placed third, and in June, which she won, before they worked their way back up to Training level. That's when the reward of all the hard work she put in during her recovery really showed through—she and “Peanut” placed second at Full Gallop Farm (Aiken, South Carolina) in July and won their final outing before the AEC at WindRidge Farm (Mooresboro, North Carolina) in early August.

“He’s definitely the best cross-country horse I’ve ever been on,” Rosendaul said of Peanut, who she purchased from Kelsea Blazek and Chelsea Adair for $1 a few years ago. With her qualification secured, she decided to set her sights on the AEC. Coming into the championship week, Rosendaul decided to put her full focus on having fun.

“I tried to lower my expectations of the event so I wouldn’t get too anxious about anything,” she shared. “I didn’t expect to finish well and that’s not really what I was going to this show for. I just wanted to have fun and do my best.”

But when she finished out her AEC weekend in third in the ARMA USEA Training Rider Championship aboard Peanut, it definitely felt full-circle for the young rider. After a year of challenges, she wound up on the podium at a venue she loves with a horse she loves. And now she can set her sights on the future.

“If everything goes perfectly, by the end of the year I would like to do an FEI. I think he can do it, he’s so much fun.”