TORONTO – Jenn Crawford is committed to making the equestrian community more accessible and enjoyable for all, and is preparing to showcase a “different side” of the sport at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair next week.
The Belwood resident and lifelong equestrian will ride her horse Beau in demonstrations at the Royal, along with three other para riders, showing attendees an aspect of the equestrian world about which she said not a lot is known.
Abby Rigert, Zoe Gottwald and Crawford will each jump a course to demonstrate the hunter/jumper discipline and Emery McCallum will complete a western pleasure routine.
Abby Rigert is travelling from Chicago to ride in the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. She has had cerebral palsy since a stroke at birth. Submitted photo
While para equestrians ride, a song of their choice will play and an announcer will explain each of their disabilities and riding backgrounds.
The demonstrations will take place in the small animal theatre at 1pm on Nov. 4 and at 1 and 6pm on Nov. 5.
The riders will also be at the fair with their horses all day on Nov. 6, Crawford told the Advertiser, and will be available to speak to people.
The Royal, now in its 102nd year, is said to be the world’s biggest indoor agricultural and equestrian event, with about 300,000 attendees annually.
Crawford initially asked officials at the Royal if she could set up a booth to share information about her company, Equestrian for Everyone.
But when they invited her to go a step further and ride at the fair, she jumped at the chance.
She invited Rigert, Gottwald and McCallum to help her “pull it off,” because she wanted to show that equestrian is an inclusive sport, and “me riding by myself does not do that,” she said.
Zoe Gottwald is an 18-year-old amputee from Pickering who will be riding in a demonstration at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. Submitted photo
Rigert is 22 years old and travelled from Chicago for the Royal. She has had cerebral palsy since a stroke at birth and has competed and showed in hunter/jumper events.
Gottwald is an 18-year-old Pickering resident whose left leg was amputated after a tractor accident when she was four years old.
She has achieved top ranks on the silver circuit in show jumping and has moved on to the gold circuit.
McCallum is 14 and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 18 months old. She has been riding since she was two, and had an intensive, 11-hour surgery at 11 years old to rotate her femur and loosen muscles, with the main goal of becoming a stronger equestrian.
Crawford has been riding since she was five years old, but after a bad fall six years ago, was told it was unlikely she would ever walk again, let alone ride a horse.
When she defied the odds and started riding again less than a year after the accident, Crawford said she had to figure out a lot of it on her own, as it was very difficult to find trainers or coaches willing to help someone get back in the saddle.
Equestrian for Everyone
That’s why she founded Equestrian for Everyone – “to foster a welcoming environment where people of all abilities, backgrounds, and ages can benefit from the therapeutic, educational and recreational aspects of equestrian sports.
Emery McCallum is 14 years old and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 18 months. She has been riding since she was two years old and will ride in the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in a para equestrian demonstration this week. Submitted photo
“Through compassionate instruction, community involvement, and a dedication to removing barriers, we believe everyone should have the chance to build confidence, improve well-being, and form meaningful connections with horses,” Crawford states in a description of the company.
She said she’s working to connect para riders with coaches, “so that they don’t have to struggle like I did. So that it becomes easier for equestrians everywhere, regardless of whether you have a disability or not,” to find riding schools with someone who can teach them.
She’s working on a database to make these connections.
When Equestrian for Everyone hosted its first clinic last summer, Paralympic dressage rider Jodie Schloss, who competed in Paris this year, was one of the teachers, along with other Olympic and non-Olympic riders, Crawford said.
The clinic included “able-bodied and para riders side by side doing the same things,” Crawford said, to showcase the fact that just because someone can’t move part of their body a certain way, doesn’t mean they “can’t get the same movement from the horse – it just looks a little different.”
Crawford’s fall
On Boxing Day in 2018, Crawford was riding alone when her horse Beau sidestepped, and she slipped off, landing “directly on my bum,” she said.
The pressure caused a burst fracture which compressed her spine, and she broke two vertebrae that connect her upper and lower back (the L1 and T12).
“I was not supposed to be able to walk again, because it burst the nerve pocket,” she said.
She couldn’t move or feel anything below her hips.
Crawford yelled for help, and two younger girls found her, so she asked them to call 911 and the barn owner.
“Once the ambulance got there, they tried to remove my horse, and he wouldn’t leave,” Crawford said, because he didn’t want to move from her side.
“It took four people to get him out of the ring.”
Crawford was airlifted to Hamilton for surgery, and rods were put in to her spine to stabilize it.
She was then moved to spinal rehab, where she first learned how to use a wheelchair and eventually how to walk again.
Within months she was walking with assistive devices, and within half a year she was able to get back on Beau.
Jenn Crawford defied expectations by returning to riding within six months of a serious accident, gradually resuming her partnership with her horse Beau. Submitted photo
The first time Crawford rode after the accident, she felt sad because she “knew it was going to be different.
“But the moment I actually started to do things with him, like trot and stuff, it all came back really quickly, like muscle memory.
“He took care of me the entire time. He was an absolute saint,” Crawford said of Beau, a “small but mighty” hackney-thoroughbred-Percheron cross Crawford rescued.
“If it was any other horse, I don’t think I would be where I am right now,” she said.
