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24 SIDELINES MAY 2011 FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE Jan Byyny: Making a Comeback

By Lauren R. Giannini O

n the last day of February 2010, upper level event rider Jan Byyny suffered critical injuries after a fall on the cross-country at Pine Top Horse Trials in Georgia. A badly fractured arm required surgery and lots of hardware, but the crash also knocked Jan unconscious and resulted in multiple serious contusions, including what’s known as a dissected carotid artery. The damaged artery caused a stroke, affecting the language center of her brain. Jan had to learn to talk all over again and continues relentless therapy to regain full use of her hands. “I’m lucky – I’ve had great support,” says Jan. “My family, my boyfriend, my friends and all the girls at the barn. I wanted to be able to make a living at what I love, but I didn’t know to what capacity I could come back. I’m slowly coming back and I take it one day at a time. My arm is pretty good, but I don’t have the best feeling in it as far as my reins are concerned. The doctors didn’t think I would come back. I think that because I’ve ridden all my life my body still knows what it’s supposed to do.”

Although Jan admits that there are many issues connected with a stroke that you don’t ever want to experience, she keeps a good attitude and compares her regimen of physical therapy to learning how to ride. “If you don’t do it for a while, you go back to where you were,” says Jan. “If you want to come back badly enough, you do it every day. I just went to a new therapist and she was making me push pennies up a table and pull them back with my fngers. It’s frustrating, getting my fngers to work, but I want to come back all the way.”

Setting Goals

Jan’s future goals depend on the extent of her recovery from that trauma-induced stroke. As soon as the doctors gave her the nod, however, she was back in the saddle. “All the time I was healing from my artery, I was walking on Max, who belonged to my friend Chip Chester, with my mom leading me like a little kid,” recalls Jan. “When I got the doctors’ okay to ride, I went to one of the girls and said, ‘I’m going to ride and I’ll get in trouble if I don’t have you out here, but I want to do this on my own.’ She was, like, ‘ohhh-kay…’ I had this bad right hand and my balance was

off, but I picked up the trot on Max and we trotted both ways – he’s like a couch to sit on – and then we cantered both ways. Actually, the doctors said that I could walk by myself, but I had to get past being nervous and insecure and I fgured I had nothing to lose.” Jan continued to work on her confdence and balance by riding Max for about a month. Then she started riding her two-star horse, Why Not, taking her time to get used to him, doing a lot of fat work. Her frst jumping efforts in mid-summer refected her state of mind.

Leaps of Faith

“My boyfriend Tom came to help me, and I kept telling him, ‘put it down more’ and he’d say, ‘but it doesn’t go down any more’ and I’d say I’m too scared, but I did it,” says Jan. “I don’t know what my plans are because I don’t know if I can come back – one day at a time. Even though I would love to try for the 2012 Olympics, I don’t want to put that pressure on myself just now. I haven’t gone Intermediate yet. I can teach and train the horses. I’m riding everything on the farm and I can sell horses. If I don’t go any further than this, I can live with that, but I want more than that. I have the desire. I said to the doctor, ‘I’m not stupid – if I don’t feel right, I won’t do it.’ ”

E V E N T I N G

Jan Byyny made her competitive comeback in February 2011: shown here completing her frst preliminary horse trial since the devastating accident (one year earlier at the same venue) aboard Why Not, her two-star horse, at Pine Top Winter II Horse Trials. One week later they won their Open Prelim division at Paradise Farm

Photo by Elisabeth W. Harpham