130 SIDELINES MARCH 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
2 SIDELINES JUNE 2012
FOR HORSE P OPLE • ABOUT HORSE P
BettyAnn with George Morris during his November clinic at
Telluride Farm in Hampshire, Illinois.
Photo by Melissa Lorusso
BettyAnn and Brandi showing off their jumping style.
Photo by Connie OC Photos.
horse jumped a hedge. Right then and there, she was hooked.
She demanded her parents stop the car and begged for a riding
lesson.
Reluctantly, her parents obliged. “They thought riding would
be smelly, I would step in poo and won’t want to do it,” BettyAnn
explained. “So the next Saturday he [my dad] took me there and
got a lesson for me. After the lesson, I hung onto the horse’s
leg and said, ‘I don’t want to go home. I am going to live at the
barn.’”
It didn’t take long for her parents to realize just
how serious she was. BettyAnn laughs that she was so
determined that most Saturdays, if mom had better things to do,
she would run away from home and head to the Hinsdale barn, a
10-mile walk and 20 minute car ride.
Eventually, her parents gave in. BettyAnn was working for
her $2.50 weekly lesson (she had two paper routes, cut grass
and walked dogs) and she had proved that nothing was going to
keep her away from horses.
A Passion for Learning
BettyAnn went on to spend her entire life devoting herself to
improving as a rider and horsewoman, learning from as many
expert horsemen as possible.
In high school, she continued her lessons and rode other
people’s horses as she improved. She spent summers riding
in Michigan with Max and Nancy Bonham, then met Alyce
Hinkle, who had trained with the British three-day team
With Alyce’s help, BettyAnn took her riding to the next level
and attended her first Washington International Horse Show as a
spectator (which then turned into a life-long obsession to ride
there). She also learned the ropes of training and reselling
horses, which funded her college education at the University of
Tampa.
“I would get horses off the track, train them, sell them, pay
my tuition, have a little extra and buy another horse. That’s how
I started working with racing Thoroughbreds. I find it funny that
people are just now rediscovering the ability of Thoroughbreds to
show.”
While in college, she met trainer Frank Conway who was
working at Two Rivers Hunt Club. Frank would introduce her to
one of her greatest influences and mentors – the one and only
George Morris.
Recollecting on her first clinic with George, a grin snuck
across BettyAnn’s face. “I just fell in love with the man. I was just
like, ‘He’s so brutal. I love it.’”
BettyAnn was just that kind of rider. She wanted to be the
best, so she gave it her all - 100 percent of the time.
A Miraculous Recovery
When BettyAnn returned to Illinois after school, she began
riding with Wally Holly, then with Dick Cheska. At the time, she
owned two horses – one an OTTB preliminary eventer and the
other a youngster named No Secrets with a bad abscess who
ended up being a remarkable success.
After eight months, No Secrets, aka Ottis, abscess finally
burst and healed, and he was ready to start hacking, but fate had
other plans for BettyAnn.
When it seemed everything was falling into place, the world
came crashing down on her. A drunk driver broadsided her – it
didn’t look like she would make it.
When an emergency crew arrived at the scene, they couldn’t
even find her. They thought she had been ejected from the car,
but her body had actually been shoved through the dashboard
and she was inside the engine. At the hospital, she was given
last rites; she was clinically dead.
“I could hear what people were saying,” she said. “I
understood what they were saying. I just couldn’t wake up.
Finally, when I did wake up, they told my parents, ‘she’ll be blind
and crippled and a vegetable.’”
That prognosis wasn’t going to work for BettyAnn. She knew
she had more to accomplish – she knew it wasn’t over. “There’s
something that tells you when you’re OK and when you’re not
and I knew I was OK.”
Despite her body literally being crushed, within two months
she was back at the barn. Dick’s boys, Richard and Donald, had
been bringing her young horse along. Because giving up wasn’t
(and isn’t) in her vocabulary, she found herself back in the saddle
within a week.
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