14 SIDELINES OCTOBER 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
Century Club Ride when she competed her 24-year-old mare Cha
Sienna. It was Paddy’s first show since having a stroke three years
earlier that affected her right side and speech. Paddy says she
was temporarily “left without a leg to stand on, so to speak.” After
a lot of physical and occupational therapy, Paddy continued her
therapy by doing the things she loved best — riding and art. She
began walking on Sienna, which helped not only her coordination
on her right side, but suddenly her speech improved too. “Sienna
and I are like an old pair of slippers — we fit each other,” she said.
Paddy says she took up dressage in her 50s because “it’s a
discipline where you take small steps — set little goals and move
on to the next goal.” And that’s just how she lives her life. “I always
have something I’m trying to do, little goals to attain all the way
up,” she said.
To this day, The Amputee Coalition hosts the Paddy Rossbach
Youth Camp, named after Paddy, who was instrumental in
developing the program. Paddy’s next goal is riding her new,
young horse in a dressage test and making a week-long return
to arctic Russia to go fishing with her husband while living in a
tent! “[My life] seems ordinary to me,” Paddy said, “but that’s just
because I’m living it!”
About the writer: Jane Fucinaro is the administrative assistant at The Dressage
Foundation. Outside of her part-time job, she’s a full-time dressage instructor and
trainer specializing in children’s riding lessons. She stays busy with her local GMO
and 4-H dressage club.
e
Never Too Old
By Jane Fucinaro
Paddy Rossbach, 76, of Salisbury, Connecticut, has done a
little bit of everything in life. She learned to ski in her 20s, scuba
dive in her 30s, began running marathons in her 40s and took
up horseback riding in her 50s! Roller blading at 60, hang gliding
at 65, then for her 75th birthday, Paddy purchased her second
horse. From fly fishing for 21-pound salmon in arctic Russia to
whitewater rafting down the Colorado River, Paddy continues to
do it all.
These may all seem like “normal” adventures, but there’s
another part to this story. At 6 years old, Paddy lost her left leg
to a Navy truck during World War II in England, where she grew
up. Her parents allowed her to do everything and anything as if
she didn’t lose it, and when she went to boarding school at 9, she
became very independent.
She trained as a nurse in England and eventually moved to
the United States in 1966 to continue nursing at Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Center and The Hospital for Special Surgery. Paddy
co-founded a small non-profit corporation specializing in exercise
and sports training for people with amputations, which led her to
head up the national organization, The Amputee Coalition.
During her time there, she helped start programs for the
Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, soldiers
returning home from Afghanistan, as well as for the many civilian
adults and children living with the loss of limbs. After eight years,
she retired from it at age 70, but not before doing the high ropes
course at the Amputee Coalition Youth Camp — which she says
was horrifying, as she really doesn’t like heights!
In May, Paddy, now 76, had a milestone occasion with her
The Extraordinary Adventures of
Paddy Rossbach
Paddy Rossbach
Photo by Pat Hendrick
Paddy catching a 21-pounder in Tierra del Fuego.
