By Laura Scaletti
Portraits by Kirsten Hannah
“Can I ride?” That was one of the first questions Eva Crowley asked when she learned she had Hodgkin lymphoma in February 2024. Eva not only rode after her cancer diagnosis, she scheduled her chemotherapy rounds between her horse shows. Horses were part of the remedy for Eva.
While the chemotherapy helped Eva conquer lymphoma, it was her equestrian community that kept her strong throughout the battle. “When my cancer journey started, all the barn moms surprised me with a giant basked of self-care items, because it’s really important to take care of yourself when your body is going through something like that. Everyone was so lovely when they found out and sent me the nicest messages and offered to take care of my horse, Pac-Man,” Eva said. “On my chemo days, they would send me photos of Pac-Man. Each act of kindness helped keep me in a positive state of mind.”
Having a positive outlook enabled Eva to rise to the occasion when she had the opportunity to step into the show ring. Eva had a full-circle moment when she finished her 2024 show season at Duke Jump for the Children II with a second-place finish in the USHJA National Derby aboard her Pac-Man, whose show name is Please Watch Me.
“That’s a particularly special show for me because I had my cancer treatment at Duke Children’s Hospital. The first week of the show, I placed fourth in the derby with really nice rounds. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it again, but I wanted to try,” Eva said. “As I was doing the victory gallop, I thought, Six months ago I was in a hospital bed and now I’m here at the top of the sport thanks to the work at Duke Children’s.”
Starting out
Eva’s obsession with horses began on a family trip to Palos Verdes, California, when she was 7 years old. “We went on a trail ride over the fault lines where my aunt lives,” Eva said. “That turned into my parents signing me up for a horse camp that summer and I’ve just been hooked on horses ever since.”
A competitive dancer when she first started riding, Eva juggled her two interests for several years before dedicating all her time to horses. Initially, Eva tried eventing and dabbled in dressage. It wasn’t until she moved to a hunter barn, Pleasant Hill Farm, that she truly felt that she had found her niche. “Once I was doing the hunters, I realized I was more interested in horses than I was dance. So, I decided I was ready to pour my life into horses,” Eva said. “I’ve never looked back.”
Eva believes her competitive dance background and pursuit of perfection is what drew her to hunters and equitation. “Hunters aren’t about who can go the fastest, like in cross-country or the jumpers; rather, it’s about who can have the most graceful course. I think the hunters are more challenging because we have to get every single distance perfect. In eventing and the jumpers, especially at the lower levels, if the distance doesn’t work out perfectly, if you get over the jump you’re still fine,” Eva said. “In the hunters, if you don’t see the distance, you’re out of the ribbons. I like striving for perfection in each trip.”
Early in Eva’s hunter show career, she was able to get a taste of that perfect-trip feeling. “I was doing the crossrails and my pony didn’t have a lead change. We were competing against all of these very nice ponies and wealthy riders, and that day everything just fell together,” Eva said. “My pony landed every single lead, I found every distance and we ended up winning the class. That’s when I realized maybe I could go somewhere in this sport.”
The trainers at Pleasant Hill Farm, Cammie Fielding and Meaghan Kearns, have been alongside Eva every step of the way since she entered the hunter world. “When I came to them, I was doing the crossrails and in a matter of five years they’ve helped me move up to the Junior Hunters, equitation and national derbies,” Eva said.
While Cammie and Meaghan have helped Eva become the rider she is today, what she appreciates most about the duo is that they never put pressure on her to win. Instead, they encourage her to enjoy her time in the show ring. “I think that’s the best kind of trainer you can have, because they’re saying, ‘I hope you do an incredible job and have fun, but if you don’t it’s OK. When you come out, we’re going to talk about it either way. If it’s good, we want to talk about it, and if it’s bad we’re also going to talk about it because that’s the only way you learn,’” Eva said.
A perfectionist by nature, if Eva makes a mistake in the ring she’s already beating herself up by the time she reaches the in-gate. That’s why having a supportive team waiting for her is key to maintaining her confidence. “Cammie and Meaghan are never disappointed, never mad at you or ashamed about your performance, even if you have a mistake. Instead, they talk to us about how we can improve and make our rounds better for the next time,” she said.
The Diagnosis
While Eva was in the midst of pursuing her show-ring goals, she noticed a lump above her collarbone that wouldn’t go away. As they went through a battery of tests to figure out what the mysterious lump was, Eva would wear turtlenecks so others wouldn’t be concerned.
With Eva’s main symptoms being enlarged lymph nodes and night sweats, which are a result of an underlying infection, the doctors decided to do an MRI and CT scan to figure out just what was going on in that area. After a biopsy, it was confirmed Eva had cancer: classical Hodgkin lymphoma Type B.
Cancer immediately had an impact on Eva’s equestrian plans. “I had IEA Regionals a week after my biopsy and the doctors told me I couldn’t ride for two weeks. That wasn’t the first time medical issues had gotten in the way of my goals and dreams: In July 2021, I dislocated my knee, shattered my tibia and had a five-month recovery where I couldn’t show or ride,” Eva said. “So honestly, I was disappointed about missing IEA Regionals, but I’d missed shows before.”
Although Eva was going to miss Regionals, the doctors had good news for her considering the diagnosis. “‘Cancer’ is a very stigmatized word. The first thing they told me was that I wasn’t going to die. The second thing they told me was that I could ride, no problem,” Eva said. “I thought, Awesome. Everything is going to be fine. I can still ride a horse.”
The hardest part of the diagnosis for Eva was having her adolescence stripped from her. “As a teenage girl sitting in the doctor’s office, it’s hard to deal with knowing the treatment is going to take away all of the things you’re proud of—hair and tan skin. After treatment you’re going to look like a ghost and be bald,” she said.
In the end, Eva knew to make it to the other side of her diagnosis she was going to have to endure hard things. She began planning her chemo around school and eventually around horse shows. “For the first few months, I wasn’t allowed to show because chemo took away my immune system, making me susceptible to any kind of simple cold or infection. Three months into my treatment, in May, the doctors agreed that I could start thinking about competing again,” she said.
Eva and her medical team devised a schedule where she would have chemo the weekend before a show. She’d get chemo on Thursday afternoon and then have Friday to Monday to recover before getting back in the saddle Tuesday and leaving for the show Wednesday. Eva would show Thursday through Sunday, and then the following Thursday start with treatment again.
Community Support
When asked how horses helped Eva during this difficult period in her life, she responded, “Honestly, the real question is how did horses not help me?” Pac-Man was a solid part of Eva’s support system.
“He is a saint of all saints and tolerated so much from me. One day, before I was truly ready to ride, I talked my mom into letting me ride. I literally couldn’t sit up, had an ice boot strapped around me because it was so hot and I was walking around the ring hunched over on my poor horse. He was so confused about what I was doing, but continued to walk around like a saint,” Eva said.
While Pac-Man tolerated Eva’s shenanigans while on him, he didn’t quite understand why she was no longer a regular fixture at the barn. All of a sudden instead of seeing her nearly every day, he only saw her three times a week because of her medical appointments. To keep Pac-Man in shape, Eva enlisted the help of her fellow riders.
“When other people started riding Pac-Man and I was missing, he got into all sorts of things. I was gone for a week, he pulls a shoe and is lame. I come back, the shoe’s on and he’s totally fine. Then, I had my first round of chemo, was gone for a week and he got cellulitis. I come back, magically there is nothing wrong with him,” Eva said. “When he realized other people were riding him, he was not OK and pretended to be lame, which is kind of funny. But also, Pac-Man, that’s not cool!”
Pac-Man may not have appreciated the village supporting Eva, but she sure did. “My barn family would text me every single time I got chemo telling me they were thinking of me and loved me,” she said.
Once Eva was able to show again, her friends stepped in to help, as they knew she wasn’t as strong as she had once been. “Especially when I first started back and couldn’t handle the summer heat, they would help me get Pac-Man ready and whisk him away and take care of him after I showed,” she said. “It was so awesome that they helped me deal with my horse, so I could put myself first.”
Eva believes the most important thing we can do in the horse industry is to have a strong community behind us. “It’s not about having a trainer or friends who put pressure on you to win, but rather it’s about having a trainer and friends who can support you no matter what you’re going through,” she said. “If you don’t have that type of support system, you probably need to move so you can get that kind of trainer and friend group.”
Team Player
For the past six years, Eva has been competing on her IEA team. “I think being on an IEA team is the grand equalizer because it doesn’t really matter how nice your horse is, compared to the rated shows. The judging is more focused on the riders rather than the horses they’re assigned,” Eva explained.
Eva began her IEA experience in middle school solely focusing on the flat classes and has moved up the levels to competing in the open over-fences classes in high school. “I think IEA is just such a fun experience and totally sets you up well for riding in college because you get to sit on so many different horses and hone your riding skills. It really teaches you how to adjust to each horse in an instant and give each horse the ride it needs,” she said. “Having that feel is so important as rider.”
Last October, Eva committed to the Sweet Briar College NCEA team. “I had gone to a clinic at Sweet Briar in November of my junior year of high school and really fell in love with the program. Through cancer, I realized that I always need horses to be part of my life, so that drew me to a college where I could still be involved with horses,” she said.
What really sealed the deal for Eva to commit to Sweet Briar was their care and concern for her after she shared her cancer diagnosis. “As I was going through the recruiting process, I emailed all the teams I was talking to and let them know I’d been diagnosed with cancer and wasn’t showing as much as I would like. Sweet Briar was the only team that emailed me pretty much every other month just to check in on me, not on my riding, but to see how I was doing,” she said. “That made a big impact on me, because it’s similar to the support I have on my IEA team and Pleasant Hill Farm barn family. There is nothing better than being part of a team that cares about you.”
Not only did Eva love the team’s commitment toward her, but she also loved the campus and ideals of the college. “Sweet Briar is all about the empowerment of women. It’s just a bonus that they have such a good equestrian team there,” she said. “I’m excited about studying political science and pre-law there.”
Before joining the Sweet Briar team this fall, Eva has big plans including competing at Junior Hunter Finals and Pony Finals this summer. To maximize the last year of her Junior career, Eva began showing All Powered Up in the Large Pony Hunters for the 2025 show season. “Pony hunters are very different from the Junior hunters. I’m really enjoying doing both divisions,” she said.
Looking towards the finals, Eva has two goals—have fun and have happy rounds. “I just want to have a good experience on both of them. It would definitely be nice to get a ribbon, but I just want to lay down really good and confident trips,” she said.
While cancer may have tried to slow Eva down, it’s only made her more committed to enjoying life to the fullest, especially when it comes to horses. “I’m really looking forward to collegiate riding. I hope that horses will always be part of my life,” she said. “My goal is that if I work hard enough in school and early in my career afterwards, I can have a nice Amateur horse to enjoy. That’s the dream!”
Eva’s past, present and future with horses wouldn’t be possible without the love and support she’s received from her parents. “When I started riding, my parents knew nothing about horses. They weren’t naturally drawn to horses, but they know I love horses and they want what’s important to me to be important to them. Today my dad takes my horse for hand walks, and my mom is always buying and giving treats,” Eva said. “I would have never been able to get as far as I am in this sport without my parents. I’m eternally grateful for everything they have done for me.”
Follow Eva on Instagram @ecc.eq
Photos by Kirsten Hannah www.kirstenhannahphotography.com
