“It felt like I was learning to ride all over again,” says Bubby Upton, recalling her first experiences of being back on a horse after her major back surgery following a serious accident in August last year, which could have left her unable to walk.
Bubby says that as soon as she regained “basic function” and was able to carry out day-to-day activities again, in her head she wanted to ride, although no one knew if that would be possible: “I guess I had come to terms with the fact that I might never do the level of riding that I used to do. But for me, I had accepted that just being back on a horse in whatever capacity was enough for me.”
When she went for an appointment with her surgeon three months after the accident, everyone around Bubby Upton was managing her expectations – saying she was too weak and wouldn’t be given the go ahead to ride. She therefore hoped that she’d be given a date when she could ride, as a goal to work towards and help her stay mentally focused.
In an interview on episode 157 of The Horse & Hound Podcast, Bubby explains: “He looked at my scans, and he turned around and said that I could ride again. The World Class athlete health lead Ash Wallace was there and she was quite shocked. I just burst into tears. The surgeon was really happy with how it healed and how mobile I was – I think he was expecting me barely to be able to walk still, and I kind of strutted in and was showing off how much I had improved since he last saw me. He genuinely couldn’t believe it.
“Ash straight away was like, ‘That’s great that he said that you could ride again, but I don’t think he has any idea what level of riding we’re talking about here. So we’ll just start off in walk for a few weeks, and see how that goes. You just need to take it easy, provide us with feedback, let us know how you feel.’ Ash has obviously seen this before and I think she already knew how weird it was going to feel, whereas for me, it was just an overriding emotion of excitement.
“When I actually did get back on, reality sank in of how far I still had to go.”
Bubby describes her first experiences back in the saddle: “I had this big slip down to the left side. And it was just bizarre riding again because basically my mid-back down to my sacrum, the top of my glutes, is now all metal work, so it’s completely fixed. When you ride, obviously that’s all meant to move with the motion of the horse. So getting back on the horse and that movement wanting to happen, but not being able to happen, was the weirdest feeling ever.”
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Gradually, Bubby built up what she could do and somehow, stayed mentally strong.
“If I’m being honest, reflecting back on it, it was incredibly demoralising – having been at the level that I was, and then being a complete shell of myself. It was hard, hardish, to remain positive, but I just did. I never lost faith that I would get back to what I was. Don’t ask me why, because if you came to watch me, you’d be like, ‘Oh my god. This is really bad’. I think everyone around me was thinking, ‘She has totally lost it’. But I kind of felt the improvements, the slow improvements each week.”
Bubby is always very keen to emphasise in interviews how lucky she has been to be able to return to the career she loves and she never wants to complain. But the reality is that she is also in constant pain.
She says: “Before, I never had to think about riding causing me pain – I just did it and I never got tired. I could ride as many horses as I liked in a day and and that was fine, whereas now there’s never not pain, but I really don’t ever want to sound like I’m sitting here complaining – I’m not whatsoever.
“But that would be the biggest difference, just having manage that and tolerate that, and listen to my body. Before I just pushed through the hours in the day and kind of squeezed it all in, whereas now there is very much a physical limitation of what I can and can’t do.
“Sitting trot is my biggest challenge and my body’s ability to adapt and bend and absorb. I was watching someone the other day on a horse that kind of whipped round, and their body was able to bend and absorb that change in direction, whereas mine doesn’t really do that any more. So I definitely come off a lot more than I used to, which frustrates me a lot.”
Bubby will have another surgery at the end of this year, with the hope this will reduce the pain. Before then, she is set to tackle the Mars Maryland 5 Star with her top horse Cola.
Hear Bubby Upton talk more about her accident, her ongoing recovery and her plans for Maryland by tuning in to episode 157 of TheHorse & HoundPodcast here, or search “The Horse & Hound Podcast” in your favourite podcast app.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
