Grand prix dressage rider back on track after serious injury, thanks to Pilates
British grand prix dressage rider Lucy Straker is looking ahead to a successful season after returning from a horrific injury.
In June 2015, Lucy was loading a young horse into a horsebox when the freak accident occurred.
“He decided he wasn’t going to go in and whipped himself back across me,” Lucy told H&H.
“As he pulled me off the ramp, I tripped and he trampled right over the top of me.
“It happened in a split second.”
After a lengthy wait for two ambulances to arrive at her remote yard, Lucy was given strong pain relief and taken to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.
Here she was X-rayed and had a CT scan, allowing doctors to see the extent of her injuries.
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She had smashed several ribs, sustained a punctured lung, and had broken her left scapular (shoulder blade) into three pieces.
Lucy was transferred to Bristol Royal Infirmary, where she was told she needed a high-risk operation help fix her ribs and repair her lung or would face months of pain in hospital.
Surgeons pieced together her ribs with titanium and Lucy had chest drains inserted through her back, and then her front, to re-inflate her collapsed left lung.
She was in hospital for eight days before returning home.
“Obviously I couldn’t ride — and I wasn’t the best patient,” said Lucy.
“I spent a lot of time down at the yard sat on a chair. I had never taken more than two days off at a time and all of a sudden I couldn’t do anything.”
“Lucy’s wedding, to Andrew Roberts, was 10 weeks after the accident, but she was recovered enough to walk down the aisle — “initially we didn’t even know if I could do that” — and got back on a horse the next day.
“It was the most amazing thing,” she said. “Because I didn’t fall off, I didn’t have those nerves about getting on. But what they don’t tell you is how it affects you mentally.”
Lucy suffered from flashbacks when handling horses on the ground.
“I thought ‘what is happening to me?’ I’m normally so strong,” she added.
“It did take 18 months to get myself back. They don’t tell you when you have an accident about the trauma that goes with it.”
Olivia Oakley helped ride Lucy’s horses while she built up her strength.
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“I was having regular physio sessions, when the physio said to me ‘go and have some one-to-one [Pilates],” said Lucy. “I started last September and it is just so good.”
She contacted Jeni Major of The Movement Shed and has been working with her and the reformer machine — a spring-loaded resistance machine — to rebuild her strength and flexibility in her ribcage and upper body.
Its been 2 and half year since I got trampled and smashed to pieces by a horse and after they had to rebuild some of my ribs after they picked bits of them out of my lung with titanium and a dodgy shoulder as my scapula was split in 3 as well I’m now finding 1-1 Pilates is transforming my range of movement and core strength to be able to ride and compete at my best!!! After doing it now for 4 months I’m amazed how much more aware I am of how i move each bit of my body and how I can feel how much it can influence how I’m sat on my horses which makes them go even better! I absolutely love it and wished I’d thought of doing it before and its all thanks to Jeni at The Movement Shed for pushing me above and beyond my limits and making me a better more supple and strong athlete!!! Anything is possible if you power through the rubbish times which have been numerous since that life changing day and focus on the future and good times ahead with a body that still clunks but moves!!! ??After each weekly session I’m then having a physio session too for a few weeks with Ceri from Parham Physiotherapy to try and finally eliminate my shoulder pain and so far so good we might finally have a good season pain free!!! ?Posted by Lucy Straker Dressage on Thursday, January 25, 2018
“It looks like a torture machine, but it is really helping hugely,” she added.
Lucy is now aiming for grand prix this summer with the 12-year-old black gelding Farramir and prix st georges with Hawker Hurricane.
“I’m feeling so much stronger — it has taken two-and-a-half years,” said Lucy. “I’m determined to have a season without pain.”
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Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.