Back in the saddle again

Kim Jones remembers the time and the date -- about 7 p.m. on May 24, 2001 -- but not much else about the accident.

An avid and experienced rider, Jones was breaking in a newly acquired quarter horse at a stable in Camden.

"He was a little nervous around other horses," Jones said. "So I'm not sure what he did, but I think it had something to do with that."

Whatever happened, Jones fell from her horse. She next remembers staring up at concerned faces, and hearing someone say, "She's not breathing."

Jones suffered injuries to her brain stem and cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls movement and balance. She also suffered injuries to the C-1 and C-2 vertebrae in her spine, leaving her with only partial use of her legs.

The next sentence in this story could have read, "She never rode again."

But that's not Kim Jones' story.

"Some people say, 'She's crazy for thinking about getting on a horse again,' " said a friend, Lori

Reed of Summerville. "But she has stuck with it. Lots of people find excuses not to go for their hopes and dreams, but she is going for it."

Jones, 43, has qualified as an alternate for the U.S. Para-Dressage team at the 2010 World Equestrian Games, which will be held in America for the first time from Sept. 25 to Oct. 10 in Lexington, Ky.

It's also the first time that Para-Dressage, for riders with disabilities, has been part of the equestrian games.

"It's a big deal for us," Jones said.

But it's not been an easy road for the petite, soft-spoken blonde, who had to give up her career as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at Medical University Hospital after her accident.

Now she lives with her 69-year-old mother in Georgetown, gets by on disability payments and loads her wheelchair into the back of a 2006 Nissan Sentra to drive across the country to pursue her love of riding.

"That's why I admire her so much, as do so many other people," said Reed, who knows Jones as part of the horse scene in Summerville and Ridgeville. "Kim is very good-natured and has a really good spirit. She doesn't let things get her down. She just gets in her little car and makes it happen. She drives to Florida, Chicago, wherever, by herself. She takes her wheelchair and her walker and off she goes."

But it took Jones about three years after her accident to get back on a horse. Jones boarded the horse at a stable in Columbia while undergoing physical therapy. Without telling anyone one day, she maneuvered her horse next to a tall haystack, hauled herself up and mounted a horse for the first time since her accident.

"No, I wasn't scared," she said. "I was just excited. When I told people what I had done, they were like, 'What did you do? There was no one to help you.'

"But I was ready -- ready to get back on the horse. I knew no one would agree, so I did it on my own."

Once she returned to riding, Jones made a startling discovery: Her sense of balance was better on horseback.

"When I get on a horse, the dizziness goes away," she said. "I wondered about that, but my doctor says there have been studies that show that the motion of a horse walking acts directly on the cerebellum, to improve balance."

In dressage, horse and rider complete prescribed movements inside a ring, "like gymnastics on a horse," Jones said. In para-dressage, riders are classified according to the severity of their disability, from grade 1 (the most severe) to grade 4. Jones is a grade 2 rider.

Common disabilities include multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, amputation, paralysis and blindness. Jones described a rider with no arms who clenches the reins in her mouth to guide her horse.

Para-dressage riders can use approved compensating aids, but the rules are the same as in standard dressage competitions. Communication between horse and rider is the heart of the sport.

"I love the partnership," said Jones, who spent childhood years on a horse farm near Andrews. "Horses are so magnificent, they will do anything for you -- if they know what you want and if you ask them in a way they understand. If they trust you, they will do anything you ask, if they can possibly do it."

Disabled riders like Jones must work harder than their able-bodied colleagues to communicate with the horse. For example, Jones' left side is markedly weaker than her right.

Jones returned to competition in the fall and has trained with renowned instructor Walter Zettl. She also traveled to Canada and Chicago to qualify for the equestrian games team. But an already expensive sport is even more costly for disabled riders, who must hire help for jobs (feeding and grooming the horse, mucking out the stalls) they normally would do themselves.

Jones is trying to raise about $75,000 to pay for her effort to compete in the World Equestrian Games.

"Normally, I would do everything myself," she said. "But when you are disabled, you have to hire someone to do those things. And it's like that for everyone in para-dressage."

Jones harbors dreams of again competing with able-bodied riders, and even of making the U.S. Olympic team.

But the point of Kim Jones' story, Reed said, is not making this team or winning that competition. It's getting back on the horse in the first place.

"I never thought about not riding again," Jones said. "A few of my doctors told me I shouldn't. I was like, 'Sorry.' It never made me bitter. It just made me try harder to get back."