It’s all coming together for para-equestrian Katie Jackson

By Nancy Jaffer
July 8, 2018

On her left leg, Katie Jackson wears a sleek black Cavallo boot. On her right leg, it’s a prosthetic device and a running shoe.

When she mounts Diesel, her statuesque black Oldenburg, she swings her right leg over his back, then settles in the saddle and removes the prosthetic. After a quick zip to her specially tailored breeches that fit neatly over the stump of her leg, she’s ready to head out.

The moves are so smooth, you might think she’s been doing them all her life. But it’s only since 2015 that Katie’s leg was amputated above the knee after she was diagnosed with cancer.

“If I lose my leg, I’m going to keep riding,” she had vowed before the decision to amputate was made.

And so she has—over the weekend, the 38-year-old athlete and Diesel competed with nine other horse/rider combinations at Wheatland Farms in Virginia. The invitational event is one of the components to qualify for the short list ,from which will be chosen the U.S. para-equestrian team that goes to the FEI World Equestrian Games in North Carolina.

A lot of people have come together to put Katie in contention for a place on the squad that will meet the world’s best at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in September. Her original goal was to go for it with her horse Royal Dancer. After he sustained a minor injury during the Adequan Global Dressage Festival in Florida last winter, things went off track.

“Such is life and horses,” she shrugged. Her life, however, took a sudden turn upward one day during the show while she was having a casual meal with Rowan O’Riley, who sponsors para rider Becca Hart.

Knowing that Katie was only able to tack-walk Royal, Rowan noted she was going to be away for a week and suggested her luncheon companion could keep going by riding her horse, Diesel, and taking lessons with Catherine Haddad Staller, her trainer at that time.

“I had a lovely instant connection with him, but at that point, it was just a week,” said Katie about Diesel, a 15-year-old son of DeNiro.

“I really loved working with Catherine. It was just one of those stars aligning that a few weeks later, Rowan decided to sell Diesel and gave me a call.”

Katie, who fits together beautifully with Diesel, noted, “I’ve been learning so much from him and so much from Catherine. He’s got a kind, willing personality. He knew his program and I was able to be introduced into his program in a way that made him open to it. It wasn’t about a leg being gone. It was about riding and understanding what he needs to do.”

The gelding, who has been in training with Catherine’s assistant, Michelle Brady, is “a kind soul and a sweet horse. He works hard and wants to please—that made the match,” observed Katie, who has a cheery, can-do, bubbly demeanor, one key to her success.

The system used by Catherine, a top international rider based in Tewksbury Township, became just what Katie needed, because it isn’t dependent on the lower leg.

“We train from the seat and weight and a little the turning of the thighs,” said Catherine.

“For Katie, it was the perfect system match. We had an instant mind meld.  I teach her like an able-bodied rider. Whenever we need the lower right leg, we substitute the whip if needed, but (even) more, we substitute thought, rather than action.”

Removing the knee rolls from the saddle made a big difference as well.

“The stump appreciated taking it all away,” said Katie, who tends to speak of that appendage in the third person.

“I went from all this stuff to block it in and support it, to just a little Velcro that helps keep it stablilized. It’s the happiest it’s been. I dealt with a lot of pain where the femur would bang into it and bruise internally and get a lot of muscle cramping. The Stubben saddle has been a game-changer for me.”

Katie travels regularly to New Jersey from her Austin, Texas, base, where the dentist manages a practice. Patients are cared for by Katie’s associates, since it is too painful for her to stand in the position that she would need to use while working hands-on.

Her husband, Yancey, who is in the home construction business, has learned a lot about the horse game as he helps his wife. Other pieces of the effort to get to the WEG fell into place because Katie became friendly during the Florida circuit with veterinarians Brendan and Wendy Furlong who coincidentally–just like Catherine’s husband, Dr. Greg Staller–have an equine clinic in Tewksbury.

Katie stayed with the Furlongs in Florida and they extended the invitation to her in New Jersey as well, so she is their guest in Pittstown, a short drive from Tewksbury and Catherine. The backing all around from people who have become part of Katie’s team and others rooting for her has made it work.

In Bedminster, the June Red Tail dressage show made a provision for her to practice her freestyle in a competition atmosphere. The judge marked her at 74.5 percent, which Catherine said, “brought tears to my eyes.”

Katie expressed gratitude to everyone who has become a part of her quest, from Greg Staller and farrier Chris Pinola, who care for Diesel, to Brendan Furlong, who works with Royal Dancer, and beyond that, to others she doesn’t even know.

She mentioned, “The environment of support that has come around me, people cheering for me in other countries through social media and the power of friends and family. You hear stories, `My friend in India is praying for you.’

“It makes a difference and lifts you up and gives you strength you didn’t know you had. It’s probably the most humbling thing I have ever encountered.” she said.

Katie is a long way from where her journey started in a very dark place three years ago, when she was diagnosed with an aggressive type of tumor growing behind her right knee.

“We were fortunate that it didn’t appear to have spread,” she said, but at the same time, “It’s devastating. It’s a blow. You never expect to have that kind of news, especially at 35 years old. It knocks you off your path and you feel pretty lost for quite a bit. It changed the trajectory of everything from my career to my business and family life,” she recalled.

But giving up riding was never even a thought. Katie started riding as a child in Oregon, and became  focused on dressage.

“Dressage always has been something I’ve loved; the connection you have with the horses, the detail and just the beauty of it,” said Katie, who had earned a U.S. Dressage Federation silver medal on Debbie Hubbard’s Winterstolz.

After getting in the saddle again following her operation, she began training with Kai Handt,  chef d’equipe of the U.S. para team.

“He was able to get me back riding and competing,” she said. Katie rides as para-equestrian Grade V, in which competitors do multiple flying changes, half-passes and other advanced movements. The para scale starts with Grade I, which is walk only.

She finished 2017 at the top of the United States Dressage Federation’s Grade V standings, and also was ranked third on the FEI Para-Dressage Grade V World Rankings List.

With her goals for the WEG and 2020 Paralympics in sight, Katie reflected how she got to this juncture.

“Cancer gave me perspective on doing what I love,” she said. As a teenager, she made the decision to go to college and pursue graduate studies, though at one point, “I really wanted to keep riding and training and push myself to see what I could do as an equestrian,” she remembered.

But Katie never rode at her current level when she had both legs.

If she had not undergone the amputation, riding “would have been what I fit in in the evening and weekends,” she pointed out.

Learning that she needed the amputation, she grasped at the idea of being able to do dressage as a para-equestrian. It was comforting because “it’s a known and something close to my heart.

“This opportunity has been incredible. It’s been a gift to push myself and do this and also has helped me through the cancer and the loss; physical loss, loss of the journey and path you were on. It’s given me kind of a new purpose and a reason to get up and push hard every day and do something that’s hopefully bigger than me.

“If you could make lemonade from lemons of having something happen, this has been pretty incredible,’ said Katie.

“It has not been easy, but there are things that have aligned and you just put it out to the universe.”