On August 14, 2004, Abby Mundt and her Quarter Horse, Skidattle set out on their fourth intermediate cross-country round at the Hunters Run Farm Horse Trials in Metamora, Mich. She remembers now that he seemed a bit uncertain in the starting box, but he soon settled into gear, handling the tricky fourth fence with ease.

But the seventh fence didn’t go so well.

“About six strides out, I didn’t get that ‘there-it-is’ feeling. I thought, ‘He’s not locking on,’ ” recalled Mundt, 20, of India-napolis, Ind. “I couldn’t fathom that he didn’t see it at all. I thought maybe he didn’t see a spot and it would be an off striding. At the last stride, I thought, ‘This is going to be ugly.’ And, oh, how it was.”

“Denny” met the fence with his chest, the pair flipped over the fence, and Mundt landed underneath her horse.

“She jokingly says she was trying to break his fall,” said her mother, Andei. “In the pictures you can see him being so careful to get up and looking for her, but he had to roll to get up, and he rolled on top of her.”

Abby recalled the sensation of her collarbone breaking on impact, but then was unconscious for 15 minutes. “The jump judge said I was seizing a little bit,” said Abby. “I remember waking up and thinking, ‘Oh crap–this is really bad.’ “

After an ambulance transported her to nearby Lapeer Hospital, the emergency room doctor immediately sent her via helicopter to the University of Michigan’s trauma emergency room, where doctors determined the full extent of her injuries.

In addition to breaking her right collarbone, Abby had also broken two ribs, the C7 vertebra in her neck clean through, and both of the transverse processes (the parts that extend off the side) of each of her lumbar vertebrae. She had bleeding in her head and two collapsed lungs.

If that laundry list of horrors wasn’t enough, the most serious injury was a grade 5 lacerated liver, which meant she’d mauled her liver to an extent that’s fatal in half of similar cases.

“I didn’t think I was hurt that badly. I knew I’d broken my collarbone and maybe a couple of ribs. My mom said that my dad and brother were on the way, and I asked her why since I was going home the next day,” said Abby.

As clueless as Abby might have been to her dire circumstances, her mother, a critical-care nurse, was all too aware.

“My mom was good about putting on the fa�ade that she was totally calm, and that helped me stay calm. [Her experience as a nurse] also helped my dad and my brother because she could communicate to them what was going on,” said Abby.


The Extended Horse Family
From the moment Abby and Denny hit the dirt, a huge web of horse people emerged as a support network. As an H-A-rated member of the Heartland Region’s Rather Ride Pony Club and a past member of the Area VIII young riders team, Abby had forged many friendships through riding and teaching that would become important in the coming months.

“Two of my friends were there right away, one taking off my rings and the other taking off my vest. Debbie [Pace, her trainer] was there. My friend’s sister took Denny back to the barn. My mom was by the finish and basically couldn’t move once she heard they needed a medic, so my friend’s dad helped her get out to the fence,” said Abby. “I had just gotten a cat, and my mom had the kitten in the car. My friend’s dad got her and kept her for a month.”

This trend of unsolicited but much appreciated support continued as Abby was hospitalized for 10 days, a week of which was in intensive care. Denny stayed at Pace’s Red House Stables, in Metamora, where friend Ashley Lilley kept him in work for six weeks. Andei, the Rather Ride’s District Commissioner, re-ceived countless offers from local Pony Club families for help with basics like food, lodging and laundry while she stayed at the hospital.

“Before I went home to Indiana, I’d gotten mail from kids I’d taught in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Maryland–there were calls, flowers, cookie bouquets–it was amazing how fast the word got out,” she said. “I think the entire North American Young Riders Championship signed a card, too, which was amazing and so kind. It’s so cool that it’s not about the competition. Ultimately, it’s about the horse and rider and the camaraderie that eventing has.”

Abby required a Minerva brace for three months, a device that’s one notch shy of the halo variety, to stabilize her torso while her broken neck healed. She wasn’t allowed to lift anything or be subjected to any jostling, such as riding in a car, in order to avoid strain that could hurt her healing liver, during the first month of her recovery.

“The first week I was home, I just felt horrible, but I figured that was normal,” said Abby, who had three subsequent visits to the emergency room for various problems. “In one of the trips, they found [two liters] of fluid around my lungs. After they removed that, it was amazing. I could breathe again.

“I felt so useless in the barn. When they said I could, I said, ‘I feel like shoveling poo!’ So, I was out there cleaning stalls in my neck brace!” she said with a laugh.

In February, six months after the accident, a liver scan confirmed that the organ was healing well and that she could soon start riding for real.

“A week later I crashed my car into a light pole,” she said. “They watched me overnight and scanned it the next morning, and it didn’t look any worse, so I went home that day and rode [Denny] for the first time.”

The Road Back
Abby’s physical recovery was a piece of cake, relatively speaking, thanks in part to her incredibly positive attitude and dedicated regiment of walking and barn chores. But the most challenging work came when it was time to address the injuries suffered by her psyche.

In March, Abby took Denny to Pace’s farm. She’d been riding on the flat for around a month and had even jumped another horse once–things had come back pretty quickly.

“My first experience jumping Denny was a little rough. Jumping indoors was OK, although a little nerve-wracking. Then we took him out cross-country, and I was supposed to take him from one little beginner novice fence to another. I did the first fence, and I had to stop because I was bawling my eyes out,” recalled Abby, who had three CCI*s and three successful intermediate horse trials under her belt.

Pace, who’d competed at the advanced level, had shared the experience of suffering a serious fall when her mare flipped over a fence.

“Abby really wanted to push through and make it be like it wasn’t a big deal,” said Pace. “It was a very emotional process, with lots of tears and questions of, ‘What am I thinking? What am I doing?’ I could totally relate to what she was feeling. She could share her feelings with me, and it was OK to feel that way.”

Her trainer helped her explore the latent fear she discovered while attempting that first cross-country fence. “She began questioning whether she’d be able to do it again. My advice was that it didn’t matter if she did or not. It didn’t make her who she was,” said Pace.

Abby–who’d wanted to start competing again at training level, then move up to preliminary and return to Hunters Run at intermediate–allowed herself to back off and take a saner, slower approach.

“At first I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just function. Debbie said, ‘What’s your rush? You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have some kind of fear around this, and you’ve got to deal with it.’ “

Taking her trainer’s advice, Abby tried to silence the internal voices pressuring her to steamroll ahead by entering at novice level for her return, in April 2005. With show jumping scheduled before cross-country, Abby found herself in the show jumping warm-up, paralyzed with fear.

“Denny would get bold to a fence, and I’d get scared, when logically I should have been thrilled that he wasn’t backed off. I’d jump and pull him up and be borderline crying,” said Abby. “Ashley was there with me, and she just stayed calm and told me to come again, come again, come again.”

With Lilley’s help, Abby was able to focus enough to get that round under her belt and then to ratchet up her aggressiveness a hair for cross-country.

“I got that feeling of controlled power that I used to have when I jumped around, and I started to feel like I could do this,” said Abby. “We went around that little novice course and we knocked it out! It was so great. There were a lot of tears that afternoon when I came across the finish line.”

More Tears
After an outing at training level, the pair won a preliminary division at the Indiana Eventing Association Horse Trials in June.

“We were all just crying,” said Pace of the victory. “It was really special that it happened on her hometown turf. It’s one of those moments in your life you won’t ever forget.”

Faced with a beefier course for her second preliminary run, Abby’s demons once again threatened.

“When I’d have time to think about the course, I’d just start shaking and get physi-cally sick,” she said, remembering a somewhat frantic call she made to Pace the night before. “She said, ‘Pull if you need to, but remember that eat-red-meat feeling, the cross-country attitude? You’ve got to growl a little bit; get your game face on!’

“I remember in the start box, I wasn’t going to growl out loud or anything, but I was thinking about growling!” she continued. “I really rode to the fences, and he felt so good! I just hooted and hollered the whole time.”

Pace also helped Abby make the decision not to ride Denny at intermediate again, and he’s now showing a younger Pony Clubber the lower-level ropes.

“She wanted him to be something he wasn’t. She’d call and ask, ‘Am I wimping out?’ The answer was always, ‘No! I’ve always told you my guarded opinion of his ability, and you’re finally thinking soundly.’ “

The trainer also gave her the opportunity to ride some of her schoolmasters to bolster her confidence and widen her horizons. “I needed her professional opinion, or I would have been out there proving it to the world,” admitted Abby, who’s now focusing her energy on developing her young horse. She’s also
riding a bunch of green horses for Kate Gress, of Noblesville, Ind., her first trainer and a staunch supporter.

Physically, Abby has few residual effects from her ordeal, even though the mind games still occasionally crop up when she’s not expecting it.

“I have the ugliest collarbone you’ll ever see. The bones didn’t heal together, so I have a gigantic bump I call my second head. I also have my ‘stab wound’ from where they drained the fluid from my lungs, but that’s all I have to show for it,” she said.

“When people ask me how I got back in the tack, I tell them that I couldn’t live without it,” said Abby. “When you’re passionate about something, you’re not going to let anything stand in your way.”

Character
Those who know Abby Mundt recognize that the journey through her recovery shows a lot about her.

“I don’t get more nervous watching her ride than I used to. I’m just so thankful–it’s such a miracle,” said her mother, Andei Mundt, tearfully. “I don’t get more nervous; I just have more admiration for her.

“She was such a good patient. She kept her sense of humor through the whole thing. I’ve always thought it says a lot if someone can be in the hospital and be gracious,” added Andei. “I was so proud of her. Situations like that don’t make people’s character; it reveals their character.”

Although her doctors told her not to ride for more than three months, Abby couldn’t be kept out of the saddle for long.

“The minute she got her Minerva brace off, she said, ‘Mom, I’ve got to get on a horse.’ I think we were both still in our pajamas, and we went out so she could sit on [her horse] Denny in the barn. It was a really big moment for her, and I think it was really good for Denny too,” said Andei.