Netflix and a weekend spent relaxing on the couch isn’t Dr. Kathleen Bertuna’s style. Between working as an obstetrician gynecologist, keeping up with her children’s sports schedules, and competing at the Fédération Equestre Internationale levels, there’s not much time left over to chill.

“You’ve got to hold on to your goals and what you want to do, and just white-knuckle it and don’t let go,” said Bertuna, 45, Athens, Ohio. “You have to have supportive family and friends around you, and you have to make work part of your lifestyle and not your whole life.

“I know how hard it is to get it all done,” she continued, adding with a laugh that, “when you don’t watch any TV, there are a lot of hours in the day to get things done.”

Bertuna is all about getting things done. This year that included winning the reserve championship in the amateur preliminary division at the USEA American Eventing Championships (Kentucky) with her 8-year-old Irish Sport Horse Excel Star Harry (Luidam—Moysella Cool Diamond, Coolcorron Cool Diamond).

“I really went back and forth with whether to do the AECs because it’s a whole week off, but then all of my friends were going to be there, and they have great activities,” Bertuna said. “It’s just a hard time to get away [because the championship takes place during back-to-school activities and the start of fall sports].”

Her family includes her husband of 21 years, Salvatore “Sal” Bertuna; daughter Josephine, 16; and son Sammy, 13. “My husband is wonderful and keeps the house going while I’m gone, and my kids are super supportive,” said Kathleen, who raced home from Kentucky after her victory lap to attend her children’s soccer games on Saturday.

“After being gone since Monday night, it was time to get home and get in some ‘home equity’ as we call it,” she said. “As a working mom, I’m always juggling things. It’s controlled chaos all the time.”

Moving up to FEI classes in the last two years has required even more time on the road.

“It’s very difficult for amateurs to get time off to do the FEI levels,” Kathleen said. “You have to come in on Tuesday or Wednesday. At the end of the day, it’s international competition, and there are a lot of moving pieces, so I understand, but I wish it was a little easier to come in and do our competitions on the weekends.”

Need For Speed

Kathleen started riding saddle seat at 8 years old. She joked she was born “with the horse gene” and wore her parents down with her pleas to ride. She switched to showing Quarter Horses as a teenager and took her horse Sage with her to college when she attended the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She discovered eventing because she boarded Sage at Champagne Run, an eventing facilty and training operation.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I found my people,’ ” Kathleen said with a laugh. “In saddle seat, I was routinely being excused from the ring for going too fast. I have the need for speed. I started doing eventing, but [Sage] was terrible at it. We only successfully competed at beginner novice, but I fell in love with the sport.”

Kathleen sold Sage in 2000 to help pay for medical school and then earned her degree from Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at Ohio University in 2004. She’s currently employed through the Marietta Memorial Health System in Athens, Ohio.

“My patients know I’m very into horses, and I have this other life. They’re always asking what shows are coming up,” Kathleen said.

Kathleen described feeling called to her work as an OB-GYN. “I enjoy the primary care aspect of it, and then I really enjoy deliveries,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of them are really happy, but one percent are really sad. And it’s a kinetic field. You’re on your feet, moving. I just really liked all the medical aspects, and it fit my personality.”

Completing medical school, establishing a career and starting a family kept her fully occupied, but Kathleen continued planning for the day when she would own a horse again.

“As soon as I graduated medical school and got my first paycheck as a resident, I started a horse fund, and I’d put a little money away each [paycheck],” she said.

While Kathleen picked up occasional rides to keep her skills tuned up, it wasn’t until 2016 that her plans came to fruition. She knew she wanted to event and went looking for an experienced mount to show her the ropes. She connected with Courtney Cooper, a five-star competitor and event horse dealer based in Nottingham, Pennsylvania, and purchased off-track Thoroughbred Millye’s Mojave (Mojave Moon—Slew The Dragoness, Slew City Slew).

Kathleen began training with Cooper, making the 6.5-hour drive to Pennsylvania or 7.5-hour drive to Aiken, South Carolina, to meet Cooper at her winter base. A year after purchasing “Morris,” Kathleen won the beginner novice rider division at the 2017 American Eventing Championships (North Carolina). In 2018, she bought Pushthelight (Majestic Light—Pushia, Polish Navy), another off-track Thoroughbred, and competed him through training level.

Cooper called Kathleen an inspiration. “I’m consistently amazed at how she does such a good job balancing,” she said. “And she’s a super student. She’s one I can send off with homework, and she’ll do the homework. She’s intellectually curious about the process, and she wants to know why something works the way it works. She’s not in it just for an event or to get a score.”

Kathleen sold Morris to pursue her goals of competing at the upper levels, and she purchased Harry from Cooper five years ago. “She’s produced Harry completely by herself,” Cooper said. “She’s done all of the work with him. I’ve helped here and there, but, for the most part, she’s done the slogging. She’s had to find a way to work around issues without having [a trainer] near her.

“It’s hard living where she lives to do the work you need to do to ride at the upper levels. That’ll always be a concern for her,” Cooper added. “She has to balance her time and family and all of those things that come with being an adult amateur with her passion for the sport. It’s a matter of finding her way and seeing what she can do. I think she could do anything she wants to do. She definitely has the ability.”

An ‘Eventing Desert’

Kathleen jokes that she lives “in an eventing desert.” She keeps Harry at a neighbor’s farm and travels for lessons, clinics and camps when she can. She also looks forward to extended training trips to Aiken. “VacAiken is when a bunch of us girls go down and do immersion work in Aiken,” Kathleen said with a laugh. “You can’t miss VacAiken.”

Kathleen and Harry completed their first CCI2*-L at the Tryon International Three-Day Event (North Carolina) in May, finishing sixth. “At one point, I put my hands down on his neck [on cross-country] and said, ‘We’re just going to coast over this bridge,’ and then we came around, and it was game on,” Kathleen recalled. “It was a dream come true for me. It took a while to get there, but it was an incredible moment.”

The fall season didn’t go to plan though, as the pair ended up retiring at their last two FEI events after stops on cross-country. A veterinary workup pointed to pain in Harry’s stifles and hocks. “He’s my tender chicken,” Kathleen said. “He’s a redhead and is like, ‘Ow, that hurts!’ He usually tells me when something’s wrong, but he tried his heart out until he just couldn’t. We’ll come out next year, and I’ll be a little wiser.”

In the meantime, Kathleen is keeping busy with her family and career, as well as a Thoroughbred she co-owns with Trinity Wood. Wood, 30, breaks colts and manages Una Gilfert’s Stepping Stone Stables, the farm where Harry lives. The two women partnered to buy the Thoroughbred Pull Rank (Commissioner—Cat Feathers, Catienus) and took him to this year’s Retired Racehorse Project (Kentucky), where he finished 33^rd of 91 entries in the eventing division.

This joint venture got Wood hooked on eventing, and now she’s eager to do more with the encouragement and example of Kathleen to help guide her. “The way she works with her horses is so structured and makes really big goals seem really attainable,” Wood said. “She makes the impossible seem possible. She definitely sets the bar pretty high.”