Like many professional riders and trainers, Lauren Barwick has made sacrifices along the road to her goals. A five-time Paralympian and three-time Fédération Equestre Internationale World Equestrian Games competitor for Canada, Barwick had her eye on the 2024 Paris Paralympics with her 2021 Tokyo Games partner Sandrino. But with a young family and a business to run in Ocala, Florida, she made the tough choice to stop campaigning for a spot on the Canadian team partway through the winter season.

Despite the disappointment, there was a silver lining to her year: Barwick won the U.S. Dressage Federation Grade III para rider year-end award, something she was surprised but honored to earn. 

“It was an interesting year,” said Barwick, 47. “All that competing was in preparation for the Games, which I didn’t go to. That was a bit of a bummer because it was the first Games I haven’t gone to since 2004. We chose for financial reasons not to continue campaigning. It was just getting too costly, and with two kids and a farm, I had to make the decision with withdraw, which was really hard because that’s the ultimate goal.”

But even though she didn’t meet her 2024 goal, Barwick is thankful to have Sandrino, a 12-year-old Westphalian gelding (Spirit Of Westfalia—Pepita), in her barn after she almost lost the ride following Tokyo.

Barwick grew up with a varied riding background. She was working as a stunt rider in the film industry when, in 2000, she was paralyzed from the waist down after a 100-pound bale of hay fell on her. In her early para-dressage career, she was sponsored by natural horsemanship trainers Pat and Linda Parelli and has become a 4-Star senior Parelli instructor teaching out of her Bridging The Gap Horsemanship. In the years since, she’s owned or co-owned her horses, and in 2019 before Tokyo, fellow Canadian para-dressage rider Lee Garrod, DVM, offered to buy her a horse.

“We were both in the running for a team,” Barwick said. “By helping me succeed, I was potentially taking a spot away from her, so for her to go out on a limb and sponsor a horse for me was a pretty incredible act of kindness.”

Sandrino turned out to be the perfect match, and when the Paralympics were pushed back from 2020 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Barwick was given extra time to form a partnership. The pair went on to earn individual sixth place in the Grade III freestyle.

“He was smart, he was forward, and he learned my aids really quickly. We hit the ground running,” she recalled. 

The extra year gave them time to gel, though a minor injury in February 2021 sent the gelding to a rehab facility for 2.5 months in the run-up to Tokyo. 

“We didn’t really feel like we went to the Games in peak performance,” she said, “but [we were] thrilled to have been able to go.”

After Tokyo, Barwick was considering retiring as she and her husband, trainer Fabian Brandt, were hoping to have a second child, and the financial cost of campaigning a horse at the international level, even with a sponsor, was becoming difficult. 

Then in 2022, Garrod died unexpectedly, and Barwick’s future with Sandrino came into serious question.

“I knew that I was going to have another kid, and that I might lose the ride on Sandrino, so I didn’t know what the future looked like,” she said. “I didn’t know if I’d have a performance horse or sponsors. It gets disheartening at a certain point, where you [ask], ‘Am I going to keep chasing the dream and finding the financial support?’ 

“As a para rider, there are other disadvantages and financial costs to having a disability—mobility devices and medical costs and therapies,” she continued. “On top of that, I’m a mom, and we have our business. I want to be fiercely competitive, and I want to do it right. If I feel like I can’t do it right, then I don’t know that I want to do it. But I do! The spirit to compete is there and will always be there, and that’s why this year was the hardest year ever. But it is what it is.”

Just as Barwick thought she was losing the ride on her partner, Lendon Gray and her Dressage4Kids organization stepped in to purchase Sandrino. Barwick now has a lifetime lease on him.

“[My trainer] Shannon [Dueck] suggested to [Garrod’s] husband that if he can make it work, that the horse should come to me. I had people in my court that said that we’re a good partnership, and that it would be good for him and good for me, and Dressage4Kids said, yeah, we’re going to help make that work,” she recalled. “I’m very grateful to them for that opportunity. I love him, and he understands my disability. He took me all the way to Japan, and we had a great year competing this year. I’m very thankful for that program and them allowing me as a para rider to be able to join the program.”

As an athlete with decades of international experience in para-dressage, Barwick has watched the sport evolve rapidly. She said she’s seen some changes for the better.

When she first moved to Florida in 2005, para-dressage wasn’t under FEI jurisdiction but instead with the International Para Equestrian Committee.

“I would go to the shows, and I would have to request that the para class got put in, and there would be comments like, ‘Who’s judging the disabled dressage class?’ You would say, there’s nothing wrong with the dressage; it’s not disabled! It’s still got to be good, and the quality has to be as dressage is,” she said. “I came to Florida and started competing in Wellington, and they didn’t really even know where to put the classes. When it became an FEI class, they put it in the FEI open class, and I had to compete against Prix St. Georges and I1 [riders.] They didn’t really know where to put us, and there weren’t as many riders.”

Now, para-dressage classes are an established part of the Florida shows, and many of the riders can show competitively alongside their able-bodied competitors.

“I’m seeing a lot more acceptance; I’m seeing less people freaked out and afraid that our wheelchairs are going to scare their horses because we show up there,” she said. “I notice more that people realize when we’re looking for horses, we’re not looking for that dead, bombproof horse. We’re looking for something with international level gaits and quality, and we’re here to compete. I’ve had judges say to me and other para-equestrian riders that our horses’ quality was above and beyond what she was expecting, and that our abilities are above and beyond.”

This season, Barwick campaigned Sandrino lightly. A highlight was at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival (Florida) in January, where they won a para-dressage Grand Prix B III test (70.88%) and Grand Prix Freestyle III test (74.21%). 

“To be able to say, ‘I’m not going [to Paris]—not because I don’t have the scores, not because I’m not capable—[but because] I’m going to put my family first and financially not bankrupt us,’ it felt alright to be able to say that,” she said. “If I had to say I can’t cut the mustard, I think I might have been more upset.”

Barwick also has a young horse she’s working with, the 4-year-old Oldenburg gelding Siggas Voltaire (Connaisseur—Ferdonia), who Kerryann Schade has been riding for her in the show ring.

She plans to campaign Sandrino in some open show classes in 2025, and her long-term goal is the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics, if funds allow.

“It just comes down to financially being able to do it and creating a balance in our business, family and competition,” she said.