Event rider Jennifer Simmons is recovering at her home in Middleburg, Va., after a fall at the Dansko Fair Hill International CCI*** (Md.) on Oct. 16. She sustained a concussion and a bruised and swollen jaw and spent one night in the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del. Her horse, J.B.’s Star, was euthanized as a result of the fall.

“I was pretty much on the couch for about a week on painkillers. Then I went home [to Texas] this weekend to see my father. It was his 75th birthday. I spent the weekend with my family, which was really nice,” she said. “I’m in good company because my other good horse GV Tuscany is rehabbing, and so he’s hacking. He’s on drugs hacking, so we’re kind of a good combination! It’s all headed in the right direction. It’s just a little bit of a slow process.”

Simmons will take the winter off from competing and return next spring. “I feel like I need a little time to make sure everything is fine,” she said. “I feel like when you have a bad fall you need a little bit of time to make sure your confidence is what it used to be, and you have to recultivate that a little bit. I’m doing that by hacking and taking it slow with what I have.

“I always loved riding [J.B.’s Star], from the first day I had him,” she continued. “He morphed into this amazing horse. He was a world-beater, an absolute world-beater. I knew that he was going to accomplish anything we did. I trusted him more than I’ve ever trusted any horse. I would gallop down to anything on him. I trusted him 110 percent.”