Rachel Yorke
Making Her Own Luck
by Erin Gilmore |
Sidelines Magazine, August 2009
Luck split evenly for Rachel Yorke on the day three summers ago when she fell from her horse in the worst of ways. The wrong combination of balance and timing sent her catapulting through the air to land in the path of her jumping horse; bad luck any way you look at it. But although Rachel had the misfortune to fall directly where her horse would place his hoof, she is extremely lucky that her horse’s shoe struck her head in the spot it did. Had it been just a millimeter up or down in either direction, it’s a fairly certain fact that she would have lost much more than months from her riding career.
Between Rachel’s lilting New Zealand accent and frank, honest eyes, it’s initially easy to miss the downward tilt along the right side of her face. But on second glance it’s unmistakable, her souvenir from catching a hoof to the head, and a stud to the skull, in a freak accident that she describes as “no one’s fault.” The quick cascade of unfortunate events which left Rachel lying near death in the middle of a California show ring changed her life in many ways. But after living through an accident that would have caused many a rider to turn away from horses entirely, Rachel’s focus on getting back into the saddle has never faltered.
Her talents as a rider have opened doors for the native New Zealander ever since arriving in the United States 10 years ago. She initially traveled to the US temporarily to ride with fellow New Zealanders Butch, Lu and Guy Thomas of Willow Tree Farms, but knew almost instantly that she would make the US her home. Three seasons with Butch and Lu led to stints riding for noted sporthorse breeder Wild Turkey Farm in Woodside, California and a subsequent job as John French’s assistant. That position afforded her invaluable experience as she accompanied John around the world during his 2004 Olympic and World Cup bids.
It was via John’s Waldenbrook Farm that she serendipitously met her future clients, Alex and Cathy Mendez. Eventually, Rachel took on exclusive responsibility for the Mendez’s stable of a dozen hunters and jumpers, housed at their private Maple Leaf Farms in Northern California’s Los Altos Hills.
Just like that, the young professional had managed to grasp the elusive trifecta every trainer would give their right arm for; dedicated and conscientious owners, talented horses and a showpiece barn to train out of. Rachel began her Grand Prix career with the Mendez’s stable of high quality mounts and steadily began placing in West Coast open jumper classes. With her career on an upward path, Rachel fell into an easy partnership with the Mendezes, and continued building her experience with an eye towards someday stepping into international competition. But if anything would serve as a reminder that there is no such thing as easy street, it would be the hefty curveball that life, and luck, threw her when she was least expecting it.
The Accident
In July of 2006, Rachel and Maple Leaf Farm were smack in the middle of a busy show season. The Pebble Beach Equestrian Center, a regular venue on the West Coast “A” show circuit, holds three series of shows throughout the year. July 20 was the second day of a two week summer show series, and Rachel was riding the Mendez’s 9 year old Oldenburg gelding Bonnelli in the 1.30 jumpers.
“I was coming round to an oxer and he was a little bit long, so I went to squeeze up, but he came off my leg and went backwards instead,” remembers Rachel. “He got stuck in the rails and I got catapulted out in front of him. Before I knew it I was on the ground.
“I had studs in because the footing in that ring tended to be a little slick, and as he went over me, his hoof came down on my head, and the stud cracked my skull between my ear and the bottom of my helmet. It was not the horse’s fault but one thing just led to another.”
Rachel continues.
The impact of Bonnelli’s hoof to her head crushed most of the bones on the right side of Rachel’s face, putting enough pressure on her right ear canal to cause loss of hearing. The right side of her face was instantly paralyzed, yet through it all, Rachel didn’t lose consciousness, and incredibly, her memory of the moments immediately after she fell is vivid.
“The whole time it didn’t hurt,” she says. “It was more like I was numb. I could hear (fellow trainers) Lise Quintero and Todd Gregory on the ground beside me, telling me not to move. I couldn’t move my face; I couldn’t even close my eye. Lise said that my right eye kept starting straight ahead while I was lying there. It took a long time for the paramedics to move me, because we had to wait for an ambulance. They couldn’t bring a helicopter in because they were afraid it would make all the tents blow off the ground.”
The Aftermath
Rachel was taken to the nearest hospital and induced into a coma to stop bleeding around her brain. Doctors performed emergency surgery to alter facial bones that had broken and were lying on the nerves in her head. She had sustained 18 fractures from her skull to her jaw, and during the five days that she spent in the hospital she underwent CT scans and electric nerve testing to determine the extent of damage to the nerves in her face.
“The next thing I remember was my mother sitting beside me in the hospital room, and I wondered why she was there and not in New Zealand. That’s probably when I realized how serious the fall had been. If that stud had gone one millimeter either way I’d have been
done for.”
Nine days after the accident, Rachel returned to the hospital for more surgery, when it was discovered that pressure had continued to build around her brain. During this, the second of what would end up being a series of surgeries, doctors permanently attached a steel plate to Rachel’s skull after drilling through the bone.
Naturally, Rachel wasn’t allowed to ride for three months, but her focus remained on getting back into the saddle as soon as possible. Through it all, the Mendezs provided their unwavering, and invaluable, support.
“I was very lucky to be riding with owners like Cathy and Alex,” says Rachel. “They were the first ones to say ‘hey, do what you have to do to get better,’ and never once did they shy away from helping me. They turned the horses out until I could ride again. I know that not everyone would have reacted that way. Some people would have gone out and found a different rider.”
But when Rachel did start riding again, she had immense problems with her balance, finding it difficult to stay in the saddle on the flat, much less while jumping. It was Cathy who encouraged Rachel to go for another surgery. Doctors told Rachel that a procedure to restore her hearing would likely have positive effects on her balance in the saddle, but the thought of undergoing more surgery caused Rachel to hesitate at first.
“Cathy was awesome; she said let’s do the surgery, and it really helped my balance,” says Rachel. “Thank God for Cathy for making me do it.”
That surgery, in which a prosthesis was inserted into Rachel’s ear, was instrumental in helping to restore most of her balance in the saddle. But despite three major surgeries to correct the injuries to her cerebral area, Rachel continued to suffer from chronic headaches. It turned out that she had broken her jaw in the fall, but with the intensity of the fractures to her face and skull, her jaw had been somehow overlooked. Without correction it had healed crooked. Rachel immediately understood why, almost nine months after the accident, she still couldn’t chew on the right side of her face. She underwent an additional surgery, in which her jaw was re-broken and then reset with four screws and two more steel plates. The amount of hardware in her head was becoming hard to keep track of.
Coming Back
Good luck played a heavy hand in Rachel’s recovery, starting with simply living through her accident. One would assume that the mental challenge of coming back from such injuries would be monumental in itself, but Rachel was confident in her abilities to return to the
jumper ring.
“The thing was, I felt good about coming back,” explains Rachel. “I knew that Cathy and Alex were there to support me, even on my bad days. I had nice horses to get back on, and knowing that made all the difference.”
However, her confidence did not go untested, especially when she returned to Pebble Beach the following year and faced an
eerie coincidence.
As luck would have it, the first time she returned to the site of her accident at Pebble Beach, the course was set with the same oxer, in the same spot, at the same 1.30 height as when she fell. “I looked at the ring guy and just said ‘oh come on!’ I couldn’t believe it!”
says Rachel.
But this time, there was no unlucky spot. Rachel finished that course, and has since resumed her pursuit of grand prix wins. During the 2007 HITS Desert Circuit at Thermal she returned to grand prix competition; drawing on support from friends and fellow riders Jill Henselwood and Guy Thomas. As the three-year anniversary of the fall approached in July, Rachel could attest to being a regular name on Grand Prix rosters. If there’s any difference between now and then, it’s a new perspective, solidly grounded in reality. While she’s started to consider those dreams of international competition once more, she tends to take things with a grain of salt now.
“Of course I would love it if everything fell into place, and I was able to represent my country one day,” admits Rachel. “I’ve had thoughts of the World Equestrian Games and Olympics like anybody else. But, I’ve also learned that big plans can vanish just as easily. Now I’m one who’s happy to go along with whatever comes my way.”
Another curve ball was slung her way last July, when Cathy decided to downsize her involvement in horses. But as she sold her stock and closed Maple Leaf Farms, she encouraged Rachel to at last step out on her own. “I was scared, nervous and unsure of what I would do,” Rachel says. “But Cathy really encouraged me to take that step and so did my vet, Larry Wohlford. They both said I had to jump off the deep end and see if I could swim.”
So Rachel took the leap and hung her shingle, basing her business out of beautiful Portola Farms in Portola Valley, California. In keeping her family close, she named the business Sandhaven Farm after her parents’ Sandhaven Stables in New Zealand. She quickly built a stable of 17 horses, and is now focusing on her clients and showing in California once a month.
Her personal life is on the upswing as well; during a Christmastime vacation home to New Zealand, Rachel’s boyfriend Jeff Fields proposed. The couple met about three weeks before her fall when Rachel tried to sell Jeff, a fellow trainer, a horse. She lost touch with him during her recovery but they reconnected during the summer of 2007 and never looked back. They’re now training partners together at Portola Farms.
“Every morning that I wake up and can wiggle my toes is a good day,” continues Rachel. “Every day that I ride into the ring is a good day. I never forget that it could’ve been worse. I could be in a wheelchair sitting home in New Zealand doing nothing. When you get that close to losing it all and you get another chance, you try damn hard to do the best you can.”
• • •
