Emma Booth
“I wouldn’t change a thing”
Emma Booth knows better than most the courage it takes to get back on the horse. In April 2013, the budding equestrian was involved in a car crash that left her with paraplegia, a fractured skull, punctured lung, fractured sternum, severe abdominal injuries, broken ankle and serious internal bleeding. Yet she never questioned whether she would be back in the saddle – only when.
“There was no fear, only excitement,” Emma tells us. “I had been waiting for that moment for six months. It was hugely motivating after a traumatic and tragic event.”
Almost immediately, Emma began training for the Rio 2016 Paralympics, where she placed fifth in dressage. Two years later, at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games, she managed fourth. In Tokyo – accompanied by her Danish Warmblood, Zidane – Emma hopes to go one better.
“I am competitive by nature,” she admits. “Of course I am excited just to be a part of the Games, but I want to do the best performance I can.”
Emma, who recently turned 30, has been obsessed with horses since childhood. Aged 11, she entered a competition on the TV show The Saddle Club, winning a horse for 12 months, as well as a year of riding lessons. She was hooked. Within three months, she had begun to dream of one day representing her country.
Her love of riding took her to Germany in 2011, where she rode and trained horses for international dressage rider Holger Schulze. After returning to Australia, she continued with the sport until her accident. She and her friend Courtney Fraser were returning to Melbourne from the Albury Wodonga International Horse Trials when a truck jackknifed, hitting their car and float.
“I have loved riding my whole life, but it’s a different kind of love since my accident,” Emma says. “As someone who is physically limited by their body on a daily basis, to get in the saddle and feel the horse’s movement underneath me, it’s like he becomes my legs for the moment. It’s such a freeing and liberating feeling.”
Without the use of her legs to drive Zidane forward, Emma has learned to communicate with him in different ways, creating a special understanding between them.
“I love the bond you create with your horse,” she says. “When you can communicate with an animal that’s so large and has a mind of its own, but in riding you become one unit, it’s exhilarating, unlike anything I can describe.”
Although Tokyo is a different version of her youthful dream, Emma insists she wouldn’t change a thing.
“I still believe everything happens for a reason,” she says. “This was where my life was supposed to take me and what I was meant to be doing. I have another level of joy and appreciation for what I have achieved because I have had to overcome so much in order to get here.”