APPALOOSA ANECDOTES
Appaloosas typically stand at 14–15hh.
The Appaloosa was named the official state horse of Idaho in 1975. They can be red roan, blue roan, bay roan, grey, dun, palomino, chestnut, cremello, buckskin, black, brown, dark bay, or bay. The breed registry recognises several coat patterns, including:
The haunches are all white, or they are white and speckled with dark spots.
The body is mainly white with dark spots.
The body is dark with white spots or flecks, especially over the haunches.
White and dark hairs mingle to create a mottled appearance.
FREEDOM FOR KYRBY Brown comes in the form of horses and a bike-like conveyance called a RaceRunner. Whether on four hooves or three wheels, the para equestrian can feel the wind brush past her face and her spirits soar. Life beyond a saddle, however, consists of dawdling, arduous walking steps or slow progress within the confines of a wheelchair.
The 24-year-old rider was born with Arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC) — another athlete with the condition is multi-medalled Paralympian Sir Lee Pearson CBE — and Kyrby has the most common type, amyoplasia. Few of her joints have escaped its contorting effects and, in fact, the name, derived from Greek, means curved or hooked.
Her knees and her elbows, by contrast, were once straight as a die and unbending, and over the years multiple surgeons have tried to assist in making them more malleable. Now Kyrby has a permanently bent right arm (two operations on the left one failed), and a ‘softer’ left leg after her Achilles tendon was released.
“My left leg is now in a nice position on a horse and the right one does its own thing,” explains the frank rider.
When it comes to her arms, the Monmouth resident feels that she has been given the best of both worlds. “Bent arms can’t pick up something off the floor, and straight arms won’t feed you. With my right hand I can get a fork up to my mouth.”
A further gruelling experience was to have Botox injected into her permanentlyclenched fists, which sweat, and so enclosed palms remain forever clammy.
“The doctors froze the nerves and the sweat glands with the Botox to give me a better grip. It was very painful afterwards, though, and I made the decision that it wasn’t going to be of enough benefit to go through it again,” Kyrby says.
Despite her physical issues — which were compounded at birth by gastroschisis (where a defect in the abdominal wall sees a baby born with their intestines outside of their body, with surgery required to return them to the abdominal cavity) — Kyrby is plucky and unafraid of adventure. That game approach has seen her climb on a succession of horses and reap rewards in rosette form.