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Index, 2007, Jan-Mar

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OCALA, Fla. — The exacting equestrian discipline of dressage depends as much on a rider’s mental acuity as it does on the agility of the horse. Like dancers on a stage, riders guide their horses through a sequence of at least 20 intricate movements with precision and grace.

Darren Chiacchia helped the U.S. team to a bronze medal in eventing at the 2004 Olympics.
So when Darren Chiacchia, an elite rider who competed for the United States in the 2004 Athens Olympics, missed the first few maneuvers of his dressage test during a low-level competition here,the judge asked him to stop midsequence.

From their brief exchange, Chiacchia realized he had memorized the wrong test and started over. “It could have happened to anyone,” said Chiacchia, who took four more horses through four more tests without missing a move.

Chiacchia could be forgiven for making a mistake or two. Last March, he nearly died after his
horse tumbled over a fence at a competition in Tallahassee, Fla., pinning him underneath.
He sustained broken bones, a punctured lung and a severe brain injury, and he was in a coma.
Doctors warned his family that he might never walk or talk again, let alone ride a horse.

The accident also spurred an emotional debate within the equestrian community over whether
the equestrian discipline known as eventing — which includes dressage, cross-country riding
and show-jumping — adequately safeguards its riders.

Less than a year later, Chiacchia, 44, is competing almost every weekend. Last week,
Chiacchia and his most accomplished horse, Windfall II, placed second in an advanced
division at the Rocking Horse Advanced and Training Horse Trials in Altoona, Fla.
He said he hoped to compete at the London Olympics in 2012.

Despite his progress, Chiacchia brushes off questions about the novelty of his remarkable
comeback. Returning to the sport he has loved since he was 12 had never been in question,
he said. “Sitting and watching TV and eating bonbons for two years isn’t going to make
this easier,” he said. “You need to engage the brain and make it work.”

Dr. Peter Kinkel, Chiacchia’s neurologist, said his progress stunned the nurses and physical
therapists who have worked with Chiacchia. “It’s amazing to watch him,” Kinkel said, adding
that the accident injured both hemispheres and multiple lobes of Chiacchia’s brain. “He has
recovered in leaps and bounds.”

When the accident occurred, on March 15, 2008, Chiacchia was one of the sport’s top riders.
He helped the United States win a bronze medal in eventing at the 2004 Games and was
earning a comfortable income from teaching the sport and from selling horses from his farms
in Ocala and in his hometown, Springville, N.Y., about 35 miles south of Buffalo.

Like many of his colleagues, Chiacchia had lived through his share of bone-crunching spills,
with a list of injuries that included two broken hips, a broken arm, a broken hand, a broken
ankle and a twice-fractured skull. But the fall at the Red Hills Horse Trials last year was by
far the most serious.

Chiacchia had been riding an up-and-coming horse, Baron Verdi, during the cross-country
portion of the event when the horse tripped over a jump and flipped on top of him. The horse
was not seriously injured, but Chiacchia was airlifted to a hospital in Tallahassee, where
doctors delivered a grim prognosis to his mother, Evelyn Chiacchia.

“When I first got to the hospital, they told me they didn’t know if he was going to live,”
she said. “They didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Chiacchia and his family give conflicting accounts of what happened in the weeks that
followed. Chiacchia says his coma lasted 42 days and ended when he opened his eyes
and remembered nothing about the accident.

“I was very confused,” he said. “Literally, I woke up as if I had taken a nap. I didn’t
even know I wasn’t at the competition anymore.”

But his mother and a sister, Kimberly Fraser, said he regained consciousness within
about a week, although it took longer for him to understand what had happened to him
and to regain cognitive functions. Chiacchia has no memory of the first weeks after
the accident, even though his mother and sister said he was able to talk and move
around. He could not recognize some people, and had to relearn basic motor functions
like walking and tying his shoes.

“When he first came out of the coma, he was very childlike,” Fraser said, adding,
“We were fully prepared that he might be like that for the rest of his life, considering
the injury.”

Then, with a suddenness that took nearly everyone by surprise, the old Chiacchia
returned to them. His mother said it was as if some internal switch had been flipped.
“He finally said one day, ‘I just woke up,’ ” she said.

About two months after the accident, Chiacchia climbed onto Windfall II, the horse
he rode at the Athens Olympics. He took it easy at first, letting a groom lead him
around the farm. But he progressed quickly and in July, he competed in his first
event, the Genesee Valley Hunt Horse Trials in upstate Geneseo, N.Y.

While Chiacchia was recovering, a debate was churning in the eventing community.
Chiacchia’s accident followed 12 deaths in eventing competitions worldwide over
the previous year and a half, all of them the result of falls similar to the one in
which Chiacchia was involved.

“Darren is such a skilled rider and obviously an Olympic medalist, a high-profile
rider,” said Kevin Baumgardner, president of the United States Eventing Association.
“I think that it had an impact on people, to see that happen.”

Since Chiacchia’s accident, the United States Equestrian Federation, the sport’s
governing body, has enacted several changes, including reducing the number of
jumps during the cross-country phase and giving increased authority for officials
to discipline reckless riders. They also started identifying problem riders, putting
them on a watch list.

The eventing association recently awarded a $30,000 grant to the University of
Kentucky to study the use of jumps that are designed to break apart on impact.

“The sport has looked at itself very seriously, and has made some adjustments
that had been looked at before,” said David O’Connor, the president of the
equestrian federation. “And those are having an effect worldwide, as well as in our
country.”

Chiacchia said the safety measures did not go far enough, were too slow in coming,
and focused too much on the behavior of riders, something that did not contribute
to his fall. He said he would like to see the sport mandate the use of breakable
fences, for example, rather than put money toward studying them.

“To make the sport safer, we have to make some fairly aggressive changes,
and unfortunately the leadership of the equestrian community does not feel the
same way,” he said.

Baumgardner said that he believed research was the best first step. “You
should not implement technologies that haven’t been researched adequately,” he
said.

Chiacchia said he had struggled to come to terms with the accident’s toll on
his personal life. While recuperating, he said, he learned his companion of
10 years had left him, as had his secretary of 26 years. Several students had
also found new teachers.

Chiacchia has restructured his business to emphasize selling horses.
He is pursuing a side business in real estate.

Because he still does not fully trust his organizational skills, he has hired a
business manager, Lisa Marong. “He just wasn’t sure what he could handle,”
she said.

Marong, a friend since childhood, said she thought the naturally ambitious,
energetic Chiacchia should get more rest. “He’s called me at 6 in the
morning and said, why aren’t you up?” Marong said. “If you talk to Darren
and see him operate on a daily basis, he seems to appear as normal as you
or I. He doesn’t always let everyone know what’s going on.”

Evelyn Chiacchia said the accident had changed her son. “He’s different in
certain ways, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is,” she said.

Ralph Hill, an Olympic rider who spent eight weeks in a coma after a similar
accident in 2007, said he was impressed with Chiacchia’s drive. “What
Darren did was he acted like a competitor; he wanted to show everybody
that he could still compete,” said Hill, who is back riding and teaching but
has not yet returned to competition. “Right now, if you saw him riding, I
believe that you would probably say he’s a good rider, but wonder how
many years he’s been in the sport.”

Chiacchia said he had not returned to full strength and struggled with
lingering pain in his left side. He works out regularly at a gym and has been
playing tennis to regain his coordination and balance, his mother said.

“When I first woke up, I remember saying and feeling, I just want my life
back,” Chiacchia said. “And then I thought, you know, that was a good life.
But I don’t want that life back. I have the opportunity to create a new life.
And that’s the essence of my being now.”

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