Taking the Reins With Unbridled Courage

The horse brushed her father, knocking him off balance as she rode by, but 14-year-old Courtney Mazzola still came away a winner.

“I didn’t think I did that well,” said Courtney, who has been riding since she was 5.

Courtney, a Chatsworth resident who is legally blind, won two events Sunday against able-bodied riders at the “Mali-boo Horse Show: Riding to Inclusion.”

The event, which included a Halloween costume contest for riders and horses, was sponsored by Special Equestrian Riding Therapy.

Since 1987, the program has helped children and adults overcome disabilities, build speech and muscular control and help resolve emotional problems. Nora Fischbach, program director for the group, created the horse show this year to show that disabled and able-bodied riders could compete as equals.

Throughout the competition, volunteers assisted blind riders by giving verbal signals.

To help Courtney find her way through the course in a pole-bending competition, volunteers stood at the poles calling out numbers. By listening for the numbers--which told her the position of the poles--Courtney directed her horse back and forth between the markers.

During that competition her father--one of the volunteers--was bumped and he knocked a pole over. The judges ruled that since Courtney hadn’t knocked the pole down, it would not count against her, and she won first place.

The horse show included 42 riders, half of whom were disabled. Some competitors came from Family Equestrian Connections, a riding school in Chatsworth. The contest is named after a ranch in Malibu, where the group runs training sessions. The actual competition was held in Agoura, Fischbach said.

Disabled and able-bodied riders won about the same number of ribbons.

“It was pretty much an even competition, which is exactly what I wanted,” Fischbach said.