Overcoming Odds- Showmanship After Scoliosis Surgery

By: Brittany Bevis

18-year-old Cara Klyn has had to overcome many challenges to make it to her first and last AQHA Youth World Show. A shocking diagnosis during a routine seventh grade physical threatened to derail her youth career and severely impact her quality of life.

Like many female teenagers, Cara was diagnosed with Scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine. However, her condition gradually worsened over the years, to the point where major surgery was the only option. “It gradually got worse, and I actually wore a brace for about a year, but it didn’t do anything. Finally, it got so bad that we needed to do surgery. Actually, one of my shoulder blades was sticking out so far that I had to get my clothes altered. I had to have two shoulder pads on one side, because my body was so messed up. Finally, during freshman year, I had the surgery.”

Doctors inserted two metal rods into Cara’s back in order to help straighten out her spine. It was a major surgery, and she was prohibited from all physical activity for six months. Unfortunately, she had recently purchased a new horse, Zippos Gold Princess, aka “Jasmine,” but all of that had to be put on hold as Cara learned how to walk again. “I had just had gotten Jasmine, and then I had to stop,” she says.

Going through the process of re-learning how to walk, climb stairs, and run, was challenging, to say the least. Learning how to ride and do Showmanship again was even harder. “It was a completely different experience, because you hold yourself up so much in Showmanship. It was really uncomfortable, especially with riding too. Normally, your body bends to absorb the shock, but with my surgery, basically I’m just hitting the saddle over and over again.”

Still, Cara maintained a positive attitude through it all. “I’m going to have these rods for the rest of my life, and I’m fine with it. I love my rods! They keep me nice and straight. Now that I’ve re-learned everything, it’s a little easier. I remember my first show back was The Mayflower, and I wanted to do Showmanship so badly. My doctors let me do it, and, in the first pattern, we had to run. It felt so different and it hurt. I thought it wasn’t going to work out, but I learned how to adapt to it, and it actually made my posture better.”

Fast forward to 2017, Cara is now eighteen years old, and she knew this year would be her first and final chance to compete at the Youth World Show. With Jasmine in tow, she came to the show to compete in Showmanship and Western Pleasure, her two favorite events, under the guidance of her horse trainer, Shannon Vroegh.

“I knew that I wanted to finish out my career with a bang and why not do it at the World Show! I went to the Congress last year for the first time, but I knew about the prestige and privilege of getting to show at the Youth World. I knew that I could go in Showmanship and Western Pleasure, and those are my two favorite classes, so I was super excited. I was ready with my horse. We’re in a great spot right now, so I was ready to take on this challenge.”

Ready and raring to go, Cara was excited to compete in the Showmanship preliminaries, that was until she saw she was first to go in the working order. Despite drawing a tough spot, Cara and Jasmine laid out their very best and made it back to the semifinals. “Coming in, I thought I was just glad to be here for the experience. Then, I heard my number called, and I didn’t expect it at all. Then, it was time for the semifinal callbacks, and I thought there was no way I would make it. Then, they called my number again! So, I had to wake up at 1 in the morning and learn a really hard pattern, but I was super excited about it!

Cara and Jasmine were third to go in a very tough finals, and the judges rewarded their efforts with a tenth place finish overall. Cara was ecstatic. “I did start Jasmine in Showmanship myself, and Shannon and [her assistant] Hannah put the finishing touches on her. I taught her how to set up and everything, so it means so much. I love Showmanship, because it’s about presentation and how you show your horse, which is really important. It’s not necessarily about how the horse moves. You can use any kind of horse. It’s about how you show them. The first time that you’re standing up at the cone, that’s the first image the judges get, and that can change your score so much.”

Despite the difficulty of the finals pattern, Cara wasn’t concerned about any of the maneuvers. The biggest hurdle she had to overcome was confidence. “My biggest struggle was with my confidence; it wasn’t actually going through the pattern. I aways had all the elements. I’d always had a clean pattern, but it didn’t have that wow factor. I wanted to set up at the cone and have the judges say, ‘Oh, I want to watch this pattern!'”

Now that Cara’s journey at the Youth World has come to a close, she’s headed off to college in the fall at The University of Iowa with tentative plans to possibly show at the Quarter Horse Congress and in the amateur division in the coming years.

We applaud this young lady’s effort here at the Youth World and wish her the very best of luck in all her future horse showing endeavors!