Riding On Faith

On Horses Once Again

"We'd heard of a team roper out in Arizona who'd had a seat belt on a saddle,'' she said. "He wasn't paralyzed, but his legs were so weak that he needed that just to hold him in." Next came velcro straps to stabilize her legs. Without the straps, her legs flapped around the horse uncontrollably. Then came training her horses to ignore her legs and just listen to her voice and hands. "I get on my horse, I forget about [my legs],'' she said. "He worries about my hand and my voice and my body, and we work that way. It's like we're just on a different communication level." Just 18 months after her accident, in June 2011, Snyder was ready to officially get back into the ring. She entered an exhibition barrel race, first circling the barrels at a slow lope, to the delight of friends and family gathered to witness the moment. "I think probably that was the first time I really laughed and smiled since the accident," said Tina Snyder. "I thought, 'Yeah, she can do this again. We can pick up from where we are and keep going.'" But going slow isn't Snyder's style. "I said, 'Guys, I'm gonna go a lot faster than that,'" Snyder recalls. "'We're not just here to lope,' and I turn around and set [the horse] through the pattern, and we were a second off of what we had been before my wreck." Snyder has since beat her pre-accident times, and continues to compete in rodeos, now at the college level as she finishes her master's degree in counseling at Utah State University. Snyder also works as a motivational speaker and regularly posts "Wheelchair Wednesday" videos, giving tips and advice to other wheelchair users, like how to transfer from the , or how to wheel over , such as a dirt arena. "My goals have not changed," said Snyder. "The end goals of making circuit finals and making the national finals, those are still there. I'm just giving myself a little more time in order to accomplish them." Snyder said she is aware of the dangers that come with strapping herself onto a horse. "It's risky," she said, adding, "people get mad at my mom a lot for that." The key to her safety, Snyder said, is finding and training horses that are sure-footed. "Obviously accidents can happen,'' she said. "I've been super, super blessed to avoid those thus far, but I'm pretty particular about what horses I get on and how they act." As for that "complete" injury to her T-12 vertebrae? It's now classified as "incomplete" since Snyder now has some feeling in her upper thighs. "I don't think that it's any coincidence that the muscle I can move is the inside of my leg," said Snyder. "When you ride, that is your biggest muscle that you use." "I have some movement in my hamstrings and in my glutes as well," Snyder added, "Those are all muscles you use to ride, and I think that because I tried to use them so soon, I think that helped a lot with where I am now." Riding may or may not be the reason she has some feeling in her legs, but Tina says one thing is for sure, it's given Snyder a sense of independence she wouldn't have had otherwise. "When she's on a horse, she's like everybody else," said Tina Snyder. "She gets to leave the wheelchair behind and the horse is her legs." Snyder named her newest horse Legacy. She calls him Legs for short. "I named him that way to be able to [hear the announcer] say, 'Here comes Amberley Snyder on her Legs!' And that's what he is for me."