RIDER PUTS SPOT ON PARALYMPICS TEAM AT TOP OF LIST FOR 2004
Equestrian's Dream Lights Way on Field
by Dolores Tropiano
Every day, Sam Madden and her horse Sugarplum Vision feel their way around the stable, training for the 2004 Olympics.
Her horse's name comes from the Christmas poem A Visit From St. Nicholas. But to Madden, Sugarplum stands for the diabetes that destroyed both her pancreas and kidney. And Vision stands for her blindness and dream of competing on the International Paralympic Dressage Team.
"Being blind, I feel a responsibility to show everyone that I am not disabled, I just can't see." the 40-year-old Phoenix equestrian said. "I want everyone to see that you can strive for your best. No matter what comes along, you can adapt."
But Madden, a medical transcriptionist, needs more than just training. She needs a $4,000 machine that will help orient her in the arena.
Today a benefit will be held at Dynamite Dressage, a farm in Scottsdale owned by former Phoenix Coyotes star Jeremy Roenick and his wife Tracy. Top riders, including Madden and Olympic Gold Medalist Paula Paglia, will demonstrate dressage, an elegant form of riding that involves performing precise movements at specific places marked with letters.
Normally, dressage riders stop at the letter around the arena and perform. The machine called Alphabet-Eyes will verbally alert Madden to her position. Now, her trainer calls out her location.
Madden grew up riding horses in Connecticut. At 13, she purchased her first horse with babysitting money. AT 17, she contracted diabetes and, despite numerous surgeries, was blind at 29. She underwent a kidney transplant when she was 33 but jumped back on a horse a year later at Camelot Therapeutic Horsemanship in Scottsdale, performing difficult jumps and maneuvers.
One day her instructor asked her to perform a flying dismount for a new partially sighted student.
"Not in a million years would any instructor expect a normal person to do that," said Madden, who successfully completed the dismount. "but I couldn't say no. I wanted to be a role model to this partially sighted girl. It opened up the world to me."
That was the beginning of many competitions in which Madden garnered countless awards. After a pancreas transplant in February, her diabetes came to an end. but so did her risky riding, on her doctor's advice. She cajoled him into letting her compete in dressage which didn't require jumps.
Still, competition can be dangerous. Her horse is large, and Madden negotiates everything from mounting to dismounting alone.
To qualify for the Paralympic Dressage Team, Madden must take seven tests, scoring above 55% in each one. Once on the team, she will compete with other riders who may also be blind or physically disabled. Madden is working on her 20 meter circles, or at least what she thinks are 20 meter circles. She learns to feel what is 20 meters, preferring not to count out the steps because she said, "One misstep could throw off the whole move."
"It's tricky because she has to have the horse in tune with her and also know where she is in the arena," trainer Eileen Earnhart said.
Despite what could be a dangerous, if not daunting task, it does not seem to blur Madden's vision for the Paralympics.
"I don't feel any different from anyone else who rides," she said, "not at all. It's just second nature, and not being able to see is just an added challenge."