By REBECCA EVERETT
@GazetteRebecca
Daily Hampshire Gazette
A 16-year-old Worthington girl is recovering not only from a broken femur, but also from a broken heart after losing her horse, Abby, in a serious riding accident in South Carolina earlier this month.
Indra Rapinchuk-Souccar was riding in a competition in Aiken, South Carolina, on Feb. 4 when her horse fell while jumping an obstacle and landed on top of her. Abby died immediately. Indra somehow escaped with only one serious injury — her right thigh bone had broken high up and cut her thigh muscle, causing it to bleed internally.
Surgeons used a rod and screws to repair the bad break and gave her a blood transfusion. She said she has no memory of the accident, but knows she is fortunate to have survived.
“I got away lucky in many respects,” Indra said, although she acknowledged that she has not always felt fortunate in the days since the accident. In a telephone interview Monday from South Carolina, she said that her horse was not only her teammate and teacher, but a friend that helped her get through the worst time in her life.
“She was a lot more than just the horse I competed on,” Indra said. “I got her right before my brother died, and she’s been a good friend for the last four years.”
She was 12 when her brother, Zephyr, died in a skiing accident in 2011 at age 18.
Tanya Rapinchuk said her daughter is facing her injury and the loss of her horse with a brave face.
“Indra is probably one of the strongest kids I’ve ever met. I think she’s had some really hard things happen to her at a formative time in her life and her response has been to try to make life still purposeful,” said Rapinchuk. “I think that’s what she’s doing now.”
Rapinchuk said for her and her husband, Kamal Souccar, their daughter’s accident felt like reliving the nightmare of their son’s death.
“I know what it’s like to lose a child,” said Rapinchuk, near tears. And in a cruel irony, the day of Indra’s accident, Feb. 4, was Zephyr’s birthday. He would have been 23.
“I knew it was going to end badly for one or both of them when I saw the fall,” Rapinchuk said in a phone interview. She ran across the course to reach her daughter. Rapinchuk said she was relieved to hear her daughter screaming for her because it meant she was conscious.
Three days after the accident, Indra was out of the hospital and back at Aiken Bach Farm, where she had been staying with her mother and her trainer, Mikka Kuchta, before the accident. “I’m getting better every day. I’m on crutches but mostly, I’m in bed,” Indra said. “Hopefully in about a month I’ll be able to start walking.”
As for the cliche about getting back on the horse, Indra said she will ride again. Her doctors told her she will probably have to wait three months, but she knows healing physically is not her only obstacle. “I have a lot of work to do mentally before I can ride again,” she said. “There was a question because of the trauma of it, but I know this is what I want to do.”
Indra has been riding horses since she was 4, and met Abby when she was 12.
She and her mother said Monday that they are grateful to Abby’s previous owners, Christine and Michelle Soverow, who gave the horse to Indra after seeing the special bond the two developed while she leased the horse for two years.
Indra described Abby as a calm, careful and kind 18-year-old horse who loved her unconditionally. “It’s so sad to lose a teammate and such a good friend,” she said. “It’s scary to think about the future, but I’m just lucky to have gone the places I went with her. It’s special to have an animal like that who taught me so much.”
Last July, the pair qualified to compete in the International Olympic Committee-sanctioned North American Junior and Young Riders Championship in Kentucky. They did not place at the event in 2014, and Indra had been hoping to go back again in July 2015.
Kuchta told the Gazette last year that she saw something special in the relationship between Indra and Abby, noting that the horse was shorter and less showy than most horses competing at that level. Starting two winters ago, Indra began going with Kuchta to Aiken Bach Farm in South Carolina each winter to train horses.
She lives there with her coach from January to March, training and working at the farm in the mornings and studying in the afternoon. She has made arrangements for distance learning with her private school, the Academy of Charlemont.
Rapinchuk said she took three months off from work to stay at the farm this year. She is a midwife and her husband is an engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he builds telescopes.
Souccar flew down to join his wife to watch Indra’s first competition of the winter season at Full Gallop Farm, also in Aiken. Rapinchuk said Indra and Abby had trained at the farm, and though the courses are always new for competitions, the jump where Abby fell was one they had done many times before and was well within her ability.
“Their connection was really deep. Indra never would have put her over it” if there was a question about whether she could make the jump, Rapinchuk said.
Rapinchuk said the pair looked flawless as they cantered carefully up to and over the first part of the two-jump set, but then suddenly Abby was falling through the air. No one, including the judge whose job it was to observe their execution of that particular jump, saw anything go wrong, Rapinchuk said. No one was sure Abby even hit the jump before she fell, Rapinchuk said.
“It was nonsensical,” she said. The family wonders if Abby had a health problem, perhaps a heart attack or blood clot, that caused her to go down. She said the U.S. Eventing Association, which sanctions the competition, investigates all accidents like this. Rapinchuk said a necropsy — the animal version of an autopsy — revealed clots in the brain, but the veterinarian said it was impossible to tell if they formed before or after death.
For now, Indra is focusing on the good times she shared with Abby. “She lived a very good life, and between her old owners and us, she was a very well-loved horse,” she said.
Her mother said she has been impressed with how Indra has handled the trauma.
“I know she’s in extraordinary pain, but the way she’s moving through her grief is to move forward with purpose,” said Rapinchuk.
Meanwhile, Rapinchuk said she was surprised when a friend started an Indiegogo campaign that raised over $6,000 to buy her daughter a new horse. She said it is hard to think about things like money and a new horse so soon after the accident, but having the support of so many people has been an emotional comfort. “We’re so grateful,” she said.
Rapinchuk said she is aware that some people question their family’s stance on letting their children take part in potentially dangerous sports like skiing and riding.
“But life itself is precarious,” she said. “Finding passion and meaning is what’s important, and Abby and Indra found that together.”
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected].
