After Brain Injury, Healing with Horses
Horses helped Brittany Halstead recover from a traumatic brain injury. Now she’s giving back by retraining polo ponies for second careers as hunter jumpers, therapeutic riding mounts, and more. Brittany Halstead had the best of two equestrian worlds— hunter jumpers and polo—when a car crash nearly ended her life in 2014. Her recovery was nothing short of miraculous, and she credits working with two horses, polo ponies Fanta and Dos Equis, for helping her return to the saddle and the show ring. In return, she formed ReplayPolo, which helps transition retired polo ponies into second careers in therapeutic riding, intercollegiate equestrian programs, and more.
“It’s all about mindfulness,” Halstead said of how retraining horses parallels her recovery from traumatic brain injury. “You have to take time, collect your thoughts, and wait it out. It will all come around. You can’t force yourself and you can’t force these horses to do something. You have to step back and ask in a different way. You need patience with yourself and with the horse.”
A Two-Way Education Halstead, who rode hunter jumpers from the age of 10, got her introduction to polo while working for hunter jumper trainer Elaine Schott, whose husband Trey is an accomplished polo player. “Her husband needed a groom for polo, and so she said, ‘I need you to go groom polo,’” Halstead recalled. “I did, and I just fell in love with the horses. Of course, I got the nickname of The Slowest Groom in North America, because, as a hunter jumper person, I felt the horse had to look perfect before it stepped into the ring. The polo wraps had to be perfect, and the tail had to be braided super-well! But working with the polo ponies was so different. They just stand at the trailer and do not move while you’re moving around them so fast, throwing on tack and throwing off tack. They’re just so patient and have such a great demeanor.”
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