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By THERESA REYNOLDS
Rappahannock Newt Staff Writer
A fall from a frightened race horse at 35 miles an hour put an end to Donna Sylvester’s career as a trainer and left her wondering what to do next. “I was working a race horse at Laurel,” Donna remembers, “when a lead pony came out at the wrong time. I’ve been paying for that lead pony rider’s mistake every since.”
Donna’s remarks are not made in bitterness, but come after years of gradual realization that her badlyinjured back would not allow her to continue in the field she loved. At first it seemed that she could continue in her successful horse-training business with constant therapy and a little caution.
“But then, one morning, I woke up and couldn’t move,” she recalls. “I guess I knew then that I would never ride again, at least not professionally.” Her familiar routine of training and grooming horses at the Middleburg training track and other tracks on the east coast gave way to a new schedule of doctor’s visits, therapeutic treatments and home exercises aimed at restoring and protecting severely-damaged nerves and muscles. An added burden was negotiating with the insurance company and the recurrent question of how to support herself.
“I’ve always been an athlete, always worked outside,’’ Donna said. "Everything I knew how to
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