By LEAH ETLING
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Woman overcomes brutal fall, saddles up with King of Spades to win championships
After her horse bucked her off in 1995, Mary Sances was not supposed to be able to walk again, let alone jump and show horses.
But for 2006, Sances, a decorated amateur rider, has several new horses in the barn and is preparing to compete in hunter-jumper contests around the country.
Her license plate frame reads, "Horses rule at Heavenly Gaits," and indeed, her gray King of Spades can roam as he wants on the hilltop Santa Barbara property. His favorite place to hang out is by the pool.
"See that spade on his nose? That's how he got his name," says Sances, a beautiful 50-year-old former model.
She babies her animals -- five horses, two dogs and one cat -- and all their names are on the couple's Christmas card.
It was after she and her husband, Dr. Anthony Sances Jr., married that Sances decided to pursue horseback riding, something she had always dreamed of doing as a child.
Growing up in the Midwest, she lived next door to an English riding stable but was never able to take lessons.
Despite her assertions that she was "too old" to take up the sport at 39, her husband encouraged her, and she began taking lessons.
But less than a year into the experience, she had a horrible accident.
With Sances on his back, her horse tried to go out of the arena where she was riding into an adjacent turn-out field with other horses. The horse bucked Sances off.
"Six inches of bone was gone, pulverized," she said of her lower left leg, which was turned 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
A team of surgeons and her husband worked for 10 days trying to come up with a plan to save her leg.
Before surgery, Sances signed an amputation consent form. When she came out, her sister was shocked to find that her leg was still there.
More than 40 pieces of the outer cortical bone were put back into place, and two large steel plates were screwed to her knee joint -- with a steel cable used to hold her knee together.
Sea coral and artificial bone replaced the 6 inches she had lost.
But today, she walks normally without any indication that it took years of physical therapy to get back to that point.
"It doesn't affect her in the slightest," said Sances' trainer, Leslie Nelson. "Most athletes would have that in the back of their minds, but she never tells me no, doesn't even back out of anything.
"She'll ride in any weather, on any horse."
Sances began boarding her horses and training with Nelson's Sterling Silver Stable at El Capitan Ranch less than a year ago, and she has seen an impressive improvement in her riding.
"Mary's attitude is her biggest strength," said Nelson, a veteran trainer.
"She is the most determined, hard working, enthusiastic person I have probably ever worked with. She's had a number of injuries and setbacks in her riding career, but she just never, ever gives up."
In 2005, Sances won four grand championships at Pebble Beach and three national titles at the Santa Barbara National Amateur Horse Show.
Also riding King of Spades, junior rider Katlyn Burke took two more awards.
The 15-year-old horse is himself a success story.
Sances bought King of Spades to get back into the sport because he was known for his patience and gentle demeanor. But he turned out to be a ribbon winner, too.
He is also smart -- he will load himself in his horse trailer without Sances having to do much of anything to encourage him.
In 2006, she will ride a number of her competitions on her new horse Carlo Cartani, whom she rode to a win in the amateur adult hunter division at the Tucson Fall Classic.
"She has some really talented horses underneath her, and her goal is to really go out this year and try to set the world on fire," said Nelson, the high point trainer at Woodside for two years running.
Competing in A- and AA-rated shows, Sances will open her season with six weeks at the Tucson Winter Festival, and she will also compete at Pebble Beach, Woodside and in Sacramento and Scottsdale in 2006.
Sances says that recovering from her accident enough to ride again is her second-biggest accomplishment -- after quitting smoking.
"I'd bawl because it hurt so much to ride at first," she said. "The horse was what hurt me, but getting back on a horse helped so much."
RICK OSTEEN PHOTOGRAPHY
Mary Sances, riding her horse King of Spades, now shows no signs of a brutal fall she took that destroyed 6 inches of bone in her leg.
