When Ceralena Gray, professional horse trainer, threw her leg over a quiet green broke hunt seat horse on Labor Day weekend last year, she had no idea that she was moments away from a Lifeflight trip to the hospital.
“I was riding just like we do every day. We had a walk trot kid and her family in for the weekend and they were watching me ride in between lessons. We were planning on going to a friend’s house for a Labor Day party later on that afternoon,” she says.
In what Ceralena calls a “freak accident,” she asked the gelding to canter and he came unglued for no apparent reason. “It caught me off guard because he is a very good-minded horse and I wasn’t expecting anything like that. I went to pull him up and he wouldn’t pull up, so I tried to pull him around and he wouldn’t pull around. I was starting to lose my seat and unfortunately, I was in a saddle with a small narrow horn and when I went to grab it, I missed it and got thrown off his shoulder and onto the ground.”
After that, she blacked out and the next thing she remembers is laying in the indoor with her boyfriend, Jeremy Price, over her looking ghost white with fear.
“He was asking me if I was okay and I asked him what happened. I didn’t know where I was. We had recently moved to Kentucky and when Jeremy told me we were in the indoor in Kentucky, I replied, ‘I would never move to Kentucky.’ After that, he asked me if I remembered who he was and I told him I did. We laugh about it now, but at the time, Jeremy was worried I had sustained a brain injury.”
Once Ceralena learned the whole story, she found out the horse had kicked her in the face after jumping over her.
“Initially, Jeremy thought I was dead. I wasn’t moving and he was terrified. He finally shook me and I came to. He said I had a seizure while I was passed out and he knew my jaw was broken because it was making popping noises,” Ceralena recalls.
Jeremy tried to keep Ceralena calm and told her to try to stay still with her mouth closed. “He told me I had been kicked in the face and I had some severe injuries. My first thought was to ask if I still had all of my teeth. I had cut the inside of my lip all the way to the corner of my cheek to the point of my jaw and my lower lip was cut wide open. Thankfully, although I was a bloody mess and he could see all of the teeth on the right side of my face without me opening my mouth, he informed me that I still had all of my teeth,” she says.
An ambulance arrived ten minutes after the accident followed shortly by the Lifeflight helicopter. “It was my first helicopter ride and I am terrified of heights,” laughs Ceralena.
Once she arrived at the hospital, a diligent team of doctors stitched up her face and x-rays revealed more damage to her face than the doctors initially thought. She had fractured her face, broken her jaw and nose, and was rushed into surgery.
“At first they were going to wait to do surgery and once they realized how severe it was, they took me right in,” says Ceralena.
After three and a half days in the hospital with major swelling and difficulty breathing, she started to get better and was finally medically released to go home.
While the surgery and hospital stay were difficult, the most difficult part of the process was the recovery. Ceralena had to have her mouth wired shut for almost two months in order to ensure proper healing. Her jaw surgery was excruciating and having to be on a liquid diet for seven and a half weeks was brutal. Perhaps, to Ceralena, the most devastating news was that it would be a long time before she could ride a horse again.
Luckily, her parents and Jeremy’s mom, Tina White, came to help so that Jeremy could continue to train his horses and pick up the slack for Ceralena while she was out of commission.
A few weeks later, after many sleepless nights and severe discomfort, Ceralena returned to the barn, but only as a spectator.
“It was so hard to watch, I was ready to get back in the saddle and get back to work. Five weeks after it happened, I finally got on a horse with the assumption that I was only going to walk, as soon as Jeremy turned his back, I started jogging and the next thing he knew I was loping,” she says.
Shortly thereafter, she was back to work and she even rode the horse involved in the accident. “It was just a freak accident. Just because something happens with a horse, it doesn’t necessarily mean that specific horse is bad. They are horses and things happen. I think my accident made me realize that horses, even the most reliable ones, can be unpredictable at times,” says Ceralena.
Looking back on her past riding experience, she realizes that she is one of the lucky ones. Luckily, she recovered completely from her injuries minus a few scars she covers up with makeup. “I have been riding for as long as I can remember and I have never even broken a bone. You just don’t think about these kinds of things happening and truthfully, this could happen to anyone. I think I am a little more cautious these days but I am still the same rider I was befor
e. My accident changed me, but for the better,” she says.
A year later, Ceralena is a little bit more cautious about getting her horses used to their surroundings and she always takes more time prepping horses before she throws a leg over their backs, but her passion for the sport is stronger than ever.
Currently, Ceralena and Jeremy are preparing horses for the Color Breed Congress and APHA World Show, with many weekend APHA and AQHA events in between. She truly loves what she is doing and is thankful for her full recovery a year after her tragic accident.
“I am grateful for being healthy and able to do a job I love every day. Despite the accident and the challenges involved with the recovery, I wouldn’t trade my job for the world. Getting to do what you love is so worth the risk,” she says.
Ceralena would like to extend her gratitude to her boyfriend, Jeremy Price for his unwavering support, her family, friends, and the entire horse show community for all of the support she received after her accident.
