Nothing will stop barrel racer Amberley Snyder from riding horses — even the car crash that paralyzed her from the waist down.
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00:00But I mean, if you love something so much, I don't think you should be able to just give it up like that.
00:04I started riding horses when I was three years old and started competing in rodeo when I was seven.
00:22I mean, I absolutely fell in love with it from as far back as I can remember.
00:26And I felt like combining competition and speed and horses all in one thing was just perfect.
00:42When you're in the hospital, you feel like you're not in the real world.
00:45You feel like once you leave there, everything's going to go back to normal and your life's going to be back to what it was before.
00:51Obviously, that can't happen.
00:53I told them I ride horses and they said, well, you're going to need to find something else.
00:58And I remember thinking, well, that doesn't work.
01:01Like horses aren't just what I do.
01:03They're part of who I am.
01:04So you can't just tell me to become a different person because of an accident, because of a chair, because my legs don't work.
01:10And really, that was why I wanted to do it.
01:13Of course, it was a process.
01:15We set a lot of goals.
01:15We accomplished goals.
01:16We moved forward.
01:17The very first time I got back on one of my horses was at four months.
01:22You know, it was in that moment that I did realize every part of my life was different and I was going to have to figure it out.
01:28I have a seatbelt on my saddle now.
01:30I have Velcro straps around my legs.
01:32My feet are rubber banded in.
01:34I have a nylon strap buckled across my left hip and I sit on a seat of air, kind of like my wheelchair seat.
01:38It's called a Roho seat.
01:40All of those pieces came through a process of trial and error to get to where I'm at now.
01:46But 18 months after was the first barrel run I made and have definitely not looked back since then.
02:00So my very first day of therapy, my nurse walks into my room and she says, Amberly, we need to set some goals.
02:06I told her easy. Walk, ride, rodeo.
02:17I never imagined in my life that a movie would come of that.
02:25It was exciting.
02:27It was stressful.
02:28It was every emotion you can think of to make a movie about your life.
02:31If when I think about riding my horses, when I think about rail racing, I try to just compare it to how everyone has that passion, right?
02:38Everyone has something that is their freedom, something that is their go-to, something that is, you know, their escape.
02:45And that's how my horses feel for me.
02:46You know, I mean, I get to leave my wheelchair at the trailer.
02:49My horse becomes my legs and I get to have that freedom that I don't really get to feel everywhere else.
02:55And I absolutely love it.
02:56And it's one of my happiest places for me.
02:58So I'm not going to give it up no matter what.