Patricia Lasko

FEI competitor, sponsor and First Lady of Massachusetts, Ann
Romney, gives an insightful look at how her will to ride dressage
horses helped her cope with the debilitating disease Multiple
Sclerosis.

Editor’s Note: Writer Patricia Lasko won the Merial Human-Animal
Bond Award at the 2005 American Horse Publications Awards Banquet
for this article, originally titled “The Elixir of Pure Joy.” The
award is given annually to the writer of an article that best
reflects and promotes the strengthening of the relationship
between horses and people.

Ann Romney can be riding in a dressage lesson, doing nothing more
than circles, when suddenly some nuance becomes clearer and this
serious student of dressage exclaims, “Yahoo!” As she schools her
young horse, Superhit, or practices the art of collection on her
schoolmaster, Baron, you would never guess that on an October
morning in 1998 she woke up and was physically unable to get out
of bed. She soon was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a
chronic neurological disease that affects the central nervous
system in unpredictable ways…Read More