Four-star event rider Nana Dalton has revealed that she has been struggling for months with the lasting effects of a head injury that occurred in late April. Nana shared her experience on her Nana Dalton Eventing facebook page to raise awareness of how debilitating even a ‘mild’ head injury can be and to give others an insight into her concussion after having taken solace in hearing about other people’s similar experiences. She has stood herself down from competition for the rest of the year to give herself time to recover fully and is booked in to attend a concussion clinic in Birmingham.
“I’m not writing this to receive any form of sympathy or any form of abuse as to how I should or shouldn’t have done things, but purely to give an insight to my experience,” she explained. “Although not everyone will agree with what I’ve done and how I’ve done it, I have only ever tried to make the right decisions along the way and do the best I can trying to juggle everything.
I was warming up for the showjumping and we had a genuine misunderstanding over the approach to an oxer, resulting in an awkward jump with the horse landing on the back rail,” explained Nana. “She scooted forwards, I slipped my reins and ended up unceremoniously coming out the back door and landing on my back/shoulder blades.” Despite feeling far from her best, Nana, 39, was determined not to miss the opportunity to ride at Badminton for the second time in her career.
This ambition was heightened by the fact her ride Absolut Opposition (Miley) had been suffering from soundness issues since their Badminton debut three years previously, but things didn’t go as planned. “Back at the lorry, my body went into shock and the realization hit that I had indeed put our Badminton trip in jeopardy so I withdrew from the cross-country,” Nana explained. All we have to say is to listen to Nana’s advice and contain yourselves far from being on Nana’s position.
