When Hannah Kingsley, DVM, first started feeling off while helping her sister and brother-in-law move, she initially believed she was dealing with a migraine. But what transpired a few minutes later would prove to be life-altering, changing the course of her veterinary career and sending her towards bigger, international riding goals.

“I went to sit on the couch, and then pretty soon I collapsed on the floor,” she recalled of that day in 2020. “And then all of a sudden, I couldn’t speak. I could think, and I could hear, and cognitively, I was there, but I couldn’t do anything. So that was really a terrifying moment for me.”

Kingsley’s family, including her mom, Becky Kingsley, who is a neonatal intensive care unit nurse, were able to get her into the car and drive the five minutes to the local emergency room, where pain medication began to improve her symptoms, and she regained her ability to move.

When a surgeon came to speak with her, Hannah thought he’d tell her she’d slipped a disc or something similar; instead he uttered the words “brain bleed.” There’d been no accident. She hadn’t gotten kicked or fallen. It was deemed idiopathic, of unknown origin.

The diagnosis led to a couple brain surgeries and complications during recovering, including sepsis and a two-week period where the only thing she can remember is having a temperature of 105 and being put on an ice bed. Throughout it all, she said she was thankful for her sister, mom and dad, Truman Kingsley, who advocated for her when she couldn’t.

“Now looking at CTs and MRIs, I basically have a hole in the middle of the cerebellum, and I’m like, “Holy moly, how do I function? That is so interesting.’ Brains are really interesting,” she said. “I was actually super lucky.”

Three months and many therapies later, Hannah returned to her veterinary practice, Kingsley Equine in Fargo, North Dakota, in a reduced capacity. Roughly six months later she was back to eventing her horse at training level.

After the initial bleed, Hannah had angiograms every three to four months so her neurologist could keep tabs and monitor another arteriovenous malformation—an abnormal connection between arteries and veins—which was a mirror image to the one that had resulted in her brain bleed. While it had not begun to bleed, by June 2021 it had grown to the point of needing intervention. The neurologist presented her with treatment options: One had extremely poor odds and another required travel to Cleveland, so Hannah opted for Onyx embolization, where a glue-like substance is inserted via angiogram.

“I’ll never forget, I went to Rebecca Farms [Montana] competed, and came home, and I think a week or two later, it’s supposed to be like a 20-minute procedure under general anesthesia,” she said. “And I wake up that afternoon, and I can’t feel anything in the right side of my body. I can’t smile. I can’t communicate so well. Cognitively, I was there, and I remember everything but short-term memory. I could remember how to tell you how to deal with a laminitic pony, but what I had for breakfast, I’m not sure if I can recall that.”

She’d suffered a stroke, and for two months, Hannah had no function in her right arm—her dominant side—and she wondered if she’d ever regain use of her fingers. She was aphasic, stuttered and struggled with mental recall. After being released from the intensive care unit, she spent two weeks at a rehabilitation clinic. While there, her family brought her dog for daily visits, and a friend arranged for her horse to stop by.

As she recovered, Hannah began an intense schedule of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy, which she described as making a world of difference. Speech therapy proved challenging—she could identify things on flash cards but couldn’t speak the names. When Becky suggested the therapist ask her about veterinary medicine, things began to improve.

“[The therapist] comes in the next day—her dad had been a veterinarian—and so she’s like, ‘I have a laminitic pony. What would you recommend?’ And I just talked the whole time non-stop,” Hannah said.

Hannah admitted her recovery process was sometimes frustrating, as she trained her left hand to do what her right no longer could. But her family rallied to assist, with Becky taking to her to the pool daily for six months because swimming improved her mobility. While she was amazed by the progress she made, she said it was mentally taxing.

“There were lots of times in there where I was like, ‘Do I just lay on the couch and not really see anything? And is that what I want to do?’ ” she said. “And I remember going out to my farm the next day, and somebody taking me out there and seeing my horse and getting to enjoy that. I’m like, ‘No, this is where I want to be. I want to enjoy the sunshine. I want to work at this and have fun and enjoy life.’ And I think that’s so important to remember.”

It Began With A One-Eyed Cow Pony

Hannah got her start in horses early, as her dad owned cattle and her maternal grandfather had horses and cattle. Her introduction to a western saddle began before she could walk, but after her dad caught her jumping her one-eyed cow pony over a wire fence and a cattle guard, he decided she needed formal jumping training. They found a woman four hours away in northern North Dakota who taught Hannah and took her to small hunter/jumper shows in Canada. As an undergrad student at St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, North Carolina, Hannah started eventing.

When Hannah returned to riding following her stroke, her trainer Henriette Borst let her ride a retired jumper mare, Latina, who was very safe. Hannah got graded as a para-dressage rider and did her first show at Grade III in March 2023.

Later that year she was showing in Ocala, Florida, when she met Grade V rider Cynthia Screnci, and it was an experience that opened even more doors. One of Screnci’s horses, Eragon VF, had been injured a few times and could no longer hold up to the demands of Screnci’s Grade V tests, but he could still comfortably do Hannah’s Grade III tests.

“I was just so impressed by her and by her spirit and her nature and the way that she was out there just really putting everything into it,” Screnci said of her decision to offer her horse to Hannah.

She showed Hannah and Borst a picture of “Danny,” a 16-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Don Romantic—Ujinja, Fidermark), and the pair were immediately interested.

“He just has such a presence,” Hannah said in January. “We spent two months roadwalking him and just getting him fitter, and now he’s finally fit. It’s just so fun to see that and just his presence. I think that’s the biggest thing because he loves horse shows. He just is so happy.”

As she’s embarked on her para-dressage journey, Hannah has learned to trade the adrenaline rush of jumping and galloping for the finesse of dressage, replacing the “just get through it” attitude she admits to having when it was the first phase of eventing.

About three months ago, she started riding another of Screnci’s former mounts, Sir Chipoli, an 18-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Sir Donnerhall—Vivalucienne TKS, Carabas).

“They’re just awesome teachers. And they just watch out for you,” said Hannah. “It was really, funny because when I’m nervous, I go in the stall with Danny and ‘Chip,’ and I’m like, ‘OK, we need to talk through this,’ and they just help me see everything clear and be excited about the day.”

A New Direction

After her stroke, Hannah was able to return to her veterinary practice with the help of her equine technician Tammy Treitline, VTS-ETN. When Treitline retired, Hannah took a hard look at the business.

“My technician was always there to protect me,” she said. “I don’t have 100% balance. I don’t have I don’t have any feeling the right side of my body. My movement has gotten much better, but when a horse spooks, she would always be there to buffer the situation and work with it. And I didn’t really have that anymore.”

While Hannah had never been injured, she recognized that providing day-to-day veterinary care was no longer the right situation for her.

For a while Hannah split her time between North Dakota and Gainesville, Florida, but as her riding goals got bigger—with an eye at being on U.S. teams—she realized being gone for two weeks at a time was no longer realistic, so she moved to Florida full time. Though she’s got big dreams for her riding, Hannah hasn’t given up veterinary medicine completely, just with a narrower focus: X-rays and radiographs. Behind her digital X-ray machine, she can still help horses and clients without putting herself in physical danger.

And the greater flexibility has opened doors for her competitively. This year, Hannah competed Danny and Chip in a pair of CPEDIs at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Florida, where she was part of the U.S. team.

“Chip, [is] still a really new ride for me, so I still need to work on getting the amplitude,” she said. “I feel like we’re on the same playing field. I’m not at all worried about him being a bit too much or a bit too looky. Actually, now that I’ve got his walk under control, I need to add more jazz back. What was fun for me is just feeling [during the Week 9 CPEDI3*] that they’re both happy to be at the horse show, really healthy and excited. I felt like I was on good partners, I just need to amplify my riding a bit.”