Woman Of Steel

Riding instructor Anne Skinner isn’t meant to be alive.

She spent years teaching children with disabilities the joy and therapeutic values of horse riding.

A freak car accident made her the first person to survive such extensive spinal and pelvic injuries. An Australian surgeon needed to invent a world-first metal bolt device to enable her just to walk again.

After a total of twenty operations and three months spent re-learning how to walk, Anne returned home and eventually, back into the saddle and back into competive riding.

On the path to the Beijing Paralympics, she crossed paths with Queensland horse, Cossack, who had also survived a harrowing car accident.

Having both cheated death, this unlikely pairing has produced a unique chemistry.

Click her to go the the Australian Story website to watch this inspiring program televised on the 21st April 2008