Horse trainer Jennifer Cunningham facing life’s challenges head-on

BY J.B. BITTNER Comments 0
Published: November 3, 2009

STILLWATER — Jennifer Cunningham takes her joy from family, her passion from horses and her strength from her faith.

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But she takes her creed from a children’s film.

"One simple motto I like to live by is from the movie ‘Nemo’ — ‘just keep swimming!’” Cunningham said. "I like to say that on tough days — just keep swimming — because that’s all any of us can do. Just keeping moving, just keep trying.”

Cunningham has had her share of tough days.

Between the births of 6-year-old Keaton and 6-month-old Falyn, Cunningham and husband Ty lost a set of twins and another baby. When Keaton was a toddler Jennifer Cunningham suffered a devastating leg injury while playing softball that required several surgeries.

"That took me out for 21/2 years,” she said of the August 2004 injury and ensuing ordeal. "I wasn’t even walking normally again until the middle of 2006.”

More than a bit inconvenient for the woman who with her husband supervises Oklahoma State University’s Spirit Riders team. They also are caretakers and trainers of Bullet, the American quarter horse gelding that charges onto the field at Boone Pickens Stadium with every Oklahoma State Cowboy touchdown.

She started this football season on the sidelines, recuperating from injuries suffered while giving birth to Falyn.

"I’ve had 10 surgeries over the last five or six years,” Cunningham said.

Both Cunninghams have extensive experience with the spirit team. Ty Cunningham, 33, a Jay High School graduate, was Oklahoma State’s Spirit Rider his senior year. Jennifer Cunningham, 33, a Sand Springs native, was Spirit Rider her senior year as well. The couple earned bachelor degrees in animal science at Oklahoma State.

The Sand Springs couple put that to work in their horse operation. It’s Ty Cunningham’s help with the team and at home that promotes his wife’s success as a mom, Spirit Team coordinator, rancher and drafting designer at her parents’ company that designs sprinklers for buildings, she said.

Ty Cunningham teaches agriculture education at Kellyville High School.

Her parents, Ernie and Wilma Roberts, who board Bullet at their Tulsa ranch, also contribute, Jennifer Cunningham said.

"My mom will pick my daughter up from school for me a couple of days a week or come over and hold the baby while I’m doing laundry,” said Jennifer, who is months from recovery from her childbirth injuries. "Ty and I help each other. We make everything a team effort.”

That includes horse training when Jennifer Cunningham is healthy, judging or assisting judges as ring stewards in horse shows, working with Bullet and the team and managing to work in family vacations to Disney World or ski slopes when schedules allow.

"We do it all with our children at our sides,” Jennifer said. "They truly always are with us. We are rarely apart. We pretty much do everything as a family. I hope my children learn from my actions the way I learned from my parents’ actions. My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was 14, and I watched her get up every day and at least try to face the day.

"Some days were worse than others, but she still got out of bed and went to work and tried to face the day,” she said. "She has been cancer free for 15 years now.”

As Cunningham heals from her own physical challenges now, she has plans that include horses.

"My show days are certainly not over. I have two barrel horse prospects in the barn and a cutting mare and gelding ready and waiting for me to heal.”

Her love of horses, obviously shared by her husband, is planting a seed in the heart of her daughter Keaton as well.

"Keaton rode her first horse with someone when she was 10 weeks old,” Jennifer said. "I have pictures of her cutting teeth on bridle reins when she was 9 months old. She’s always been on a horse, but we don’t make her ride horses. If she asks to ride she gets to ride.”

But already Keaton, in her 6-year-old way, is a part of the Spirit Rider team. She knows the rules, She goes to the games. And she is a special friend of Bullet.

She’s not alone.

"We are compensated monetarily and we treat it as a job, but we are rewarded personally because of the lives this horse touches,” Jennifer Cunningham said.

I hope my children learn from my actions the way I learned from my parents’ actions.”

Jennifer Cunningham