‘This amazing life’ – The captain of the U.S. Paralympic Equestrian team is a Starbucks barista
Rebecca Hart, a Starbucks partner (employee) since 2008, will compete in Equestrian Dressage, in her fifth Paralympic Games.
Updated September 12, 2024
Congratulations to Rebecca Hart for winning THREE gold medals in Equestrian Dressage at the Paralympic Games in Paris – in individual, freestyle and team event.
Rebecca Hart, a Starbucks partner (employee) since 2008, will compete in Equestrian Dressage, in her fifth Paralympic Games.
Rebecca Hart was 10 years old, on a family road trip through North Carolina, when she saw the little roadside cardboard sign, advertising pony rides. She begged her dad to pull over, and a few minutes later, found herself atop a shaggy black pony.
“It was a life-saving moment,” Hart recalls, almost 30 years later. “When I sat on the back of that horse, that horse didn’t care that my legs didn’t work.
“Horses allowed me to take the anger that I felt toward my disability and turn it into a passion for the horse and for sport. It completely changed my mindset – from this angry, upset, misunderstood kid, to an athlete.”
Hart, a Starbucks barista and shift supervisor since 2008, is the captain of the U.S. Paralympic Equestrian team, which will participate in the Paris Paralympic Games that begin Aug. 28. She’ll compete in Equestrian Dressage. This will be her fifth Paralympics competition.
Hart, now based in Florida, has familial spastic paraplegia, a hereditary disorder that causes degeneration of the nerve pathways in the spinal cord and leads to weakness in the legs and sometimes, paralysis from mid-back down. She can only walk short distances on her toes, and otherwise uses crutches and a wheelchair.
On a horse, that means she can’t guide it with her legs, like able-bodied riders. Her legs are tethered tight to the girth, a strap which keeps the saddle in place. Instead, she must rely more on the reins, shoulder shifts and verbal cues.
“She’s so confident in her own self. She’s a very strong and powerful mare,” Hart says.
At these Games, she’ll be riding Flora, a 1,200-pound 16-year-old bay Hanoverian mare. “She’s so confident in her own self. She’s a very strong and powerful mare,” Hart says. “She’s just like, ‘Let’s go do this.’ When she’s at a competition, she just lights up with even more energy, and she’s just such a pleasure. She enjoys showing off.”
What is equestrian dressage?
Hart likens equestrian dressage to the floor routine in gymnastics. There’s a rectangular field, on which she and Flora must perform a series of specific skills, or tests – salutes, halts, transitions, extensions, pirouettes, for example – which are judged on a scale of 1 to 10 by five judges.
The U.S. team won Bronze in the event during the 2021 Paralympic Games in Tokyo (delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic) – the first time it reached the podium. Hart has won championships at other competitions, but never in the Paralympics. This year, her team is ranked No. 1 in the world.
“Where we were the underdogs before, we’re coming in strong with higher expectations, which adds quite a bit of pressure to the event,” Hart says. “But that pressure is a privilege, and I am so honored to get to carry that. If we have the rides that we’re all capable of, we have the potential to bring home the Gold.”
Two worlds intertwining
When Hart began working at Starbucks, she was an apprentice at a training barn in Pennsylvania and in need of supplemental income. By then, she’d discovered the world of para-equestrian competitions, found coaches and mentors who let her “ride for sport, not just for therapy” and even diverted some money she’d intended to use for college and bought her first horse.
Her first Starbucks store manager, a few years after she joined the company, told her about the Starbucks Elite Athlete program, which provides financial support and flexibility with scheduling, when athletes need to travel for competitions or take time off to train.
“Starbucks has really been intertwined from the beginning with my entire equestrian journey,” Hart says.
“Starbucks has really been intertwined from the beginning with my entire equestrian journey,” Hart says. “All my regular customers know I’m going to the Paralympics. I have wonderful customers who come in daily, and they’ve been following me all through the trials and team selection. It is so meaningful to me to have those moments where I can connect my two worlds. They’re my friends and supporters. It’s a big reason I’ve partnered with Starbucks for so long, because it’s a company that connects and supports inclusive spaces.”
‘This amazing life’
In 2008, Hart made her first U.S. Paralympic team. She finished fourth in Beijing, but it’s the moment when she first stepped off the airplane for those Games that she counts as the real highlight. “I will remember it forever,” she says, recalling the surrealness of representing her country and flying halfway around the world with her horse. It was a real breakthrough, the culmination of a decades-long journey.
From the first ride atop the shaggy black pony to Flora. From pestering her father for riding lessons all the way home from a family vacation to now participating in her fifth Paralympic Games in Paris.
“I would not have this amazing life that I currently do without having that disability,” Hart says. “I wouldn’t have met all the amazing people and gone on the amazing adventures. But I had to mentally accept it and figure out how to make it work. That was definitely a process. I would love to go back to my young self, and say, ‘It will be okay. It’s going to get really good.’”
