Bubbly and full of infectious energy, Lily Voss is unabashedly a horse girl. After an accident as a teenager required her arm to be amputated, she could have hung up her spurs forever. But that’s not Lily’s style. She climbed back into the saddle and on to show horses in high school, on her college equestrian team, and beyond. These days, she’s crafting a career capturing what we all love about horses in the realm of social media.
Horse Lover From Birth
Lily grew up in Tulsa, Okla., a third-generation horse girl thanks to a grandmother and mother who rode. Her mother had a string of retired Quarter Horses that she used to show in breed shows.
“I was ‘born with the defective gene,’ as my dad would say,” Lily says with a laugh. “Even before I could walk, I was on horses with my mom, but it wasn’t until I was about 8 or 9 that I started to take formal riding lessons and got competitive with it.”
Lily started her riding journey with dressage throughout her youth and junior years. She showed hunter/jumpers on her university’s Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association team. She ended up falling in love with the hunters, and that has fueled her continued passion for horses.
The Accident
Lily was adventurous as a teen—a little too adventurous, she might say. At the age of 14, she was in an ATV accident that required her to be life-flighted to the hospital.
“My arm was amputated on the spot, so it wasn’t that I had amputation surgery—it was a stitch-her-up surgery,” Lily recalls. “My mom met me at the hospital, and as any mother would be, she was freaking out and sobbing. But the first thing I said to her as I was being wheeled into surgery was, ‘I guess I’m going to have to do western pleasure now.’ But the surgeon came in—who I had not yet met at this point—yelling, ‘Over my dead body will you sit on a western horse.’”
The surgeon just so happened to be a Hanoverian warmblood breeder and dressage rider. Lily credits her encouragement to continue riding horses as playing a key role in her healing.
“I would say 99 percent of doctors would’ve told me I was not allowed to get on a horse for at least six months after this hugely traumatic injury,” Lily says. “My doctor told me, ‘Whenever you feel ready, get on a horse.’ And so, a week after I was out of the hospital, I was on a horse again.”
Back in the Saddle
Lily found being around horses to be therapeutic and helped give her a positive outlook on life after her injury.
“Having something to work toward and a goal to achieve really helped my recovery,” she says.
Lily’s recovery was faced with two infections, and she says it took her about nine months to find an equilibrium in the saddle and re-learn how to use her body to effectively cue her horse. She leaned on her first horse—a half-draft pony named Prince—during that time.
“He was pony-ish, and he could be a little devil sometimes,” Lily says. “But after my accident, his attitude changed 100 percent. He knew that I was delicate and fragile, and he took incredibly good care of me, never putting a foot wrong.”
She says losing her arm helped change her perspective on riding, inviting creativity into her process, and causing her to be a more open-minded rider.
“There’s more than one way to accomplish something; riding can be effective no matter how it looks,” Lily says.
Highs and Lows
When thinking about the moments in her life that have meant the most to her, Lily says participating in the very first para show jumping demonstration at the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event four years ago was one of them.
But so was competing in her first horse show after losing her arm, which was one year after the accident.
“It was a pretty monumental moment, but honestly, every single day feels like another success,” Lily says. “Even though I lost my arm nine years ago, I feel like I learn something new every day. I discover a little bit more about my body, a little more about what I can do rather than what I can’t do. Every ride has been a highlight, because I can’t take any ride for granted. I didn’t know I would get this far.”
Overcoming the balance and aid issues around having one arm has been her greatest challenge. But more than that, avoiding comparison to other riders’ experience as a youth were additional layers to her growing as a horsewoman.
“The biggest obstacle I’ve overcome is learning that everybody is on a different journey, so it doesn’t matter how old you are, what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it. As long as it makes you happy, that’s all you can ask for.”
Family and Career
In college, Lily studied business administration at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia with a minor in digital marketing and graduated in December 2022. Today, the 23-year-old runs her own business doing social media management and content creation specifically for equestrian brands.
Lily recently married to her husband, Andrew Voss. Andrew is not a horse person, but he’s very supportive of her passion.
She makes social media content about her life as a creative outlet.
“I like to share my journey because I think it’s important to showcase that riding has its ups and downs,” Lily says. “It flows, and riding isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. I also choose to share a little bit more of my day-to-day life. [I like] sharing how you can have a very full life, even if you have a disability—it doesn’t have to limit you in any way.”
Horses and the Life
Her para-dressage horse, Charlie, has now been commandeered by her mom. Lily is in between horses at the moment and rides her trainer’s horses at a local barn while she’s horse shopping. She hopes to re-enter the show ring with a new mount, and plans to make the switch to show jumping from hunter classes.
Whatever she does with horses, Lily lives by a philosophy honed by her past and current experiences.
“No matter what life throws at you, you can always overcome it, however scary things get,” she says. “There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes it takes a year, sometimes it takes 10 years. But it always gets better, and sometimes works out better.”
You can follow Lily on Instagram at @lilybvoss.
This article about Lily Voss appeared in the July 2024 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!
