For Alanna Flax-Clark, her years at Chaminade were very non-traditional. As a student with multiple health problems, she was only able to be on campus full-time during her senior year, so she doesn’t have a lot of traditional memories of high school life. Alanna went on from Chaminade to study at Rhodes College in Tennessee, where she double majored in biology and psychology. After graduating, she moved to Boston, where she obtained her M.Ed. from Simmons College. There she specialized in severe special needs and earned her teaching credential.

For a number of years, she taught a range of special education classes and students before her health began to decline, and she found herself paralyzed. This necessitated her move back home to Los Angeles—and that’s where she discovered her love of horses.  

Alanna did not grow up with horses, but she was familiar with Equine Assisted Activities and Therapies through her time in special education. Once Alanna started physical therapy in this new way, she wanted to be challenged every single day. Alanna learned about dressage from her physical therapist who told her it was a sport in the Paralympics. When she heard this, she knew it was a way to keep the horses in her life as she was phasing out of physical therapy. 

 

Alanna is a Grade 2 Para Equestrian. She’s progressed from needing multiple people to hold her on a horse to multiple wins in the international ring representing Team USA, being declared Grade 2 National Champion in 2020, and being selected as the alternate for Team USA at the Tokyo Paralympics.

She’s back in California, where she works full-time for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She has a new interest—single-scull rowing—and recently returned from intensive training in Portugal for high-performance athletes. Her goal is to compete in rowing in the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics.