Linstedt rides for Donate Life America to honor her father

Published 3:27 pm Thursday, May 30, 2013

Jordán Linstedt was only six months old when she received her first pony from her parents.

Although she wasn’t immediately able to ride on her own, there are pictures of her sitting atop the pony — always with someone holding her steady. Linstedt began riding around the age of 2 with her family on local trails, and since then, her life has been about horses.

“It was always a hobby and a passion,” she said. “There was nothing more I wanted to do more than ride my pony.”

Now 25, the Redmond resident has progressed from those trails to become a competitive event rider with her sights on the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. Linstedt said the Olympics have been her goal since she was a little girl and she has the diary from when she was 5 or 6 to prove it.

“Not one word was spelled right,” she said with a laugh about the ambitions her younger self had written.

Linstedt said eventing is like a triathlon for horses. Competitions are usually three days long with a different discipline scheduled for each day. Horse and rider are judged on different things with each discipline: elegance and movement in the dressage portion, endurance in the cross-country portion and technical skills in the show jumping.

Linstedt — whose horses Jack and Capato are kept at Saddle Rock Stables on Redmond Ridge, which her family owns — has been competing since she was 14 and has worked her way up in the eventing world and now has about 10 sponsors from various equestrian-related companies — both local and national.

The biggest name she has teamed up with so far is Donate Life America (DLA), a not-for-profit alliance of national organizations and state teams across the country committed to increasing organ, eye and tissue donation. The organization’s mission is to drive individuals, organizations and communities to increase the number of designated organ, eye and tissue donors.

Linstedt’s partnership with DLA came after her father Gary Linstedt died in 2010. Gary had fought a 23-year battle with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a disease that affects the liver, and Jordán said it would have been a 20-year battle if he hadn’t received a liver transplant three years before he died.

After his death, Jordán wanted to honor her father, who was her biggest fan and gave up his retirement fund to pay for Jack, her current competition horse. When her father told the seller what he was doing to pay for Jack, Jordán said he said, “When your little girl has a dream, you got to do what you got to do.”

The topic is an emotional one for Jordán to discuss as she added that another reason her father gave up his retirement money for her was because he knew he might not be around to use it.

“A lot of it is still for my dad,” Jordán said about why she rides as well as her partnership with DLA. “That’s so much of my drive.”

Karen Headley, national development director for DLA, said Jordán contacted them about the idea about a partnership.

“We loved the idea,” Headley said.

She said teaming up with Jordán, who helps spread DLA’s message about the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation through her website and social media websites, is a wonderful way for them to reach out and educate a new audience.

In addition, Jordán will ride with the DLA logo on her saddle pad at upcoming events, the first of which will be July 22-28 in Montana. Headley said they are also working on getting local DLA affiliates to do some on-the-ground work at these events to help spread the word.

Jordán has also challenged her fans to become registered organ, eye and tissue donors with the goal of getting 500 people registered. With about 120,000 people in the country in need of transplants — and 18 people dying each day while waiting for a transplant — both Jordán and Headley stressed the importance of having more people on registered-donor lists.

Jordán’s campaign with DLA just launched earlier this month but she hopes the partnership will be a long-term one.

“We see it as a lifelong team,” she said.