She’s Trying to Clear Olympic-Sized Hurdles

Her strength came from the horses. Her dream came from the cancer.

Wendy Thompson is 30 years old and can present you with a folder of information about what it will take for her to become an Olympic equestrian competitor.

The monthly upkeep for one horse is $1,350, and an elite equestrian athlete needs three horses. Thompson has one right now.

Monthly expenses for travel to competitions, only West Coast competitions, run about $3,650. This doesn’t begin to include what it will cost to travel to the East Coast and overseas, which Thompson will need to do if she wants to qualify for the Olympics. To make it to the 2004 Olympics, which is Thompson’s more realistic goal, she hopes to raise $1.5 million.

This budget is presented so that you can understand why Wendy Thompson of San Clemente, with the help of her friend Holly Morrell of Laguna Beach, has put together the Will to Win Foundation. Morrell is the fund-raiser. Thompson is the competitor.

And cancer was the catalyst.

Eight years ago, Thompson was, in her own words, “mixed up, a little rebellious, kind of a pain.” She had been born in Hawaii. Her father, Wallen Thompson, is American Samoan, which entitles his daughter to an American Samoa passport. That has become important recently to Thompson because she has decided to try to become American Samoa’s first Olympic equestrian, if not in 2000, then in 2004. When she was 8, her dad and her mom, Sandie Kelly, divorced, and Sandie and Wendy came to Orange County.

While Wendy assures that Sandie has always given her “a ton of love and all the support I could ever ask for,” Wendy also explains that she has gone through “six marriages and five divorces with my mom. We did a lot of moving. I can’t count how many schools I went to,” Thompson says.

When she graduated from Capistrano Valley High, Thompson didn’t have a lot of direction. There was no thought of college, and all that she really loved, Thompson decided, was horses. Sandie had ridden, and Wendy had even been given her own horse when she was 7.

Even though that horse was sold a year later as part of the divorce, Thompson decided to become a trainer. And in 1991, when Thompson was living in a guest house belonging to Dr. James Ramsay and his wife Dianna in Coto de Caza and training Dr. Ramsay’s horses, Dr. Ramsay convinced Thompson she needed to see a doctor about a painful lump on her right arm.

The lump and the pain had been part of that arm for years, Thompson says, but other doctors told her it was tendinitis.

An MRI exam seemed to indicate a non-malignant mass, and Thompson had surgery. The lump was removed. A biopsy came back with an awful surprise. “I had synovial sarcoma. Cancer. I was devastated. I did not know what I would do.”

Synovial sarcoma is a cancer of the soft tissue. Thompson underwent nearly a year of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. At one point doctors told her they might need to amputate the arm. Thompson refused.

“All I had to keep me going was my horses,” she says on a sunny spring afternoon at the Coto de Caza Equestrian Center. “No way was I going to let them take my arm. No way. I lost my hair, I lost my strength. I wouldn’t leave the house except to go riding. It was all I had.”

Even as she grew weak from her illness, Thompson began to form the idea of becoming an elite rider and competing in the ultimate forum, the Olympics. “Horses and the idea of this dream kept me alive,” Thompson says now. “Equestrian sports are mostly for people who come from money. That’s not me or my family. I have to work now to support myself. I’m training 10 horses for other people. But I really want this. I really think I can do this.”

The cancer seems to be gone now. The only evidence is a jagged, long scar on Thompson’s slim arm. Morrell has helped the American Samoa Olympic committee get its equestrian foundation certified by equestrian’s international governing body.

And with the help of Morrell’s fund-raising efforts, Thompson was able to buy her first competitive horse. His name is Winstar. Thompson found him in Virginia where she had gone to look at horses for other people. Thompson got a good price, she says, because Winstar is a handful. “He’s given some people trouble, but the two of us bonded.”

Winstar stares at Thompson and his head bobs, as if the horse understands and agrees. At Thompson’s feet is a sweet, gentle Jack Russell terrier by the name of Makana. Makana means “gift” in Hawaiian; the dog was a gift to Thompson when she was ill.

Now, only 8 years old, Makana walks stiffly and slowly. Her cancer gift now has lymphoma and Thompson must soon make the decision to put her closest friend to sleep. For a moment tears come to Thompson’s eyes. Then she looks at Winstar and smiles. “It’s going to be a hard road,” Thompson says, “but I believe in my heart that I can do this. I really believe I’ll be in the Olympics.”

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.