Former Racehorse Fittipaldi Brings Movement Back to a Young Woman’s Life

[Wandering Eyes]

Tallulah Becza-Levitt was just four years old when her preschool teachers first noticed that she was limping. Her parents took her to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), one of the country's leading pediatric specialists where they received a diagnosis no parent should ever have to hear: neurofibromatosis, an incurable condition in which tumors grow uncontrollably on the body's nerves. Since that day, Becza-Levitt has undergone seven surgeries, each to reduce tumor mass in her leg, where the tumor wraps around the sciatic nerve.

“Typically, I go two to five years between surgeries,” she says, sitting outside on a summer day in New Jersey after a riding lesson. “They cut as much as they can without damaging the nerve.” But sometimes, that's not possible. When she was 10, her surgery left her with nerve damage that caused her lower left leg to lag behind the right in development. Her foot drags, and she is unable to push forward with it.

In 2025, she required two tumor de-bulking surgeries. “And luckily,” she says, “between the surgeries, I was able to start riding with Nancy.”

Nancy Forsyth is the Program Director for Equine Assisted Services at the Allaire Community Farm in Wall, New Jersey, whose mission is to use rescued animals to nurture people with special needs. Her secret weapon is a 21-year-old former racehorse named Fittipaldi.

`Fitti,' as she calls him, raced 25 times in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, and Forsyth was a small part of his ownership group through the former Horsehats partnerships. As he got older, and slid down racing's ladder, said Forsyth, “he fell into the hands of a not-very-nice trainer at Mountaineer.” She and her son Jason had loved being one of his owners, so they got in the car, drove to Mountaineer, and bought him.

“We bought him to save him,” she says. “My son and I had had the time of our lives having a share in Fitti. And he brought us a lot of friends that I still have today.”

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Becza-Levitt aboard Fittipaldi with Nancy Forsyth (right) | Sarah Andrew photo

What is the value of movement to your life? Of normalcy to your sense of well-being? Ask anyone who has ever had a handicap that hinders their movement, and they'll tell you it's everything.

Becza-Levitt is 24, with a degree in psychology which she hopes to put to use helping children deal with the kind of trauma that comes with being hospitalized with serious conditions like her own.

Today, she is standing in line at a farm stand buying some produce for dinner. She wears an AFO brace on her lower leg to keep her foot from dropping, and relies on a crutch to help her get around.

“What did you do to your foot?” asks the check-out clerk. It is a question which she endures several times every day, at airports and stores, in restaurants and at parties, as people look at the crutch and assume it is a temporary condition for an otherwise healthy young woman.

Sometimes, she tells people it's a soccer or skiing injury. When she is particularly tired, she is apt to reply something like, “shark attack,” before moving along with a friendly smile.

“So much,” is her answer today.

How do you tell someone that you have just had eight pounds of tumor removed from your leg, and that if you're lucky, it will be another two years before you have to do it again?

“I'm happy to talk about it,” she says, but explains that it's difficult for people to hear. “I would love to give a simple answer, but it's not a simple answer and it can be shocking to people. I don't want to put the burden on them to react in a certain way. There's no right way to respond to it.”

Out at the riding program, nobody asks, or seems to care.

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“I've been doing this for almost 30 years,” says Forsyth, a PATH-certified therapeutic riding instructor who, along with Fitti, hosts a day-long parade of parents and children for whom riding has been transformational. “This farm is dedicated to using rescued animals to nurture through nature,” she says. “We have a lot of special-needs students here. A lot of them are on the spectrum. A lot of autism. A lot of cerebral palsy. That's our mission. And Fitti was perfect for this. He's laid-back. He's slow. He's perfect in his gait. He's a little short-coupled, so he's not bouncy. A student can do a very nice sitting trot on him, and they can learn to do a posting trot very easily.” Forsyth's son, Jason, himself on the spectrum, helps her with both horses and students.

Becza-Levitt started out on one of Forsyth's smaller Haflinger horses, but quickly advanced to riding Fitti when she showed promise.

Certified Path instuctor Nancy Forsyth | Sarah Andrew

Riding–and horses in general–explained Forsyth, are helpful both physically and mentally to her students.

“They get an emotional bond,” she says. “Half of my students would rather pet Fitti than even ride. They really love the horse. Some of them need sensory input. They're feeling the mane, they're petting him. And then on the other hand, you get students who are afraid of horses, but they're here for the physical and cognitive benefits.”

In the summer, Forsyth works outside in a large riding ring with letters tacked up at various intervals on the outside fences of the ring. She will ask students to tell her two letters where they want to take their horse. “And that's very difficult,” she says. “It involves planning, and some mapping skills.”

Fitti is so trustworthy that many of the students ride him independently, with no one leading him on a shank.

Today, Becza-Levitt is on Fitti when a horse in an adjacent paddock breaks through the fencing on the outside of the ring to get at some grass, causing a loud crash. Fitti doesn't flinch, but simply turns his head lazily to see what the commotion is.

For Becza-Levitt, being on Fitti's back is the one place where she can move like anyone else.

Thoroughbred racehorses are increasingly being used in equine-assisted therapy, prized for their intelligence, and their enjoyment of a job to be done. They work with clients like Forsyth's, along with veterans and other trauma survivors, teens with anxiety, and more.

In racing there is a lot of conversation about those jobs they can do in second careers, and where they can find new homes. Sometimes, it's helpful to talk to the people on the other side of the equation, to the people whose lives they change, in order to fully understand the scope of their value.

“For someone who's having trouble with their walking, or if they're in a wheelchair, you can put them on the horse and that gait, that motion, sets them on top of the world because they can walk again,” says Forsyth. “They can actually walk again through the motion of the horse.”

That is exactly how Becza-Levitt says she feels, explaining that she had tried other sports and walked away frustrated when she was unable to compete like anyone else.

“This is a pretty big change for my life,” she says. “I had put myself in a box before this. Being able to ride and getting that experience is such a blessing because I beat myself up for things I can't control. And now I have an outlet that's negating a lot of my life where I've felt like, `okay, I can't do this because it's going to be harder. People are going to look at me weirdly.' There's a freedom that I have never experienced before with being able to do this in the way I want. It's monumental in my life.”

“Tallulah is amazing,” says Forsyth. “She loves being here. She loves the idea of being able to do a sport that she could excel at. This is something where she doesn't need to be able to walk perfectly to take her horse around the course, or go to a simple pleasure horse show. Emotionally, she gets a lot of love from Fitti and gives it back to him.”

And that, in turn, is a blessing for Forsyth.

“I love seeing the results that I can give a student,” she says. “My idea is to leave the student better than I found them. We get them on the horse and as soon as you get halfway around the ring, they say how they love it. They like the motion. And it just…leaves them better.”

Forsyth says she would like for Fittipaldi to be an ambassador for all former racehorses, to show how valuable they can be in their post-racing lives. Becza-Levitt, who used to be afraid of horses, is sold.

“When I am on the horse, I feel free, because I don't have to use a crutch or a brace,” she says. “The horse is moving how I tell him to move. That's sort of a crazy concept for me, because for 20 years, I have had to figure it out a little differently. I never would have imagined the autonomy you get when you do something like this. To me, this feels like what walking should feel like. And it's a great feeling to do it with another being. It just reinforces what great animals horses are and the benefits they can provide for every type of human. I think it is really special. Very, very special.”

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