Alice Dorinda ‘Dinnie’ Greenway, a Londoner who blazed many trails in the equestrian world and continued to ride horses into her late 90s, has died. She was 102.
CBC News interviewed Greenway in 2016 about her lifelong love of horses. She was 96 at the time and still riding. The video accompanying that story under the headline “This 96-year-old Ontario woman is still horseback riding and has no plans to stop” became a sensation with the audience.
Dinnie Greenway loves riding horses, and she’s not letting a little thing like age stop her. The 96-year-old talks about what she’s learned from a lifetime of riding and training horses.
Jeremey Greenway says he will remember his grandmother’s poise and sense of adventure.
“She was one of the most enduring people I have ever met,” he said. “It took about five seconds for you to want to be in a conversation with her. She was kind of larger than life. She had a story about everything.”
One of the stories Dinnie shared with CBC News was that she was on horseback even before she was born because her mother rode sidesaddle while pregnant with her in 1920.
Greenway was the daughter of George and Kizzie Brickenden. The family-owned a farm near Richmond Street and Sunningdale Road and operated it as Brickendale Stables.
She grew up riding, breeding and training horses.
In her conversation with CBC News, she recalled training horses at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, witnessing as a 16-year-old and the early rumblings of events that would soon hurl the world into war.
“Hitler made his terrible speech, and that afternoon Jesse Owens won, and we all cheered, and I thought, I will never forget this,” she said.
Greenway would go on to become one of Canada’s first female riders to make her mark as a competitor and later as a judge on the international equestrian stage.
She founded the London Pony Club in 1940 and won the first modern-day show jumping competition at Toronto’s Royal Winter Fair in 1949. Later on, she became a lifetime governor of the Winter Fair.
Not uncommon for someone who spent so much time on horseback, Dinnie had a few falls over the years, even twice breaking her neck.
“She was extremely resilient and also willing to take risks,” said Jeremy Greenway. “She was very willing to embrace challenge.”
When asked in 2016 how long she intended to keep riding, Dinnie didn’t express any intention to step down from the saddle.
“If discretion were a part of valour, I probably wouldn’t be riding at all,” she says with certainty. “But I like riding. They’re my horses, and I am going to keep doing it until I can’t any longer.”
A family celebration of her life will be planned at a later date.
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