Driving champion perseveres, finds strength in horses

Bob Giles has overcome many trials throughout his life. Even now, at age 75, he possesses an unwavering fortitude.
The Lubec native has faced adversity from the very beginning. At just four years old he was forced into the state foster care system and estranged from his alcoholic parents. Initially he was joined by his siblings, a brother and sister, but soon they too became separated into different homes, leaving Giles on his own.
By the time Giles was a teenager he had lived through 13 different foster homes around Maine. The one constant he could find among them was the reliable presence of horses. "Downeast was so poor they couldn't afford tractors back then, but everybody had draft horses, and so I always had a friend waiting for me at every new home," he says. Farm work and logging with draft horses quickly became his favorite chores, forging for Giles a lifelong bond with horses that would eventually become his therapy from later wartime trauma.
In the early 1960s, Giles enlisted in the U.S. Marines to fight for his country in Vietnam. He was wounded on day one, sustaining a direct hit in a trench line at Khe Sanh. Shaken but still able bodied, he soldiered on and endured another injury six months later, this time from a rocket that exploded behind him during a search-and-destroy mission. Three months after that he withstood a grenade blast on a jungle trail in the DMZ. All told, he accrued a plate in the head, a plate in the back, pins in both legs, a shattered right elbow and 90% hearing loss.
By the time he returned to the United States he had earned three Purple Hearts. However, the hope of arriving home a hero was quelled by hostility from a country divided. "It hurt worse to get spit on than it did to get wounded," he says.
As a civilian he found comfort in returning to the saddle and reigns. "We put 28 marines in body bags in that last battle, so obviously there's an issue with PTSD, and instead of counselors I had horses. They're there for me no matter what my mindset."
In the years that followed he became a dedicated steward of horses, a clinician, equitation judge and a successful competitive rider, garnering multiple awards on the para driving world stage, which is a sport similar to barrel racing but with a carriage attached to the horse. "The best part about getting reacquainted with horses was the fact that no matter what I did or said they still loved me."
Today, Giles faces a new set of challenges. In the early 2000s he underwent quadruple bypass surgery, and then in May of 2019 he suffered a debilitating head injury that required spinal surgery to remove several broken vertebrae. Unfortunately, the resulting procedure was unsuccessful and left him paralyzed from the neck down.
It's a wonder that anyone could find their way back into a saddle after such a terrible incident, yet Giles was able to return to the riding arena just a year later. "My gloves are steel lined because I can't feel the reigns. I have a plastic elbow because my arm doesn't bend. I have a motocross vest because I can't afford to hit my chest. Over that I have a five point harness like they use in a tree stand for deer hunting, and then I have a neck brace and helmet." He adds, "But it was the horse that made me get my feet over the edge of the bed and say, 'I will drive again.'"
Giles serves as president of the carriage driving club, The Florida Whips, and puts on clinics for the Maine Driving Club as well. Presently he is competing to win the driving derby championships at Black Prong Equestrian Village in Bronson, Fla. "If somebody's going to beat me they better be world class, because I swim with sharks, not minnows," he says.