At seventeen, Eva Paliouras lives between two worlds: the horse rings of Florida and the highland villages of Peru. She chases a Bolivarian Games debut while running a venture that gives Andean women work, dignity, and independence—one stitch, one bonnet at a time.
A saddle, a stitch, and a promise
When Eva Paliouras describes victory, she doesn’t talk about podiums or medals. She talks about hands—brown, calloused, moving with rhythm, turning yarn into quiet. For the Peruvian teenager who may soon be the youngest equestrian to ride at the Bolivarian Games, triumph begins in the mountains, where women crochet the delicate ear bonnets that keep competition horses calm.
Her project, Bonnets of Hope, was born to give those women more than income. “We want them to have something of their own and a purpose in life,” she told EFE. She hires women who are often illiterate or living with poverty and abuse to craft ear covers that sell to riders in North America and Europe.
The young jumper was born in Lima but raised on the complex contrasts of Peruvian society. She grew up seeing how “machismo is one hundred percent prominent” in rural zones, where families often deny girls schooling. “They must stay home, have children, and care for them,” she told EFE. “They cut their wings—and that breaks my heart.” Each order placed, each payment made, is her answer to that injustice: a way for those women to step out of silence, into dignity.
From a fall to the prototype
The idea took shape out of pain. At thirteen, a fall fractured her pelvis. Confined to bed, she asked her grandmother—guardian of family craft—to teach her traditional crochet. Together they tested patterns until they devised a bonnet that fit neatly under a bridle and dulled the noise of crowds and thunder.
Skepticism was immediate. The women she knew in Carhuaz, nestled between the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Negra, were used to weaving sweaters and scarves. Ear bonnets for horses sounded absurd. “They had never seen one before,” Paliouras told EFE, laughing. “When I explained the idea—little hats for horses—they burst out laughing.”
But the first orders shipped, and the laughter turned into steady work. Women learned stitches to competition standards; Eva knew how to manage a supply chain that paid fairly and respected time. “Our project gives them an income,” she told EFE, “and a chance to leave harmful situations.”
What began as recovery therapy became a bridge: a teenager’s knowledge of a niche sport transformed into livelihoods that ripple across Andean households.
Riding for Peru, rooted in the Andes
On her calendar, one date glows in red. From November 22 to December 7, Lima will host the Bolivarian Games. Paliouras has been shortlisted for Peru’s team. If selected in September, she will be the youngest competitor in the event’s history—and she will compete at home.
“I get goosebumps just thinking about it,” she told EFE. “It wouldn’t only be representing my country, it would be doing it in my house, with my friends and family supporting me.”
She has earned the backing of Olympic show jumper Alonso Valdez, the only Peruvian to ride in the Games, who has publicly supported both her project and her career. For Eva, that endorsement validates years of relentless training. She started riding at seven, coaxed by a grandmother who defied her father’s horse allergy. What began with “My Little Pony” posters soon became a vocation.
During the pandemic, her family moved to Miami, then Wellington—”Disney World for horse girls,” she calls it—where horse vans outnumber trucks for months each year. Her days now toggle between school, long hours in the ring, travel to competitions, and late-night management of Bonnets of Hope. The logistics are punishing, but the horizon is clear: make Peru’s team, ride in Lima, and then aim for the Olympics, in a sport where athletes peak long after adolescence.
Two worlds, one purpose
Despite her Florida address, Paliouras insists she belongs to two worlds. One is polished and exclusive: the international equestrian circuit. “It’s a bubble, very elitist,” she told EFE. “It’s easy to forget what the outside world is like.” The other is the Andean highlands, where women’s craft has long gone unseen, undervalued. She returns to Carhuaz whenever she can, to stay grounded.
“It helps you not to lose the sense of what real life is,” she said. “It shows you how fortunate you are and how much you should appreciate the life you have.” From those women, she has learned perseverance, collaboration, and humility—virtues that travel as easily to the arena as to the loom.
Her perspective sharpens, too, when she looks at scoreboards in the U.S. “At many shows, I am the only South American in my class,” she said. “There are people who don’t know how to feel when, on the results list, the only different flag is above theirs.” She shrugs it off. “Not everything has to do with where you are from, where you come from, or what language you speak. Whoever is most determined and willing to work can achieve it.”
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If September brings her a green light, she will ride beneath Peru’s red-and-white flag. And by her measure, she will already have won twice. Each time a horse flicks its ears beneath a hand-crocheted bonnet, staying calm under floodlights and applause, an artisan in the Andes records another order, another day of independence. For a teenager balancing two worlds, that cycle—saddle to loom and back again—is proof that sport can serve something larger than medals. It can stitch lives together.