Rider falls during Clydesdale show

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This article was published 25/07/2023 (933 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Westoba Place went quiet on Saturday afternoon when a barrel racer fell off her horse during the 2023 World Clydesdale Show.

The second barrel racer on Saturday afternoon was Jillian Just from Yorkton, Sask., who had rounded the three barrels and was heading toward the finish line when she fell, a spectator said in a phone interview with The Sun.

“Her horse was a little reluctant, and it started bucking as she got near the finish line, and that’s when she fell off. She started to get up, but went back down on her side,” said the spectator, who declined to provide her name to The Sun.

Right before Just rounded the third barrel, the show announcer remarked that the horse was, “A little scared of something, there,” and after she fell, the announcer added, “Just had a little bit of a hopping going on there.”

Hopping refers to a horse “doing what it’s not supposed to do,” said Charity Thevenot, one of the organizers and secretary of the show.

“The horse started trying to hop and it looked like she lost her balance, and when the horse turned, she went off the side,” Thevenot said.

Thevenot wasn’t in the arena for the fall, but said the organizing committee’s emergency plan included making sure there were qualified medical personnel on hand in case there was an accident.

“We had volunteers who are paramedics, and I’m not sure who it was that was on shift, but within seconds she ran into the arena with her gear to respond to Jillian,” Thevenot said.

The medical personnel took Just’s pulse and blood pressure, and placed her on a backboard, just before the ambulance arrived, which Thevenot said, “got there really fast, within six minutes.”

The response time was confirmed by Marc Lefebvre, deputy chief of Brandon Fire and Emergency Services.

“I can confirm that we did respond to a call to the Keystone Centre on that afternoon and did transport from that location to Brandon Regional Health Centre,” Lefebvre said.

On Sunday, spectators were given the news that Just was back on the grounds and in the barn, said Thevenot, who added: “She’s OK. I think it was a shoulder injury.”

Brandon hosted the show for four days, drawing entrants from all over Canada and parts of the United States with more than 350 Clydesdales competing.

Among the dozens of categories were riding classes, cart driving, eight-horse hitch, and barrel racing, with both team and individual entries.

As Thevenot was loading up her own Clydesdales for the trip back to Strathclair, she added: “In a little while, we as a committee will sit down for a wrap-up meeting.”

“We have all had positive feedback, and everybody seems really, really happy with how the show went, and the Keystone facility and staff were awesome,” Thevenot said. “But if we do have another one, it will be quite a few years down the road.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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