Exercise rider dies after training accident at Woodbine Racetrack

TORONTO Darren Fortune, a longtime rider at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack, was remembered Friday as a thoughtful, hardworking individual who had a passion for working with horses.

Fortune died after a morning training accident on the facility’s main track, Woodbine Entertainment Group said in a statement. He was 43.

“He was always a guy with a smile on his face, very polite, very humble,” said trainer Kevin Attard. “I’ve never seen him in a confrontation with anybody. Just a good guy. It’s hard to fathom what happened today.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused Fortune’s horse to dart sideways into another horse that was moving in the opposite direction by the outside rail. The Ministry of Labour and other officials were investigating.

“The horse for some reason bolted,” said Jamie Martin, WEG’s executive vice-president of racing. “There was a strange collision and he unfortunately passed from his injuries.”

The facility is quite busy in the morning as exercise riders put horses through workouts of varying intensity levels in training for upcoming races. Attard said it was very unusual for an incident like this to occur.

“The odd time something happens,” he said. “It’s almost the equivalent of getting into a car and driving to work. You can do it every day, and one day maybe somebody runs a red light or goes through a stop sign. Unfortunately today Darren was killed. It’s a sad day for everybody at Woodbine.”

Horses often run in opposite directions during training, but they are not that close to each other. It’s common for riders to work out their horses on the inside rail while other horses gallop the other way towards the start area.

However, if an animal is startled, it can sometimes cause a panicked, sudden acceleration in an unexpected direction.

“They spook very easily, I’ve seen Canadian geese fly away and startle horses,” Attard said.