Exercise rider dies after training accident at Woodbine
TORONTO — Darren Fortune, a longtime rider at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack, was remembered Friday as a thoughtful, hard-working 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 toward 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. “They could be walking on the ground and they just take flight and the horse will be spooked ... sometimes somebody can open up a (garbage bin) lid and drop it unintentionally, and just that noise of it banging can startle a horse. “It doesn’t take much.” Fortune, originally from Barbados, spent long days at the racetrack, arriving before the 6 a.m. opening to work as an exercise rider for the morning session. His outrider duties — which included assisting and protecting jockeys and horses during races — lasted from lunch hour until the early evening.
Attard said the positions could be compared to a bullpen catcher in baseball — an important role but one that does not come with the spotlight that others at the track may enjoy.
“You have to love what you’re doing,” he said. “Obviously he had a very strong passion for horses.”
The eight-race program was cancelled Friday.
Black armbands will be worn by jockeys, valets, gate crew and others when racing resumes Saturday, WEG said.
Following the seventh race, outriders will congregate on horseback at the finish line to lead a moment of silence with members of Woodbine’s racing community.