Lucky escape for Four Shires rider after fall from bridge
A rider fell from a high stone bridge into a river after her horse died from a suspected heart attack while out hound exercising with the Four Shires Bloodhounds.
The unnamed woman fell from the bridge on Sunday, 19 October close to Chatsworth House, near Bakewell, Derbyshire, where the hunt was meeting courtesy of their president the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire.
A member of the field, who preferred not to be named, told H&H: “We all thought she was dead, but the river was full and she got up pretty much unscathed.”
A hunt spokesman added: “Thankfully the rider was not seriously injured. Other riders at the scene did all they could to assist in the upsetting circumstances.”
This article was first published in Horse & Hound (30 October, ’08)
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.