Tragedy strikes the Downs

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This article was published 30/06/2015 (3797 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The horse-racing community is reeling after a local jockey was left paralyzed in a horrific accident in the last race Saturday night at Assiniboia Downs.

Alyssa Selman was in the fourth position when her horse’s front hooves clipped the back hooves of the horse in front of her. Her horse, named Lord Jasmond, tumbled to the ground and rolled onto her.

“I was the first person on the scene,” said her husband, Rumesh Selman.

“As soon as I was there, she was taking deep breaths like they were her last,” he recalled. “Then she was spitting and coughing. Then she started to moan in pain.”

The horse got right back up, but Selman couldn’t move and had to be carried off on a stretcher.

Rumesh said his wife has no recollection of the accident and doesn’t even remember mounting the horse.

While doctors initially told Selman she will never walk again, successful surgery performed less than 24 hours after the accident has opened a tiny ray of hope. A jockey in the United States, Anne Von Rosen, suffered a similar accident almost a year ago — both had a cracked T5 vertebra — and is walking again. The family is trying to get in touch with Von Rosen.

In layman’s terms, Selman, 29, broke her back. In addition to a cracked vertabra, several vertebrae were out of line and putting pressure on her spine, said Rumesh. She had no feeling from the chest down.

The encouraging news is doctors found the spine still intact, and not severed as they had feared, Rumesh said. “It’s a slow healing, and it depends on how the body takes it,” he said. “There’s a chance she’ll walk again, but it depends on how the body takes it.”

Selman and Rumesh have two children, a boy, 7, and a girl, 4. Selman grew up in Stephenfield, near Carman, and lives in St. Lupicin, which is also in the area southwest of Winnipeg. She attended school in Miami, Man. She has been a jockey since 2007.

The horse-racing community will mobilize to support the family, said Blair Miller, president of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. “We will be absolutely putting on a fundraising drive. We will be doing everything we can to help,” said Miller. That will likely include a social and other fundraisers, he said.

Harvey Warner, president of the Manitoba Jockey Club, called it the worst accident in more than 20 years of racing at the Downs. Chances of incidents such as the one Saturday are “very, very remote,” he said. “These things are very unusual, but the horses get in close quarters, and these things can happen. When you consider the number of races that run every year, there aren’t a lot of injuries.”

“This is very rare,” said Assiniboia Downs CEO Darren Dunn, who tried to visit Selman Sunday but she was being moved into the operating room.

“The common injury is a broken collar bone, cuts and bruises, and damage to the ribs. When you’re talking spinal column injuries, those are few and far between.”

Jockeys are equipped with helmets and also flak jackets made of Kevlar, like police vests, to protect the torso.

The Jockey’s Benefit Association of Canada has posted Selman’s situation on Facebook at facebook.com/pages/Jockeys-Benefit-Assoc-of-Canada/176051435772024.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca