UPDATE- Two Incidents Occur at Calgary Stampede: One Horse Dies, One Person Taken to Hospital

Calgary – We are saddened to report that during training exercises this morning, two separate incidents occurred.

Driver Tim Haroldson was a passenger on a wagon driven by fellow driver Jerry Bremner. The wagon rolled while coming around one of the barrels during morning training. Haroldson was thrown from the wagon and taken by ambulance to hospital for evaluation and treatment. Bremner was not injured. “We are hoping for the best for Tim,” says Paul Rosenberg, vice president Programming at the Calgary Stampede.

The Stampede is reviewing the circumstances of the incident to determine what happened. Initial indications are that there was nothing out of the ordinary with regards to the wagon, the horses or the tack.

Also during morning training, a wagon horse belonging to the outfit of Reg Johnstone collapsed and died after completing the team’s training run. No other horses in the outfit were injured. The horse was a 12-year-old thoroughbred named Denny, which had been owned by Johnstone for approximately 5 years. It was acquired from another chuckwagon driver after its initial career as a racehorse in the Vancouver area. The horse had last raced about a week ago at the Ponoka Stampede. A post-mortem has been performed to determine cause of death. The results indicate that the horse experienced a ruptured aneurysm in the aorta near one of the kidneys.