LADY RIDER’S FALL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19007, 7 May 1924, Page 11

LADY RIDER’S FALL

ACCIDENT AT SYDNEY SHOW. MISS V. MACMILLAN HURT. SYDNEY, April 23. A well-known New Zealand lady rider, Miss Vera Macmillan, who hails from the Waikato, was badly injured by a fall in one of the hunting contests at the Sydney Show yesterday. She is suffering from serious injury to her spine, and recovery, it is stated will be a long and painful process.

The Ladies’ Hunt was the last event of the afternoon. It began at four o’clock. The sun was low and the, shadow of the grandstand fell just on the sod Wall—the last of a treble. Snowstorm, the horse Miss Macmillan was riding, took the first two fences beautifully. But he struck the wall; the rider pitched forward; the horse fell and rolled, [struggled to rise, and with his hindI quarters heavily struck Miss Macmillan, who instinctively had begun to get clear. She was face downwards, lifting herself up on hands and knees. The horse came to his feet with the saddle under him. Miss Macmillan’s mouth was bleeding. Ambulance men who came to her aid found that, apparently caused by a kick from the horse, her teeth were smashed to fragments. She was taken to Sydney Hospital.

Miss Macmillan was able after admission to the hospital to give an account of the accident. “Two hurdles away from the sod wall the girth Seemed to break,” she said, “and the saddle slipped slightly. I righted myself and cleared the hurdles, but perhaps I did not have complete control of Snowstorm approaching the sod wall. I had an idea something would happen there, and certainly my approach to the jump was too fast. When Snowstorm struck the wall I slipped to his neck and went over. My recollection Of the next few seconds is hazy, but I know the horse fell on me.”

The horse-lover’s jealousy for the reputation of her mount was revealed in the manner in which Miss Macmillan denied indignantly that the accident was wholly Snowstorm’s fault. “Two years ago I had a similar fall in a hunt in New Zealand,” she said, “and if 1 am able after this I will ride again. But my back has been weak for some time now, and this may prevent me from, riding over jumps again,” Miss Macmillan’s own opinion is that her collarbone is broken. She has eight times broken her collarbone in hunting accidents.