Sainte-Martine’s jockey reaches 900 wins before a major accident

After a milestone victory for jockey Shannon Beauregard, winning her 900th race in August on the Assiniboia Downs horse race track in Winnipeg. She was already looking forward to reaching 1,000 wins when her dream was darkened by a major accident. On September 18, Beauregard was third in a race at the Century Mile track in Edmonton when her horse went down, tells her sister, Angela Beauregard, who created a GoFundMe page. The jockey suffered multiple injuries, shattering her pelvis, breaking her tailbone and hip, she explains. [caption id="attachment_91981" align="alignnone" width="444"] Photo: GoFundMe[/caption] “She will not even be able to consider looking at the possibility of walking again for a minimum of at least three months”, she adds. To this day, over $23,000 was raised to support Shannon Beauregard. Prior to this event, Shannon Beauregard, whose mother lives in Sainte-Martine, talked with Le Soleil de Châteauguay about her career.

”I have been hurt a lot, so any big milestone is super exciting!” -Shannon Beauregard

A difficult road to success The road to her biggest accomplishment wasn’t easy for Beauregard, now 38 years old, who knew she wanted to have a career as a jockey since she was a kid. The revelation happened at 5 years old, after watching the movie The Black Stallion, she remembers. However, she never got on a horse until the age of 12, but she never stopped planning for her dream job. She learned to ride horses in Ormstown with Bob Rice, who took her under his wing before she started racing. Later, she started riding professionally with the trainer Joe Kaswatum in Saskatoon. “When I started I couldn’t afford an apartment close to the racetracks, so I would go to my friends’ to ride a couple days a week”, she explains. At one point, Beauregard’s living situation became a memorable challenge. “Someone lent me a trailer, but I couldn’t afford power or water”, she tells, able to laugh about it now adding that the struggle was worth it. “It made me stronger. I was able to do what I wanted to do”, she voices. Meaningful victory Beauregard’s 900th win was for her former trainer Tom Gardipy. “He is the very first person who actually gave me a chance”, she shares. She remembers when she met him in 2004, she had her jockey licence in Vancouver and went to Winnipeg to start training. That is when her career really started. She trained hard at first to become an exercise rider. Beauregard specifies that as a jockey, you can’t own your horse and have to ride for other people. “If you’re not involved in this world or grow up in it, you have to learn everything, which was my case”, she says. Rare woman Winning 900 races is not a record in the jockey world, affirms Beauregard, but it is significant as a woman in this sport. From what she heard, there are about four riders in Canada who reached that number of wins. “It’s a very male dominant sport. In Winnipeg, it’s only me and another woman racing out of 10 riders. Sometimes, I race alone as a girl”, she tells. She admits it is a challenge, because she must train harder and work out more to be as strong as they are in competitions.