Woman Seriously Injured In Horse-Riding Accident

On the morning of Saturday, November 10th, a 35-year-old woman was riding her horse with two other riders south along Battlefield Park Road within the park’s Fort Harrison unit. The horse went into a trot out of sight of the other two riders and onto Picnic Road. When her friends caught up, they found the woman on the ground, bleeding but moving. Henrico County Fire and EMS personnel and rangers responded. The woman was taken to the Medical College of Virginia Hospital, where she remains in the intensive care unit with head and shoulder injuries. Investigation revealed that the horse had passed through a small group of trees on Picnic Road, causing the woman’s head and shoulder to strike one of the trees. She’d obtained the horse just a few weeks earlier, but had some prior experience riding in the same area.