Professional hunter rider Kelley Farmer suffered a broken collarbone today, Aug. 3, after falling during the $15,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby at Equifest II at the Lamplight Equestrian Center in Wayne, Ill.
Farmer fell in the handy round, off Scripted, the first of her six rides in the class. Scripted crashed at the second element of a two-stride in-and-out made of split rails. Scripted was uninjured in the fall.
Farmer’s co-trainer at Lane Change Farm, Larry Glefke, drove her to Delnor Community Hospital in Geneva, Ill., where she was treated and released. Farmer’s assistant, Evan Coluccio, reported that Farmer was in good spirits but in significant pain.
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“We had been planning to head to Traders Point [Charity, in Zionsville, Ind.], but now we’re going to head back to Lexington [Ky.] and regroup, and we’ll take it from there,” said Coluccio.
Farmer is the first rider to have earned over $1 million in hunter earnings since the USHJA started recording lifetime earnings at the start of the 2006 season. A regular on the international derby trail, she has more than 40 derby victories to her name. She has seven mounts entered at the USHJA International Hunter Derby Championships, Aug. 15-16, in Lexington.
