If Jake Neighbours has a breakout season with the Blues, how high will the Oilers’ offer sheet be.
It is with great sadness we pass along the unfortunate news that Trainer Shelley Brown has passed away.
A lover of all things horse from a young age, Shelley was no stranger to horses or racing when she decided to make a trip from Regina to Winnipeg to watch a few races. Reflecting on that trip she later joked it was almost the trip that didn’t happen. Having issues with her truck less than half way into her trip she could have turned around and headed home, but she ended up at Assiniboia Downs.
Paving her own way, in 2009 Shelley brought a handful of horses back to Winnipeg and started her training career at Assiniboia Downs and never looked back. Proving that hard work will get you everywhere, in 2012 Shelley wrote her own page in the ASD history books as she became the first woman to win the leading trainer title. She became an inspiration to so many, a position she never asked for but wore proudly.
Shelley continued to mentor, coach, teach and advise in her racing career and in the horse community leaving a sea of better riders, competitors, future trainers, and grooms behind her.
To know Shelley was to truly know determination, and grit. If she put her mind to something it was going to happen. She proved this over and over and yet again when she received the diagnosis that her fatigue was more than just the late season lack of sleep setting in.
As Real Grace stepped into the starting gate in the Grade 3 Canadian Derby with the odds stacked against him, Shelley watched from a hospital bed with the odds not in her favor either. Real Grace won that day, Shelley found her fight and was determined this was not how her story was going to end, and it didn’t.
Shelley rode through life jumping obstacles, and navigating a course she designed with beauty, class and determination. In the end she let go of the reins and trusted her horse to take her across the finish line and lead her home. She did it her way.
On behalf of the HBPA Board of Directors and the Membership we represent, we would like to offer our sincere and heartfelt condolences to Shelley’s family and friends. We hope you find comfort in the memories and stories shared. May Shelley’s memory live on in every life she has touched.
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