Carrutherstown fatal horse fall accident 'unforeseeable'

A sheriff said the accident in which Natasha Galpin died had been "unforeseeable"

A sheriff has found that nothing could have been done to prevent an accident in which a rider died after falling off a horse at a south of Scotland stables.

Natasha Galpin, 22, was fatally injured in the incident at Hetland Hill, near Carrutherstown, in January 2019.

She was riding Eagle Crag when the horse suffered a haemorrhage and she was thrown off.

A fatal accident inquiry concluded it was a "tragic, immediate, unforeseen and unforeseeable accident".

The incident happened on the morning of 15 January 2019.

• Rider, 22, dies after racing stables fall

Ms Galpin - who lived in Moffat but was originally from Aviemore - was riding on the grass gallops for her employer Iain Jardine Racing when the accident occurred.

She suffered head injuries and was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow but never regained consciousness and died the following day.

Devastating loss

In a written judgement issued at Dumfries Sheriff Court on Thursday, Sheriff Brian Mohan said he had examined the circumstances surrounding her death.

He said he could not find anything which would have prevented the accident from taking place.

Sheriff Mohan passed on his condolences to her family and wrote: "Natasha Galpin's parents are devastated by the loss of their daughter at such a young age.

"She was on the cusp of adulthood. Her death was sudden, and she died doing something she loved."

He described the accident as "unpreventable".

"The riding of horses carries risks, but the evidence demonstrated that there was no foreseeable risk which could have avoided this tragedy, and no step which could have been taken realistically to prevent this," he said.