The day started off the same as any other for Bryce Bourdieu as he headed out from his home in Elgin, Texas, to gallop racehorses at a local ranch on the morning of Aug. 11, 2022.
Working as both an exercise rider and an assistant starter, the 19-year-old’s career demanded long hours and physical strain, but Bourdieu, whose dream is to ride races professionally, was up for the challenge.
Only two months after officially setting those dreams into motion, life as he knew it would shift in an instant when a gate accident left him critically injured and later took the bottom half of his left leg.
Bryce Bourdieu riding before the accident
“I had another gallop boy there and we were going in pairs. They legged me up on that filly. We went out and she was fine. She didn’t jump or spook or anything,” Bourdieu said. “I backtracked her one time around back through the gates. We passed through the first time and she was fine, didn’t even twitch an ear.
“I went to go walk her (back) in and she got halfway and just stopped. When I went to take out my stick to tap her on the butt to get her to go through, I went to reach into my back pocket and I had left my stick in the barn. When I went to put my hand back on the rein, I don’t know if I moved too fast or what happened, but she spooked and tried to turn to the left. When she did that, she went (crazy) and flipped backwards.”
As the 3-year-old filly threw herself from side to side, Bourdieu was stuck inside the gate and could not get away. He ended up back on top of her and then was thrown underneath.
“When she landed on me I heard my back break first, but I tried to tell myself I just cracked my back because she landed on me,” Bourdieu said. “What happened was when she went to get up she rolled to the left and ripped the muscles in my quads and that’s what cut off the circulation to the bottom.
“I watched her jump up and run away. I crawled under the gates and jumped up and ran. After a few steps everything went numb.”
Bourdieu was carted back to the barn and then transported to Dell Setton Medical Center at The University of Texas in Austin. His mother Julie Farr, who was working at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico at the time, knew she had to get to her son quickly after she received the call that his injuries were significant.
“Normally as a mom you feel that impending sense of doom but it was like, ‘There’s been an accident, an ambulance has been called.’ I dealt with it and then as the day progressed the phone calls started getting worse,” Farr said.
“Then it was, ‘OK we have him here now, he’s fractured his spine, and we’re going to have to do spine stabilization surgery.’ When I started getting those kinds of calls I clocked out at about 3:20 in the afternoon and I tried to make sense of how I would get to Austin.”
With 11 hours between them and attempts to book a flight out for later that evening having fallen through, Farr found herself at a loss for how she would get to her son. As she left work and tried to make a plan, Farr received a call as Bourdieu prepared to go under the knife for the first time.
“I just felt such an immense grief and felt so bad that I couldn’t be right there,” Farr said.
As luck would have it, word of the accident spread from those close to the situation to others in the industry who offered up the use of their private jet.
“I drove to Sierra Blanca Airport in Ruidoso and parked my truck, and 15 minutes later that jet landed on the ground to pick me up. I don’t know those people personally,” Farr said. “I know who they are in the business but that was one of the godsends of this whole thing. … I don’t know (if) I would’ve gotten through it.”
You know you have good friends when they send this beauty to get you in an emergency. pic.twitter.com/HIT1jbjXG5
— Julie Farr (@JulieReneeFarr) August 12, 2022
Farr finally landed in Austin where Bourdieu had just come out of surgery.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Mom how did you get here so quickly?’ and I said, ‘We have angels that helped us.'”
Though that first day in the hospital is one which likely lives vividly in Farr’s memory, for Bourdieu, it was a “blur” of medications and surgery from the moment he was wheeled through the doors.
“It became a routine, two surgeries a week,” Bourdieu said. “The hardest part was when they would cut off the food at 12 o’clock at midnight the day before and then they would postpone my surgeries until 5 o’clock the next afternoon. They want you not to drink water.”
Bourdieu had two initial surgeries to repair his spine with the second lasting 11 hours. He has now had a total of 14 after developing compartment syndrome in the lower part of his left leg. This syndrome occurs when pressure builds up in the muscles and causes a decrease in blood flow which prevents oxygen from reaching the nerve and muscle cells.
As the surgeries progressed and more muscle tissue was removed from his leg, an infection caused by lack of oxygen to the remaining muscles continued to wreak havoc on Bourdieu’s body, putting him in an immense amount of pain. After many attempts, doctors decided they would need to amputate.
“It was Aug. 27 or 29, the doctor talked to me and said there’s nothing left to save here. … We’d already talked about it and (Bryce) said ‘If I don’t have full use of my leg than I don’t want it,'” Farr said.
“The next day, (the doctor) didn’t know that I had already told him so he is going into this dissertation about how sorry he is and Bryce just puts his hand on top of his and says, ‘Geez doc, you’re taking this harder than I am. I know you did your best, just get this off. Let’s get on with this. I have too much to do in my life.'”
Surgery #11 Bryce had a bit of infection & dead tissue debried this morning. His amputation will proceed later this week. Thank you @jockeynanc & @EvansStable and everyone for your prayers, love and support. #TEAMBRYCE pic.twitter.com/jrNdpockhP
— Julie Farr (@JulieReneeFarr) September 5, 2022
Bourdieu’s leg was amputated Sept. 8 and fully closed Sept. 15 once the area was clean and completely free of infection. He spent seven weeks at Del Setton, and then was transferred to Central Texas Rehabilitation Center for an additional three weeks before going home with his mother to Santa Teresa, N.M.
Throughout the time he spent at the hospital, in and out of surgery, pain unceasing, Bourdieu’s wish was to find a way back to the saddle. Remarkably, his desire to ride races had only grown stronger than before he was injured.
“It’s a weird feeling because, before the accident, there was something about my life that had just not felt like I was complete yet,” Bourdieu said. “Even though they did end up taking a piece of me—not that I didn’t feel like I had purpose before, but I definitely now have a set dream come true.
“I want to be the first. I haven’t heard of a jockey in North America riding with a prosthetic. I’ve heard of a couple in Great Britain and Venezuela but I want to break some records. I want to be the first to do a couple things.”
Bryce Bourdieu back at home pretending to ride
Farr says she knew her son had a deep-rooted passion for the racetrack since he was young. Farr has a career spanning over 30 years in the industry, including various positions at Los Alamitos Race Course, Hollywood Park, and Sunland Park, and Bourdieu’s father Martin was a successful jockey.
“He’s the kid that rode the end of the couch. We had a playroom in a house that we lived in and it was seriously decorated like a jock’s room,” Farr said. “He would use the handles on the end of the foosball table to hang silks and he had a steel-framed horse and real horseshoes on it. And he would ride it. From the moment he could walk, he wanted to ride.”
Despite attempts to steer Bourdieu away from the track including getting him to play football in high school and encouraging him to seek “normal” jobs, his mother says horses were the only thing that fit.
“When you’re in racing you just don’t want your kids to be in it. It’s kind of like Hollywood,” Farr said. “He came to me about a year ago. He had moved out and he started showing up at the races, and said, ‘I just want to work at the racetrack.’
“He went up to Farmington and was grooming and started paddocking horses (for Quarter Horse trainer Juan Gonzalez). I remember the first horse he paddocked. I watched it on my iPad and I cried which is really weird. I saw his love of the sport that I had for it when I started. … When it comes full circle and is standing there looking at you, you recognize it right away and you know where it comes from. It was pretty profound.”
Bryce Bourdieu on horseback before the accident
As Farr puts it, the “full circle” moment or perhaps an example of how small the world truly is would become evident when Bryce returned home and began physical therapy with Gonzalez’s daughter Isabella.
“I’m a little bit familiar with the horse racing world myself and I have one racehorse and coincidently (Bryce) was the groom for him,” Isabella Gonzalez said.
When Bourdieu arrived at the clinic for his outpatient treatment, Gonzalez found more extensive injuries than she had initially thought.
“I did his evaluation. Turns out he has his entire lower back fused, his pelvis is fused, he has nerve damage to the right leg. The leg that he has is way weaker than the amputated leg. That’s the longest evaluation I have ever done,” she said. “I was in there for 2 1/2 –3 hours measuring the mobility and all the joints that had damage.”
From there, Gonzalez says she threw every technique and piece of equipment she had at the clinic toward Bourdieu’s recovery. She determined that despite the damage in his remaining leg, he had enough nerve connection to be pushed as hard as he could to gain his strength back.
“At first when I saw him, he took five steps on a walker. I tell him, ‘I don’t ever want to see the wheelchair again. You have a bit of activation; I want you to come in next time with crutches.’ I never saw the wheelchair again. He tries so hard,” Gonzalez said.
Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃
So grateful for everyone who has been on this journey with us. #TEAMBRYCE pic.twitter.com/aeNAaMnzeH— Julie Farr (@JulieReneeFarr) November 24, 2022
She says Bourdieu is now going down steps with no assistance, jumping on one leg, and doing hurdles.
“If everybody had his determination, there would be way less disability. He’s just amazing. He’s not scared of anything,” she said. “If I were to fall from a horse I would never want to get back on one, but he has it in him to meet his goal and I have no doubt in my mind that he will be able to.”
And Jan. 12 of this year, Bourdieu accomplished the first part of his goal—getting between two ears for the first time since the accident, at a training center near Sunland Park.
“Honestly the last memory of a horse was it crushing me so just getting over that was the main one. The last time I saw ears, they were in the sky and then they were on top of me,” Bourdieu said. “But it was weird; I was scared of that, but as soon as I got into the saddle, all of that went away. … I was home. I felt balanced again for the first time in five months. Right then I told myself in my head, ‘I am definitely going to ride racehorses again.'”
5 month and one day later, my son is horseback once again. #TEAMBRYCE pic.twitter.com/r2bSfFLYaa
— Julie Farr (@JulieReneeFarr) January 12, 2023
Regardless of his enthusiasm, there are still several steps between Bourdieu gaining full use of both of his legs to ride, including additional surgeries which he will need to correct his left leg and knee before he is ready to be fitted for a prosthesis.
This process involves another year and a half of strength training and rehabilitation, though once he has the prosthesis in his possession, Gonzalez says there is no doubt in her mind that he will be able to walk independently shortly after.
Looking back on the past several months and into his continued recovery ahead, Farr says she and her son have grown closer, and that the accident has shown her the vigor he has to carry on when the going gets tough.
“We teach our children valuable strengths such as grittiness and resiliency and we pray to God that we never have to use them. … When you see them have to dig down deep and use those, it’s like ‘Gosh I hope I did a good job,'” Farr said. “He had the tools, but I do believe its God-given. There’s a strength there that surprised even me, and I’m his mother.”
Though his strength has carried him well into recovery and has even put him back on a horse again, Bourdieu has a mountain to climb in order to etch his name into history books as a jockey who rides races with a prosthetic leg.
But with the determination, courage, and drive he has at only 19, it is simple, easy in fact, to invest in the journey of Bryce Bourdieu.
“The personal dream of mine is to be the first rider to win the Kentucky Derby and the All American; to be able to ride Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds at the highest level. … I want to break records and make a name for myself for my future family,” Bourdieu said.
“This (accident) really engraved (my dream). This is what I’m set to do. … It’s been my dream since I was a little kid. … To still have the opportunity to chase that—I’m going to go headfirst.”
Bryce Bourdieu’s first time back on a horse after the accident
