French apprentice dies after fall French apprentice Benjamin Boutin died on Monday morning following a fall at Argentan in Normandy on Saturday. The 21-year-old was riding Game Of Legs for Pascal Bary in an apprentices' contest when he was involved in a four-horse pile-up. He lay unconscious on the turf while attended to by on-course medics and was taken to the local hospital in Argentan. It was felt his condition was too serious to move him to a specialist unit for head trauma in Caen. He was transferred on Sunday to the intensive-care unit at Alencon where he was kept alive on a life-support machine. Boutin, who was not related to the famous racing family of that name, began his career in Maisons-Laffitte with Joel Remy and when that trainer retired, he joined Didier Prod'homme's stable. To obtain more opportunities, Boutin moved to Chantilly in October 2008 to work for namesake Cedric Boutin and Pascal Bary. He rode his first winner at Deauville in August 2009 and had 14 triumphs in all. "Benjamin was very well liked. He always wanted to improve and he never did anything that made him disliked by anyone," Cedric Boutin told Paris-Turf. "He was very well educated with simple values."
