A Devastating Fall Couldn’t Keep This Rodeo ‘Rider’ Off Wild Horses

In 2016, Brady Jandreau was thrown from a horse while riding in a rodeo. The horse stepped on the Lakota cowboy’s head, crushing his skull.

Doctors told him that he wouldn’t ride again — and he considered giving it up — but couldn’t. “I knew what I had to do and I knew what I was going to do,” Jandreau says. “The rest was up to faith and my connection with the animal.”

Though Jandreau no longer participates in rodeos, he continues to train wild horses for the public. Director Chloé Zhao’s new film The Rider chronicles his accident, his recovery and his deep love of horses.

The movie, which was filmed on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, features Jandreau playing a slightly fictionalized version of himself.