'The fight is always there every day': Indigenous horse racer making comeback after struggle against addiction

EDMONTON -

After nearly losing his life and career to alcohol and drug addiction, an Alberta horse racer and trainer is making his comeback.

Tyler Redwood said his fight started when he was a child, growing up in Saskatchewan.

“Elementary school I didn’t feel I fit in right,” said Redwood. “I went through mainly a white school so I was one of colour that was picked on for the most part.”

When he was around 12, he said he started drinking to fit in. In 2012, he suffered a broken jaw after crashing his ATV into a tractor and turned to other drugs to ease his pain.

“I was smoking marijuana and doing it regularly for hours and hours upon a day and eventually it led to more, led to prescription pills, cocaine,” said Redwood.

He ended up walking away from his career as a horse driver, trainer and farrier.

“I felt like all hope was gone, I thought everybody had given up on me,” said Redwood. “My performance wasn’t well and I thought everybody was starting to see it.”

He ended up seeking help for his addictions because of a question his daughter asked him.

“’Why don’t we see you no more.’ and it was because sat in my garage and just choose to self-medicate so I didn’t have to be around and feel anything,” said Redwood.

“I felt guilty, I felt ashamed of who I was.”

The next day, he went to an addictions meeting.

“When I walked through the doors I knew it’s where I belonged, I knew I was safe, I knew I was going to be okay and never turned back ever since,” said Redwood.

“Some people get far lost, they think there’s no helping it. There’s no shame, there’s no nothing that goes along with asking for help.”

In 2020, while he worked to stay clean, Redwood was asked to train a horse that wasn’t performing well anymore.

“When I picked her up, she looked like me the day I went to a meeting, head down to the ground, coward, scared, defeated,” said Redwood. “Once I felt some of her energy in a race, I knew there had to be something more to this girl.”

Since Redwood started training her, they’ve won seven races together.

“I don’t think anyone would have predicted she would go on to be the race horse she did,” said Redwood.

“It’s better an any high that drugs or alcohol has given me, because I know how far I’ve come, I know where I was when I was at my low to where I am now.”

Redwood is currently three years sober and 19 months drug free.

“The fight is always there, every day,” said Redwood.

“There’s light at the end of it, you might be in the darkest times, you might be lost somewhere, but there is freedom, there is happiness… you just have to find yourself, within yourself, and ask for a helping hand.”

He added that his past will always be a part of who he is, but it’s made him stronger and he believes he is a better person – especially in the eyes of his daughter.

“I believe she’s happy to call me dad again,” said Redwood. “There’s no better feeling, there really isn’t when they can hug you and love you and call you dad.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson