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By Stephen Llewellyn

FREDERICTON — Shanita Fox-Pelletier helped save 15 horses when the barn at Fredericton’s Royal Road Equestrian Centre went up in flames early Monday morning.

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But, tragically, the 17-year-old girl wasn’t able to rescue her beloved horse Kingston.

Her mother Sharon, who also helped save the horses, was taken to hospital because of health problems she experienced after inhaling smoke during the rescue effort.

Fox-Pelletier and her mother were sleeping in an apartment over the giant barn on Royal Road, just outside Fredericton, when they were awakened by dogs barking and the smell of smoke.

“I was half awake,” she said in an interview at the site of the ruined barn Monday morning.

She called 9-1-1 and then started rescuing horses.

“We ran straight to the back and got the horses from the back first,” said Fox-Pelletier, who has been riding since she was six.

“But, sadly, by the time I got to the back of the barn my horse’s stall was already completely engulfed in flames and the ceiling crashed down on top of him.”