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Broke a knee when brought down at Cheltenham this afternoon and was subsequently put down.
R.I.P.
I noticed that the horse’s foreleg appeared crooked below the knee but thought I must have imagined it- he had got up and seemed to be trying to run when the shot changed back to the leaders on channel 4. Hope he was caught and kept quiet so that his end was as fast and peaceful as possible.
Very sad, particularly as the error leading the fatal injury was not his own and he was brought down. I hope the mare and I’m so lucky are alright.Horrible start to the New Year. I agree that it’s made worse by the fact that there was no error on his part. R.I.P. So sorry for connections.
Very very sad. That he was brought down made it all the more tragic. Some losses have made me very sad this year: Hold Em, Spanish Conquest & Chief Editor hit me particularly hard.
Incidentally, does anyone else find the way fatalities are reported to be quite annoying? Neither the Sporting Life nor Racing Post report of the race mentioned the fatality. I’m no animal rights activist but I think at the very least, the press should acknowledge when horses die whilst racing.
A perennial bone of contention, that, Anthony. Policy varies from one racecourse to another as to how soon (if at all) deaths are reported, to be honest, and the media organs reporting from each course mostly tend to cut their cloth accordingly (apart from the PA (Sporting Life’s comments in running suppliers), whose policy appears not to acknowlegde fatalities at all).
The dreadful irony in Hold Em’s case is that it’s been his propensity to make one bad mistake on the way round each time that has stopped him going closer in these decent handicaps at Cheltenham over the last 12 months, yet it was being brought down by something else’s error which cost him his life.
A real sad loss for his not overbig yard. Rest easy Hold Em.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
There was a nice tribute to him om the Racing Post website by his trainer:
Goldsworthy, who has been inundated with text messages andphone calls of condolence since the fatal accident, said: “It’s been overwhelming how many people have been in touch, but he was a horse who had a big following. He was one of our flagship horses, along with Hills Of Aran, and he helped to put us on the racing map.
“He was a lovely-natured horse, a genuine horse, a great trier. He has left a void in the yard, but although he’s gone, he will not be forgotten – never be forgotten – by us.”
Re: Incidentally, does anyone else find the way fatalities are reported to be quite annoying?
Yes I do! Actually the Racing Post did tag it onto the end of their report of the race – just to say he’d been pts.
I wish ALL commentators/race readers would do their best to report on incidents – good news or bad. On Thursday Oran Flyer took a crashing fall at Tramore – he was seen flat out on the landing side of the last and looked a gonner. ATR went off to another meeting and then returned to Tramore – did they up date us? NO! I emailed the cousre and they replied quite quickly that all horses were OK – incidentally unbelievably (IMO) he ran again the next day on the same course … that’s another story – I started a thread about this on the general forum.I completely agree. Commentators/presenters are inconsistent as to whether they annouce it or not. Some of them are very quick to tell us the jockey is up (or down) but fail to mention the horse, and you even get a couple of them who’ll gabble on with excitement after a fatal race, exclaiming how dramatic it was and almost jumping up and down with glee.
Surely there should be some standard requirement, although obviously I understand it’s not always possible to get info from the track straight away.I have to hold my hand up here and say the lack of it not being mentioned in the RP may be partly my fault.
I was keeping an eye on what was happening at the fence as well as watching the replay to see what happened and I confess I missed the knackers van. When they took the screens down I commented "it looks as though they are all OK"
As Jeremy says the Sporting Life /PA steadfastly do not report deaths. When I queried this once I was given the questionable response they will not report as they cannot be 100% certain in all cases and they need to be consistent.
More often than not it is obvious when the knackers van is used.
At some courses, where the judges box is near the press room and if it is a "friendly judge" they will pop their head round the door and let us know (they hear over the radio).
A slightly more "callous" way of finding out is when the stable lad / lass walks back with the tack in floods of tears.
Other options are to ask connections / vets / Clerk of Scales although time does not always allow such a luxury.
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