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Collapsed and died in the parade ring after winning at Kelso. Didn’t make it as far as the winners enclosure after vets stopped him from going that far. Aged 10 years.
My wife saw the incident and I suspect from her account that it was a fairly quick death, probably from a heart attack. Sensibly handled by the course announcer who said that despite the best efforts of the veterinary staff the winner Tiptoeaway had passed away.
R.I.P. Tiptoeaway who gave his best to the end.
How awful to read this after watching him win so bravely. Gutted for all his connections.
It was a hard fought win. When the horses were coming back in the announcer said that Tiptoeaway wouldn’t be coming into the winners enclosure – the horse was alright but wouldn’t be coming in on vets advice. A couple of minutes later he collapsed in the parade ring. We didn’t see the actual collapse – we were already making our way in that direction to get a position to see the horses for the next race.
People (vets, connections?) ran past us and we could already see a screen going up. There were a lot of people around him and people watching from around the perimeter. His leg moved once before the screens went around completely. The staff were clearly trying to keep him completely hidden from view (rightly so) but I don’t think anyone was there to ‘gawp’ – if he could have been collectively ‘willed’ to his feet he would have been.
The tractor came in after a few minutes and a member of staff asked the spectators to move away as they were now dealing with ‘a fatality’. I think everyone was so hoping that, if they stayed long enough, he would have got to his feet and it would have been a happy ending.
The racecourse I think did everything they could and handled it as well as it was possible to do so.
I don’t think the horse will have known a lot about it.
We left there and then because we were quite upset and there was more than one person in tears.
It was pretty much a year since Captain Brown fell at the last here and there was spontaneous applause when he got up this time last year after being down for a long time. There’s some irony that he won on the card today as did poor Tiptoeaway. Captain Brown had the luck with him today but Tiptoeaway didn’t.I had no idea he had died in the paddock; we were standing by the winners enclosure when the first announcement was made and then assumed that he had collapsed back at the stables; it all seemed very surreal. We then went straight back to the course to watch the next race. We’d missed most of the race as we’d gone down to the last fence just as they decided to doll it off. I had wondered if, by omitting the last two fences it would make for a hard race for the horses. I agree that it was handled very tactfully but what really upset me was seeing his bag of carrots being carried away and thinking that he wouldn’t be eating them. Poor lad. RIP
moehat
Brian Harding came back to the unsaddling enclosure with the saddle and tack, telling Hazel Peplinski that the horse wouldn’t be coming back in there to unsaddle as he was ‘a bit wobbly’. I understand that Harding left the horse a bit before it collapsed.
My wife was sitting in the Cunningham Room which overlooks the paddock, but wasn’t aware that it was the winner that had collapsed until I returned and put two and two together. When she described what she had seen to me it didn’t make for a great prognosis, and once the tractor came in hauling a wagon instead of the horse ambulance it was clearly goodbye to Tiptoeaway.
Rob
Such a sad postscript to what had been a super days racing. We’d spent a lot of time down at the last fence chatting to the paramedic so thankfully we hadn’t seen him walk round the paddock prior to the race but I’d seen the Hemmings colours flash past us on the way to the start us and we then realised it was an Easterby horse, and I was cursing the fact that I hadn’t backed him.Strangely enough, when I realised that Brian Harding was riding him it made me think about One Man. When they decided to omit the last two fences we legged it to the fence past the stands but still didn’t see them jump it; all we saw of the race was the end and we only saw that on the screen. I’d said to Mike that it must have almost been like a flat race and it was very close at the finish [Scu and Lucinda were watching just behind us; it seems strange now to think that their initial disappointment must have been tempered soon afterwards by the fact that they, at least, had a horse to take home]. The God of Racing can be very cruel sometimes, can he not.
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