Vodkatini

[moehat]

reading the blog about Geos it also mentioned the fact that Vodkatini had also died in a point to point. I was at Aintree 1989 and couldn’t see a thing [probably my first time at a racecourse]. I heard lots of cheering and, on enquiring about what had happened was told that Vodkatini had refused to start – again. I then realised that he’d had a crashing fall in a previous race and had obviously decided that this was a rather dangerous pastime and there were other things that he would rather do. How sad that he lost his life in that way, A Spike Milligan of a horse methinks! I can imagine him saying ‘I told you it was …..] bless him…..

[graysonscolumn]

Mo, I guess you must be referring to the entry I posted on my blog on February 2nd about Geos’s fatal fall in a Tweseldown point-to-point, in which I definitely mentioned Vodkatini en pasant.

I also mentioned Door Latch, which is only right and proper, as he and Vodkatini were killed in the same Members’ race at Parham in March 1995, when Door Latch was 17 and Vodkatini 16 – the latter fell, bringing down the former, with both sustaining ultimately fatal injuries.

A bizarre and tragic end to the careers of two popular old warriors, and Mackenzie and Selby summed Vodkatini up most appositely in their write-up for him in Hunter Chasers and Point to Pointers 1996 in calling him “one of the great clowns of racing”. The antics you saw – or half-saw – at Aintree represented the tip of one bloody big iceberg!

Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)

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.

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