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Equine Retirements, Long Term Injuries and Departures

Willy de Houelle didn't survive his fall today and also news come through that Ancient Truth has been pts after an injury earlier this week
 
Yes. From the RP

The ride given to Celebre D’Allen was sanctioned by stewards, who banned jockey Micheal Nolan for ten days as he “continued in the race when the horse appeared to have no more to give and was clearly losing ground after the second-last fence”.

Very lenient IMO
 
A very sad outcome to the race especially as the trolls are having a field day on social media. The yard who are deeply upset are getting hammered as is the jockey.

My own feelings bring up the age issue which goes back to my conversation with James Given (former trainer and now head of BHA vetting) after a 17 year old horse collapsed and died at a point to point during the pandemic. I had tried everything I could to get it stopped from running as it hadn't run in two years and I could foresee something like that happening but sadly there were no rules in place to do so. After the horse collapsed after one circuit, the owner/trainer was seen sobbing over the horse...I really wanted to ask why on earth he thought it the right thing to do by racing the horse. But I didn't and instead contacted the BHA and James Given. We had a long and detailed conversation and he admitted that as a vet, he sees deterioration in horses at the "magic" age of 13. But he said he had come up against so many trainers who rubbished his views and kept trotting out "Ah but Sonny Somers won two races aged 18!" I could feel his frustration. He would like to have a cut off age for racing set at 13. But thought it would take a long time to get to that ruling.

We have as a result of that managed to get a ruling for all horses entered in point to point races over the age of 15, MUST have a current veterinary certificate of health logged. So they must get checked out to rule out any things like heart murmurs. I'd like to get the age limit lowered to 13 personally. There will always be those who are exceptions to the rule - Southfield Theatre is still racing enthusiastically at the age of 17 but he's a rarity.
 
jinnyj said:
A very sad outcome to the race especially as the trolls are having a field day on social media. The yard who are deeply upset are getting hammered as is the jockey.

My own feelings bring up the age issue which goes back to my conversation with James Given (former trainer and now head of BHA vetting) after a 17 year old horse collapsed and died at a point to point during the pandemic. I had tried everything I could to get it stopped from running as it hadn't run in two years and I could foresee something like that happening but sadly there were no rules in place to do so. After the horse collapsed after one circuit, the owner/trainer was seen sobbing over the horse...I really wanted to ask why on earth he thought it the right thing to do by racing the horse. But I didn't and instead contacted the BHA and James Given. We had a long and detailed conversation and he admitted that as a vet, he sees deterioration in horses at the "magic" age of 13. But he said he had come up against so many trainers who rubbished his views and kept trotting out "Ah but Sonny Somers won two races aged 18!" I could feel his frustration. He would like to have a cut off age for racing set at 13. But thought it would take a long time to get to that ruling.

We have as a result of that managed to get a ruling for all horses entered in point to point races over the age of 15, MUST have a current veterinary certificate of health logged. So they must get checked out to rule out any things like heart murmurs. I'd like to get the age limit lowered to 13 personally. There will always be those who are exceptions to the rule - Southfield Theatre is still racing enthusiastically at the age of 17 but he's a rarity.
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Well done for trying to improve things.

I fully expect the Grand National to be restricted to horses no older than 12 after this horrible, and predictable outcome, which is damaging to the sport. Too late for poor Celebre D’Allen though.

In National Hunt racing there are age restrictions for all races anyway and for minimum ages. I don’t see a problem having upper age restrictions as well, particularly in long these distance races. Perhaps the BHA need to do a piece of work to evaluate the issue of maximum ages for horses to compete depending on the weather, discipline and distance. Hopefully PTP could follow their lead and amend rules too.

Sonny Somers was 45 years ago (as was Mac Vidi, finishing 3rd, promoted to 2nd after disqualification of winner for a prohibited substance, in that years Gold Cup), and have no bearing on today’s racing.

As for the trainers, they withdraw horses all the time citing welfare grounds when the surface gets too good, so should easily be able to understand the need to protect older horses welfare too.
 
Something has been bothering me since Saturday. Have we reached a situation in the National whereby it is so important that any injured horse must be taken away in an ambulance in circumstances where it would be better for it to be pts on the track. I know everything possible must be done to save a horse and I applaud that. But is the publics perception of the race such that it now has to be run with no injuries or fatalities which is well nigh impossible. ( I hope what I’ve said doesn’t sound callous and I probably haven’t explained myself properly).
 
I suspect that Celebre d'Allen was suffering probably from heatstroke so getting him back to the hospital there gave him the best chance of survival. They did mention that he was able to walk into an ambulance (for those that don't know these ambulances have the ability to be lowered so that the horse can walk on the flat rather than an incline so making any potential injury worse). A broken pelvis can be identified by sticking a hand into the horse's rectum (or that's what my dad and current vet would do) so if that is ruled out then it should be safe to move the horse if it can stand so long as there are no other obvious fractures (shoulder/leg)

Most vets are pretty practical and will advise euthanasia wherever necessary although owners can sometimes delay this, wanting x-rays/scans etc. A horse would be sedated in any case.

A post mortem is being carried out by the BHA and my own suspicion is renal failure brought on by heatstroke. I lost a greyhound to heatstroke the following day after her collapse and although the vets did everything, her organs had started to shut down so no amount of treatment would have revived her.
 
jinnyj said:
I suspect that Celebre d'Allen was suffering probably from heatstroke so getting him back to the hospital there gave him the best chance of survival. They did mention that he was able to walk into an ambulance (for those that don't know these ambulances have the ability to be lowered so that the horse can walk on the flat rather than an incline so making any potential injury worse). A broken pelvis can be identified by sticking a hand into the horse's rectum (or that's what my dad and current vet would do) so if that is ruled out then it should be safe to move the horse if it can stand so long as there are no other obvious fractures (shoulder/leg)

Most vets are pretty practical and will advise euthanasia wherever necessary although owners can sometimes delay this, wanting x-rays/scans etc. A horse would be sedated in any case.

A post mortem is being carried out by the BHA and my own suspicion is renal failure brought on by heatstroke. I lost a greyhound to heatstroke the following day after her collapse and although the vets did everything, her organs had started to shut down so no amount of treatment would have revived her.
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Useful information and sorry to hear about your own greyhound- such beautiful kind animals.
 
That’s just awful. Poor Fiona. I have just messaged her as she must be in bits. For a horse like her to come along and win on the biggest stage and then to lose her like that just over a year later is so cruel.
 
jinnyj said:
That’s just awful. Poor Fiona. I have just messaged her as she must be in bits. For a horse like her to come along and win on the biggest stage and then to lose her like that just over a year later is so cruel.
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Could you pass on my condolences, too. I loved her name so always looked out for her. Why do these things seem to happen to the smaller stables?
 
Thanks, that's really interesting and not what I initially thought (real shame my dad who was a racecourse vet at the Festival for many years, is no longer around to discuss it with), but shows how quickly things like this can happen and horses deteriorate rapidly as a result.
 
Old age , of course never helps when pneumonia is a factor.
As my GP used say " Life is a battle against gravity that we lose, eventually "
Somewhat less than 45 years ago we had half brothers Eric's Charm and Monkerhostin both winning aged 13 , so it can happen.
 
I still can’t forget that injury that Eric’s Charm sustained. They’d made such a bit thing of it being his last race before retirement.
 


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