Update:
The chief steward requested a health check for favourite Admire Rakti before the Melbourne Cup was run yesterday.
Admire Rakti who died suddenly from a heart failure condition after yesterday’s 3200m race.
The horse’s death has caused a public outcry and RSPCA Australia has called for the Australian Racing Board to ban the whip in next year’s race.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Racing Victoria’s chief veterinarian Dr Brian Stewart checked the horse yesterday morning and found him to be healthy.
He described the check, which was done at the request of chief steward Terry Bailey, as nothing more than “chief steward paranoia”.
Mr Bailey agreed that he wanted the horse checked merely as a matter of best practice.
“I just felt it was our role – and duty bound – to make sure the public of Australia were protected. After all it was the favourite in the Cup, to just make doubly, triply make sure that the horse is OK,” he said.
The initial autopsy confirmed that horse died of a heart failure condition, which Dr Stewart said that was not uncommon and difficult to predict.
He also said that Admire Rakti probably didn’t feel much pain when he died, more likely the horse felt a “fainting” sensation.
Top Comments
I am obviously not a racehorse but I recently found out I have a heart condition (pre ventricular contractions). I am a relatively fit young woman who has played sport my entire life and now think that something could have happened to me without realising that something was wrong with my heart. The only reason I found out was because in class each student was required to get an ECG to analyse. For any person or animal there may by underlying conditions that have never been looked for or detected. Does that mean if something happened to me during sport we should ban sport? I have known of healthy people who have collapsed playing basketball and unfortunately passed away. Do we then go to ban basketball? No we put measures in place to prevent unfortunate events. The horses are checked many tines by a vet to ensure they are healtyy (and this one in particular was checked by vets at the werribee quarantine facility).
Unless someone can provide jobs for the thousands involved in horse racing and put money into the economy that horse racing does we do what we can to ensure the horses are fit abd healthy.
Noone is mentioning the higher weight the horse was forced to carry. Could this have been a contributing factor. I don't understand why the race has to be handicapped at all, why can't it just be "this horse ran the best and fastest - they win" as far as I can see it is all about the money.
It's unlikely that the weight would be a contributing factor. It's likely that it would have happened whether he had a high or low handicap. The arrhythmia can happen at any time. It could have just as easily have happened while he was out running in the paddock.
The weights are given to attempt to make it an even playing field. The weight of the jockey is also considered, so it's not all dead weight.
Okay, but why make it an even playing field? If one horse is better than the other surely it should be allowed to win, not be penalised for it?
It is, and always has been, a handicapped race. That's why he had weight. All the horses had weight ranging from around 52 to 58kgs
Handicapping and weight for age races have higher weights for some horses to even the field. In weight for age it's done because a 5 yo horse is more developed than a 3 yo horse.
Handicapping is done to even the field based on the ability of the horse.
As for the horse carrying 59 kg, I'm 100kg and would often take my 10 yo horse for a gallop. It's not the weight that causes the health problem.