THE FINAL DAY of the Cheltenham Festival started in shock as Triumph Hurdle favourite Sir Erec suffered a fatal injury in Friday’s opening race.
The four-year-old, trained by Joseph O’Brien, was widely tipped up as one of the bankers of the Festival and sent off as an 11/10 chance to pick up another prize for owner JP McManus.
But the juvenile star suffered an injury in running after jumping a hurdle and broke down. He was immediately tended to by the on-course veterinary team who could not save him.
Sir Erec is the second horse to die at this week’s Festival following the death of the Willie Mullins-trained Ballyward on Tuesday.
“We are never going to stop sometimes those catastrophic injuries,” David Sykes, the BHA’s director of equine health and welfare, told ITV Racing.
“This morning [Sir Erec] was examined by a veterinary surgeon, trotted up, and actually the veterinary surgeon reported that he moved very, very well. There was no indication of lameness. There was no indication of any injury.
“Whether he made a mistake at that fence or not and landed awkwardly, there was no reason we could predict that injury in that horse today.”
The start of the race had earlier been delayed for a few moments after Sir Erec lost a shoe, and had to be re-shod before taking his place in the field, but there was no connection between that incident and the fatal accident.
“They are two separate incidents,” Sykes explained. “He was shod there and you saw the veterinary surgeon trot him up. That shoe was not having an effect. Putting a shoe on a horse at that stage is not going to cause that sort of injury.
“That’s one of those catastrophic injuries that will occur and we’re not able to predict those.”
Pentland Hills, a 20/1 shot for Nicky Henderson and Nico de Boinville, won the race.
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