I’m getting tweets that something awful has happened at Newbury in UK with horses getting electrocuted??? Anyone have details???
BBC racing correspondent says “worst thing he’s ever seen on a racetrack”
Jingling, praying, crying. 
Racing canceled.
Godspeed, Phenix Two and Marching Song, brave Thoroughbreds. Condolences to all their connections.
Link: Guardian report.
Speculation that some kind of current from an underground cable electrocuted them.
Apparetnly they went down real fast and were dead within seconds.
Glad they decided to cancel. So terribly sad. Hopefully there will be a full investigation.
It’s horrific. There are some reports coming out, information still sketchy:
http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-racing/newbury-abandons-after-horses-die-in-paddock/818358/top/
http://www.suite101.com/content/horror-incident-at-newbury-forces-abandonment-of-racing-a346571
Don’t all race horses in UK wear aluminum racing plates as they do here?? (Forgive dumb question!)
Most do, but some NH horses wear lightweight steel.
Racing Post article
Newbury abandons after horses die in paddock
By Paul Eacott 2:11PM 12 FEB 2011 NEWBURY’S meeting on Saturday was abandoned following an extraordinary incident before the first race when two horses died in the parade ring.
Fenix Two and Marching Song both collapsed within ten yards of each other at the western end of the paddock and speculation has mounted on the track that it may have been due to some kind of electrical incident.
The first race took place as scheduled after vets checked the remainder of therunners at the start as Kid Cassidy had seemed to wobble before leaving the paddock. He was subsequently withdrawn.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that some of the runners who took part in the race appeared to have burn marks around their mouths when their tack was removed.
Graham Thorner, co-owner of Marching Song, was in tears in the paddock and the horse’s trainer Andrew Turnell said: “I was just about to leg up [jockey] Nick Scholfield when the horseveered away and collapsed. He was dead within ten seconds. There is a feeling he may have been electrocuted.”
Kid Cassidy’s trainer Nicky Henderson added: "It is impossible to know what happened. My horse did something peculiar before those two went down. He was down on the ground on his hind legs. Luckily he got back up on to the rubber.
“I went down to the start with him and then I took him out. It appears that there is a problem area in the paradering so you can see their point as one can not risk this happening again. It was the most horrific thing I think I have seen. I have been racing for 33 years and I have never seen anything like it.”
Speculation was circulating that there was an electric shock from a cable under the paddock which would affect the horses with aluminium shoes, but not humans, although this has not been confirmed.
Stipendiary steward Paul Barton said: "After those horses collapsed in the parade ring we took the decision that it was safe to continue with the rest of the meeting. After running the first race we isolated that area and some of the trainers were uncomfortable with continuing.
"We had a meeting with the racecourse executive and at that meeting, because we could not establish what the causes of death of the two horses were, the executive weren’t comfortable with continuing on health and safety grounds and therefore we had no decision but to abandon.
"A post-mortem will be carried out on the two horses that sadly died in the parade ring. We are going to try and interview people connected with those horses as well as the veterinary team.
“We want to interview the lads with the horses and also some of the trainers and jockeys to try and establish what it is.”
Barton defended the decision to run the first race. He added: "They were extremely unusual circumstances. At the time we did not know whether those horses had had a heart attack, we did not know what had happened. We had all the horses examined by the veterinary surgeons before they raced. These are highly unusual circumstances - I have never seen anything like this before.
“After the race, as we got more information obviously the decision making process changed.”
Clerk of the course Richard Osgood added: “One has to be aware of the duty of care to the public, trainers, jockeys and to the equine.”
Osgood said he was unaware of any electric cable under the parade ring, with the main feed coming at the other side of the racecourse, although headded there could be some old cables there he was unaware of.
Paul Nicholls said that if the racecourse could be deemed safe, he would be in favour of the meeting being rearranged for Wednesday. “The horses are ready torun and it would be great if we could get the meeting on in the next week, hopefully Wednesday. I understand why they had to call it of today - they didn’t really have any alternative.”
The racecourse management announced that racegoers who were at Newbury on Saturday will be given a full refund.
Thanks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/9395743.stm
A slightly more graphic pict, so don’t look if you are the sort that gets upset.
FYI another article from Al-J English:
http://english.aljazeera.net/sport/2011/02/201121215341436842.html
OMG. :eek It’s lucky it was only the two, and no grounded humans got hit and took the shock–if it’s enough to kill a horse…and the other horses had burn marks from the tack metal.
Jingles for the connections and Kid Cassidy, the horse who went down but wasn’t killed. What a freak accident…
I have a link to a video if anyone wants to see it. I’m not going to watch it- the description enough it enough for me.
It’s towards the bottom of the page:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3408299/Electrocuted-horses-stop-race.html
Very sad, and my thoughts go out to everyone involved, especially JP McManus who had three horses affected.
More info here
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=15913
Sounds like the horses that died had steel plates and the affected survivors were wearing aluminum.
[QUOTE=Tiempo;5425491]
Sounds like the horses that died had steel plates and the affected survivors were wearing aluminum.[/QUOTE]
Interesting - though I wouldn’t have thought it would make much of a difference as both aluminium and steel are both good conductors of electricity. Or maybe the aluminum plates were anodized.
How horrible! Would have made a good Dick Francis plot, though.
What a freak thing to happen. 
[QUOTE=fburton;5430061]
Interesting - though I wouldn’t have thought it would make much of a difference as both aluminium and steel are both good conductors of electricity. Or maybe the aluminum plates were anodized.[/QUOTE]
Exactly. The initial info can’t be correct. In later articles, someone said some of the horses had plastic shoes. That makes much more sense.
[QUOTE=Third Glance;5430206]
Exactly. The initial info can’t be correct. In later articles, someone said some of the horses had plastic shoes. That makes much more sense.[/QUOTE]
It is odd, seeing as aluminum is a better conductor than steel 
It’s being reported that the post mortem results will be out by tomorrow.
~Emily
Latest from Racing Post
http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-racing/bha-newbury-findings-point-to-electrocution/819968/top/
~Emily
