FATALITIES PILE PRESSURE ON RACING

THE sight of a horse breaking down with a fatal injury is always gruesome. When it happens to a high-profile thoroughbred at speed during a championship race at the Cheltenham Festival, the impact is even greater. Trained by Joseph O’Brien and owned by JP McManus, Sir Erec was bred to run at places like Royal Ascot, Melbourne and Churchill Downs before a pampered time at stud. All that was snatched away from him in a split-second on landing at the fourth flight in the Triumph Hurdle yesterday. Sir Erec was the last horse ready for the race due to a re-shoeing issue at the start. He looked magnificent but the delay can’t have helped his nerves, nor did it help his price as he drifted slightly from odds-on to odds-against. When he clattered the first flight, perhaps those who felt defeat was without question, were having concerns. For a minute or so, it was business as usual as Mark Walsh seemed to have his charge settled and was close to the front but then, disaster struck and a leg was shattered. Would he have won? Probably. His stablemate Garden Of Babylon was less than seven lengths behind the winner yesterday, Pentland Firth, having chased home Sir Erec by a similar distance last month. For some, there were shades of Our Conor’s demise during the 2014 Champion Hurdle as his shimmering brilliance persuaded Barry Connell to part with a sevenfigure sum after he trounced allcomers in the Triumph Hurdle. For O’Brien (right), this was the low-point of a week which began on the high of Band Of Outlaws in the Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle and ended on an upbeat note when Early Doors (5/1) under JJ O’Neill won the finale, the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle. ‘I’m devastated,’ O’Brien said. ‘JP is distraught. Everyone in the yard is,’ he added.