• Odds-on favourite dramatically pulled up at halfway
• Geraghty's mount found to have irregular heartbeat
The racing career of Sprinter Sacre, one of the outstanding chasers of recent decades, was on hold on Friday evening after last season's Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, previously unbeaten over fences, was found to have an irregular heartbeat after he was pulled up on his seasonal debut here .
Sprinter Sacre was due to return to his box at trainer Nicky Henderson's Seven Barrows yard in Lambourn before travelling to Newmarket on Saturday morning for further tests.
Professor Celia Marr, a partner at the Rossdales veterinary practice and a leader in the field of equine cardiology, will lead the investigation, having previously worked with chasers including Denman, the 2008 Gold Cup winner, who won the 2009 Hennessy Gold Cup after being treated for a similar problem.
Sprinter Sacre was a 2-9 chance for the Grade Two Desert Orchid Chase, his first start in public since the Punchestown Festival in April. All appeared well with Henderson's stable star in the early stages and he jumped the fifth fence in typically extravagant style, but was then pulled up just two fences later, about a mile from the finish.
Barry Geraghty, Sprinter Sacre's jockey, did not dismount immediately, and the horse was clearly not lame as he walked back around the course to the unsaddling enclosure. "He felt fine during the race," Geraghty said as he returned to the weighing room, "but all of a sudden he went from going to not going so I pulled him up straight away."
Henderson said after the race that the preliminary diagnosis by the racecourse vet, which was later confirmed, was that Sprinter Sacre had suffered an irregular heartbeat, which restricts the efficient flow of blood around a horse's system. A racehorse's heart can beat several times a second in the heat of a race, and needs to cycle with its chambers in perfect synchrony to keep the horse running.
"I'd rather that he came home tonight," Henderson said. "He hasn't had a heart attack or anything like that and he's not going to, but it's better that like any human would rather do, he should be at home. He doesn't want any more stress.
"We'll listen to him again in the morning. These things according to our advisors here can easily self-right quite quickly, although we'll still obviously go through the ECG route anyway and do further tests if necessary. We're just checking with Celia Marr at Newmarket that she can [treat Sprinter Sacre] and I know she's the right person for this task.
"All credit to Barry. He was rolling along on his best horse and everything was going great, and then he realised in the flick of a finger that something was wrong. Fair credit to him for pulling up immediately. The sooner you stop, the less damage you're going to do. We're into a situation that we've got to undo, and therefore we'll go to all the experts and get all the advice."
In the moments after Sprinter Sacre was led away for tests here, Henderson also suggested that "it's just how things seem to be going at the moment," and the sudden question mark over his stable star's career, for the immediate future at least, is another blow in a season which has brought the new champion trainer far more disappointment than joy.
Sprinter Sacre had already had an interrupted start to this season as he was forced to miss his scheduled first outing of the season in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown Park earlier this month after being reportedly under a cloud.
Henderson started the season as a 1-6 chance to defend his title, which had been won for the previous eight years by Paul Nicholls. After his latest setback, however, Nicholls is now favourite for the championship for the first time with Coral, who offer 8-11, with Henderson odds against at 11-10. Henderson currently trails Nicholls by nearly £400,000, and can no longer be certain that Sprinter Sacre will even line up for the season's remaining two-mile Grade One events, the Clarence House Chase at Ascot and the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham.
Bookmakers also suspended betting on the Queen Mother Champion Chase, for which Sprinter Sacre had been the long odds-on favourite at around 1-3. In last season's race, Sprinter Sacre beat Sizing Europe, a previous winner of the same contest, by 19 lengths, recording the highest Timeform rating over jumps in the modern era in the process.
"Sire De Grugy [who went on to win the Desert Orchid Chase] has certainly enhanced his claims for the Champion Chase," Jon Ivan-Duke from William Hill, said on Friday, "but we will have to wait until we know the health and wellbeing of Sprinter Sacre before reforming the market."
Denman's treatment for an irregular heartbeat, a problem which emerged in September 2008, involved stopping and then restarting his heart.
The Paul Nicholls-trained chaser missed several months of the 2008-09 season, but returned to the track in February and finished second to Kauto Star in the 2009 Cheltenham Gold Cup. He won the Hennessy under top weight the following November, and also finished second in the Gold Cup in both 2010 and 2011. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
• Geraghty's mount found to have irregular heartbeat
The racing career of Sprinter Sacre, one of the outstanding chasers of recent decades, was on hold on Friday evening after last season's Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, previously unbeaten over fences, was found to have an irregular heartbeat after he was pulled up on his seasonal debut here .
Sprinter Sacre was due to return to his box at trainer Nicky Henderson's Seven Barrows yard in Lambourn before travelling to Newmarket on Saturday morning for further tests.
Professor Celia Marr, a partner at the Rossdales veterinary practice and a leader in the field of equine cardiology, will lead the investigation, having previously worked with chasers including Denman, the 2008 Gold Cup winner, who won the 2009 Hennessy Gold Cup after being treated for a similar problem.
Sprinter Sacre was a 2-9 chance for the Grade Two Desert Orchid Chase, his first start in public since the Punchestown Festival in April. All appeared well with Henderson's stable star in the early stages and he jumped the fifth fence in typically extravagant style, but was then pulled up just two fences later, about a mile from the finish.
Barry Geraghty, Sprinter Sacre's jockey, did not dismount immediately, and the horse was clearly not lame as he walked back around the course to the unsaddling enclosure. "He felt fine during the race," Geraghty said as he returned to the weighing room, "but all of a sudden he went from going to not going so I pulled him up straight away."
Henderson said after the race that the preliminary diagnosis by the racecourse vet, which was later confirmed, was that Sprinter Sacre had suffered an irregular heartbeat, which restricts the efficient flow of blood around a horse's system. A racehorse's heart can beat several times a second in the heat of a race, and needs to cycle with its chambers in perfect synchrony to keep the horse running.
"I'd rather that he came home tonight," Henderson said. "He hasn't had a heart attack or anything like that and he's not going to, but it's better that like any human would rather do, he should be at home. He doesn't want any more stress.
"We'll listen to him again in the morning. These things according to our advisors here can easily self-right quite quickly, although we'll still obviously go through the ECG route anyway and do further tests if necessary. We're just checking with Celia Marr at Newmarket that she can [treat Sprinter Sacre] and I know she's the right person for this task.
"All credit to Barry. He was rolling along on his best horse and everything was going great, and then he realised in the flick of a finger that something was wrong. Fair credit to him for pulling up immediately. The sooner you stop, the less damage you're going to do. We're into a situation that we've got to undo, and therefore we'll go to all the experts and get all the advice."
In the moments after Sprinter Sacre was led away for tests here, Henderson also suggested that "it's just how things seem to be going at the moment," and the sudden question mark over his stable star's career, for the immediate future at least, is another blow in a season which has brought the new champion trainer far more disappointment than joy.
Sprinter Sacre had already had an interrupted start to this season as he was forced to miss his scheduled first outing of the season in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown Park earlier this month after being reportedly under a cloud.
Henderson started the season as a 1-6 chance to defend his title, which had been won for the previous eight years by Paul Nicholls. After his latest setback, however, Nicholls is now favourite for the championship for the first time with Coral, who offer 8-11, with Henderson odds against at 11-10. Henderson currently trails Nicholls by nearly £400,000, and can no longer be certain that Sprinter Sacre will even line up for the season's remaining two-mile Grade One events, the Clarence House Chase at Ascot and the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham.
Bookmakers also suspended betting on the Queen Mother Champion Chase, for which Sprinter Sacre had been the long odds-on favourite at around 1-3. In last season's race, Sprinter Sacre beat Sizing Europe, a previous winner of the same contest, by 19 lengths, recording the highest Timeform rating over jumps in the modern era in the process.
"Sire De Grugy [who went on to win the Desert Orchid Chase] has certainly enhanced his claims for the Champion Chase," Jon Ivan-Duke from William Hill, said on Friday, "but we will have to wait until we know the health and wellbeing of Sprinter Sacre before reforming the market."
Denman's treatment for an irregular heartbeat, a problem which emerged in September 2008, involved stopping and then restarting his heart.
The Paul Nicholls-trained chaser missed several months of the 2008-09 season, but returned to the track in February and finished second to Kauto Star in the 2009 Cheltenham Gold Cup. He won the Hennessy under top weight the following November, and also finished second in the Gold Cup in both 2010 and 2011. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.