2 racehorses die in paddock at Newbury UK

Breaking News.

Two racehorses have collapsed and died whilst parading in the paddock before the first race at Newbury
this afternoon. The other horses in the paddock became distressed at this strange occurance and the
rumour circulating on the racecourse, is they fatally suffered from a faulty underground electrical power source.

Originally posted by deprogrammer
faulty underground electrical power source.

Well that one should be fairly easy to confirm by vets and electrical technical - and that is going to be one big insurance pay out, probably quite open and shut.

Just wondering if it could be a very small almost invisible lightning strike? - Now on telly they are saying 3 or 4 people complained of getting electrical shocks off the horses, and not static shocks.

Do you not have a link to this article?
Second line

reply to post by boo1981


Two horses die before start of race at Newbury

Can you really not search for the article yourself? How hopeless is that?

BBC article

So the grass was giving off sparks, eh? Sounds like a good day at the track.

reply to post by Now_Then


Update- confirmed -- All Newbury Racing has been abandoned due to this freak incident.

You would have thought the stable staff who lead the horses around in the paddock would have also
have felt an electric shock? Not much feedback from official sources in this incident. Someone will no
doubt have videod the incident and will maybe upload to youtube.

Originally posted by Now_Then
reply to post by boo1981

 

Two horses die before start of race at Newbury

You would imagine that if it was a strong enough current to down a horse it would have done more than tingle the handlers ?

Very strange and worth watching.

Also wonder if the two horses that died were next to one another or if they were spaced with other horses in between that were not effected ?

Woody

The horses bit's (chomping metal parts in the horses mouths) there are reports of very slight burning around the horses mouth.... That actually does make me lean a little more to a very strange lightning event? actually seeing the footage now, I thought the riders were on the horses.... Now that does make sense now, say the electricity came from the ground either from mains electricity or even still lightning... the Handler earthed the horses out through their bits... And the people were insulated by their boots? Horses have metal shoes of course.

Handlers using rubber boots or shoe bottoms probably will not feel it, on the other hand the horses wearing their nice shiny metal shoes?

KAPOLOOY!

All kidding aside I was walking my stud one day over a little snowy path and he started acting up.
Normally a very well behaved stallion I gave him the benefit of the doubt and started checking around for problems.
I didn't find any and of course with my rubber paddock boots on didn't feel anything either.
I asked the stud to walk over the area again - once refused by the horse that means it's twice done - and the rule was not going to be bent. He WAS going to walk over that snowy patch.
Well, finally he made the first pass - quite against his will. He was front bare - only shod in back as it was breeding season but his front hooves knocked a bit of snow off the top of the ground and what did I see? An electrical cord for the paddock water tub de-icer - with a split in it. Of course I didn't touch it but I bet my stud felt a good bite from it. Thank God his back hooves (steel shod) didn't come into contact with it or I'd of had horse burgers. And of course thankfully he, or I, didn't die!

As a horse owner myself my sympathies go out to all those involved in this tragic scenario.

peace

Just a thought, if it turns out that they can't find any electrical fault, could this be related to all the other mysterious animal deaths that have been in the news recently? Could there be some kind of unknown electromagnetic anomaly popping up at random and killing animals? Vortices in the Earth's magnetic field?

Originally posted by Now_Then
The horses bit's (chomping metal parts in the horses mouths) there are reports of very slight burning around the horses mouth.... That actually does make me lean a little more to a very strange lightning event? actually seeing the footage now, I thought the riders were on the horses.... Now that does make sense now, say the electricity came from the ground either from mains electricity or even still lightning... the Handler earthed the horses out through their bits... And the people were insulated by their boots? Horses have metal shoes of course.

Of course I wasn't thinking about rubber soled boots.

I'm inclined to think the source will be underground cables rather than lightening.

Woody

reply to post by woodwytch

maybe horses earth better because they have 4 legs

reply to post by purplemer


They are saying it's cos horses are longer now actually, which makes a lot of sense... The back legs pick up a large voltage, and the potential voltage across the horse is big enough to kill the horse. They said maybe a 1,000 volts at one end... Cos the Ground insulates quite well the other end of the horse is significiently better grounded than the end that picked up the greater voltage.

So maybe a person in rubber boots with feet like 12 inches apart, not enough to kill.... Horses feet 5 or 6 feet apart and no insulation the electricity did flow.

From the BBC article:

Newbury chairman Christopher Spence said: "It's a nightmare for everybody. We can't be certain what it is, we all think it's electric, but we don't know.

"It's easy to say carry on and hope for the best, but just hoping is not something we should or could do. We've got to look after our customers and we've got to look after the horses, so very regrettably we've called the meeting off.

"It's defeated everyone and we don't know the answer. We'll have a meeting to decide if we can re-run any of the races and we'll make further announcements as soon as we possibly can.

"We've looked at the cables and we couldn't see any damage and no work has been carried out on the paddock since the last meeting."

Now if it wasn't the cables... what was it?

2nd line : knowing there's a trap is the first step in evading it.

Originally posted by Now_Then
The horses bit's (chomping metal parts in the horses mouths) there are reports of very slight burning around the horses mouth.... That actually does make me lean a little more to a very strange lightning event?

Not possible. There is no electricity activity over Britain and no weather systems around that could have caused lightning, ball lightning or any other such meteorological phenomena. We've basically under a ridge of high pressure. No way it could have been meteorological I'm afraid.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
Can you really not search for the article yourself? How hopeless is that?

BBC article

So the grass was giving off sparks, eh? Sounds like a good day at the track.

There is no need to be so rude now is there!!

I only asked because i thought it was one of the forum rules to provide a link to a news article or piece of information.

And for your information i did start to do a search but had to attend to my daughter. After all my children come FIRST!!

reply to post by boo1981


But you have time to click a link and read it? Flimsy excuse, but if it works for you then good.

2nd obligatory line.