Big Paddy died on Saturday night – he was put down after one of his intestines burst. Colic might sound like a bit of indigestion but it’s a very serious condition – I’ve had three horses go down with it now and only one of them survived. It’s a blow, and a terrible blow to Nick on the back of Killaghy Castle.
When I started following racing I gave next to no thought to horses welfare – if I was there when a horse died on the course I’d shrug my shoulders thinking it’s all part of the game. These days I take it much much harder, although I still take the view that it’s all part of the game.
Latin America’s win on Sunday cheered us up. I didn’t have a penny on him – he’s still a baby and I thought he’d run too green to win, but I was wrong. I feel a bit embarrassed – I was chatting with Gary Moore in the ring and I confidently told him that we wouldn’t win, but we beat his charge into second.
In retrospect we were the right horse for the race. Latin is flat bred and everything else in the race was NH bred. He was smaller and neater than the rest of them and was always going to have more speed – also he was fit and well. He will improve a lot for this run and could turn out to be decent.