Captain Hurricane died of a heart attack this morning on the gallops. He had recently been transferred to Tom Dascombe and was doing his first serious piece of work this morning. He ran a bit flat and the jockey decided to get off and walk him back to the stable – a few minutes later he keeled over and died immediately, probably from a ruptured aorta.
The Captain was the first horse owned by the Comic Strip heroes and the first I had a piece of for many years. We bought him cheaply for 22k guineas as he had splints – Pete realised quickly that he was a classy horse. He came second twice before winning the Group 2 July Stakes at Newmarket. We were offered a million dollars for him but we turned it down. The ground was desperate in the Prix Morny where he came a respectable fourth – for whatever reason he never ran a decent race again. He appeared to retain a lot of his ability but he was extremely headstrong and hard to handle. had always hoped that he would recover his form in time as many sprinters do, but it wasn’t to be.
Lord Snooty finally made his debut yesterday, and finished the race with blood dripping from both nostrils. He had bled on the gallops before but he had been unwell and we had hoped that this was the cause – unfortunately it looks as if it’s not the case. This is very bad news as we believed him to be a real top class animal.
There are ways forward from this. There is a drug called Lasix that can improve bleeding problems, but in the UK a horse cannot run with Lasix in his system. In the US it is legal to run on Lasix – it may be that we will have to send Lord Snooty over there now.
No luck elsewhere either. Etoile Argentee is lame and needs an operation. Shepherd’s Warning ran extremely well to finish fourth, but I don’t pick up on my place bet. Lord Peter Flint ran today and lost in a photo having lead all the way to the line.