Renowned owner Terry Henderson has pointed to a lack of communication and consultation from Racing Victoria as the key issue to emerge from the last-minute scratching of his Melbourne Cup runner Athabascan.
Henderson met with Racing Victoria stewards, head vet Grace Forbes and the industry’s integrity department on Wednesday after his OTI syndicate’s French gelding was ruled unfit to run in Tuesday’s $8 million group 1 event because of a heart condition.
French import Athabascan was scratched from the Melbourne Cup because of a heart irregularity.Credit: Janie Barrett
Owners and the training duo of John O’Shea and Tom Charlton were left shattered by the decision.
But Henderson said they now accepted the right protocols had been followed.
“While we may have had a disagreement on whether the horse was suitable to run or not, we can understand why it was necessary for them to withdraw the horse on the basis of the information that they had and the expert opinions that they had gained,” Henderson said on Wednesday night.
Henderson said one of the productive things to come out of Wednesday’s meeting was “an acceptance that there needs to be a lot more information provided to connections in future when these horses are scratched in the way that they are”.
“I think that will help the industry enormously. It will certainly take away a lot of the angst that many feel when their horses are withdrawn,” Henderson said.
The OTI general manager, who races horses in Australia and the UK, said he expected information to be more comprehensive and be delivered faster once vets and stewards felt they “needed to scratch a horse”.
Athabascan was one of five horses pulled from the Melbourne Cup by vets in the final eight days before the race. Four of the gallopers – Jan Brueghel, Brayden Star, Muramasa and Mahrajaan – failed CT leg scans, while tests revealed that Athabascan had a cardiac arrhythmia – an irregular heartbeat.
Racing Victoria said ECG reports and the results of Athabascan’s blood tests were “forwarded to three independent experts specialising in equine internal medicine, including cardiology.”
UK import Jan Brueghel was pulled out of the Melbourne Cup after failing a CT scan.Credit: Getty Images
They found Athabascan was “at an increased risk of a cardiac episode” if it raced in the Melbourne Cup, and “should undergo further extensive testing before being permitted to race again”.
O’Shea, who has never won the Cup, sent an audio message to owners on Monday night saying the stable had provided veterinary evidence to stewards that showed “there is no issue with his heart”.
OTI Racing director Terry Henderson.Credit: Pat Scala
“But they have decided, irrespective of all the vet advice we have provided, to withdraw him,” O’Shea said. “I can’t explain it. The horse is 100 per cent healthy and sound with all our data that we use is particularly good.”
Henderson said at the time they were not aware of all the information that Racing Victoria had about their horse.
“The only time we actually get notified is when a chief steward rings the trainer and says ‘we have withdrawn your horse from the race’,” he said.
“It would be far more beneficial if that was accompanied by a one-pager that said, ‘look, the horse has been withdrawn because of these reasons, and this is what we have done to try and make sure we are making the right decision’.
“Now, we won’t always accept that is the right way, but at least it takes away the angst of not understanding why they have actually withdrawn the horse, and that will be a big step forward and a very welcome one.”
Henderson maintained that Athabascan could have competed successfully in the Melbourne Cup.
“We still don’t agree with the fact the horse was not ready to race, but at least we can understand it from the industry’s point of view given the protocols they are following,” he said.
Henderson had another runner, Future Score, withdrawn on the morning of the 2021 Melbourne Cup because of vet concerns over lameness. One month later, Future Score ran without issue in the Pakenham Cup over 2500m and finished third in a 2600m race at Flemington.
But Henderson said he understood the need for the industry to protect the Melbourne Cup.
“You could argue in a much broader sense, that part of the reason that we’ve got this resurgence of interest in the Melbourne Cup, and we’ve got so many young people going out there, and we don’t seem to have the negative publicity that we had a couple of years ago, is because the Melbourne Cup has been free from carnage the last couple of years,” he said.
“I am self-interested enough to know that I want to have my horse running in the Melbourne Cup, but you like to think you are broad enough in your views to understand that you can’t do that if your horse has got a reasonable risk of not getting through the race in a safe fashion.”
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