There are few animals as highly prized or admired as horses, with race horses deemed the most important specimens of the species. Race days are usually enjoyed by many and the opportunity to see these beautiful creatures in action is considered a genuine privilege. However, on February 12 2011 there was a horrifying turn of events that turned the intended wonder of the race day at the Newbury Totesport Trophy into a tragedy when some waiting horses were seemingly electrocuted resulting in the deaths of two animals.
As the horses were waiting to race eye witnesses reported that the thoroughbreds were struggling to stay on their feet, whilst two of their number reared up before collapsing to the ground dead. Alleged burn marks on the mouths of the dead horses would indicate that electrocution is likely to be the cause of death, although full post mortems will be undertaken. The jockeys who were sat upon the horses explained that they too had felt shocks from the backs of the horses, which further suggests that some sort of electrical fault caused the death and injury of this much admired creatures.
Newbury chairman Christopher Spence commented, “It’s a nightmare for everybody. We couldn’t see any damage to the cables. No work has been carried out on the paddock since the last meeting,” which indicates one of the most prevailing and unfortunate attitudes when it comes to electrical safety: if nothing indicates a problem then there is probably not one there; whilst the FM Sudafix Group can sympathise and understand that point of view it categorically does not endorse it.
“The Southern Electric Board came in and did an investigation and found a cable. At this stage we cannot confirm if that definitely was the reason for the incident today,” a Newbury racecourse spokeswoman commented. If an electrical fault was transmitted into the ground then it is likely the horses were affected by what are referred to in the electrical safety sector as “step potentials”, which is the measured voltage drop-off of discharging electricity between the legs of a being that may be inducted back into them. Humans would not suffer as bad as horses due to a closer proximity between legs, however it is a critical performance criteria for any electrical safety system.
FM Sudafix Group Technical Director, John Maher, commented “I have designed and consulted upon electrical safety systems for racecourses, training and breeding facilities so I am aware of the difference in safety criteria and how greater consideration, and a little ‘thinking outside of the box’ needs to happen to capture all of the potential hazards. I am certainly not saying that either Newbury racecourse or the Southern Electric Board are at fault here, because I am not working on the case, nor is sufficient information available in the public domain for me to make an informed statement, but clearly something has gone wrong here. On this occasion horse racing lost Marching Song and Feonix Two, but one can only hope that race tracks and training paddocks learn from this awful event to prevent a recurrence in the future.”
