Group One-winning racehorse Rewilding (pictured right) was put down on Saturday (23 July) after breaking a leg during the King George and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot racecourse.
The horse, trained by Mahmood Al Zarooni, broke his near-fore cannon bone coming into the home straight, throwing jockey Frankie Dettori to the ground.
Rewilding continued on three legs along the track to the winners’ post, where he was attended by vets and put down. The incident was described by the racecourse as an “unforeseeable accident”.
The race was won by Nathanial, the first three-year-old to win the race since 2003. His trainer John Gosden attended Redwilding before going to the winners’ enclosure to see his own horse.
Mr Gosden was commended by the industry for speaking eloquently and explaining the accident to viewers after the race during a BBC interview.
“It’s a freakish thing. He has put the leg down wrong, and he’s broken the cannon-bone clean,” he said. “He ran down the track in front of everyone and stopped. He was very calm and collected and we held him.
“It was a freak of nature. He was in no pain. The extraordinary thing is when they break a leg like that, it’s as though nature anaesthetises them. They feel absolutely no pain. They feel more with a cut. I fed him a bit of grass and he munched away. Unfortunately, he had to be put down.”
Frankie Dettori has suffered a bruised knee and ankle and some whiplash, but is expected to ride at Glorious Goodwood next week (26- 30 July).
The four-year-old Rewilding, who is owned by Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin stable, had previously won the Group One Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Group One Dubai Sheema Classic.
