Racehorse brings strangles to Newmarket

A racehorse has returned from the Dubai World Cup Carnival to Newmarketwith strangles.

Business as usual

The infected horse is based with trainer Marco Botti. Luckily for Marco, it’s business as usual as the horse hasn’t been on his main yard atPrestige Stables in Newmarket.

As he explained to the The Guardian, when his racehorses come back from racing abroad they are kept in isolation stables for a couple of weeks, until the team are “100% sure” they haven’t caught anything.

For this reason the horse was sent to straight to Southfields stables, a pre-training yard just down the road.

Shut down

“I would like to stress there is no problem in the main yard, where all the runners are,” Botti said. “This horse was never in contact with them.”

Due to the infectious nature of the disease, Southfields has had to close down and will remain closed for up to three weeks. Marco said he was “really sorry” for the yard.

‘Horrible disease’

The infected horse has since been moved to an isolation yard outside of Newmarket. Two other racehorses which were on the same flight have been put in Marco’s second yard, White Stables. They are being closely monitored, although they have not tested positive for strangles.

This is the first outbreak of strangles in the Newmarket since 2009. Mark Tompkins, chairman of the Newmarket Trainers Federation, said he hoped the vets had caught the “horrible disease” in time, as an outbreak could shut racing down.