Ethical Diamond appeared to have all of the attributes you would want to see in a potential Melbourne Cup winner as he recorded a decisive success in the Ebor Handicap at York on Saturday. He travelled sweetly, had the tactical speed to pick his way through the field in the straight and then a sharp turn of foot at the business end to put the race to bed a furlong out. In winning, he also picked up a “Golden Ticket” for “the race that stops the nation” in early November, one of just two such guaranteed entries on offer in the northern hemisphere.
So what’s not to like? The answer, it soon transpired, is a small piece of metal inserted into one of Ethical Diamond’s legs. “He had a little fracture last year and we put a screw in,” Willie Mullins, the gelding’s trainer, said, “and they’re not allowed in Melbourne. It’s fair and their rules are there for a reason. At least we know we can’t go there before we leave.”
Winning a Melbourne Cup is surely the most significant ambition left on Mullins’s to-do list now that he has won (and retained) the British trainers’ title over jumps, so the realisation that Ethical Diamond’s “Golden Ticket” is in effect worthless will have come as a blow.
As he pointed out, though, he has at least been spared the expense and frustration endured by Aidan O’Brien in November 2024 when Jan Brueghel, the St Leger winner and Melbourne Cup favourite, was scratched by the Australian vets a few days before the race.
Ffos Las 2.10 Gouken 2.40 Born Slippy 3.10 Diamondsinthesand 3.40 Klassleader 4.10 Echo Of Glory 4.40 Jedhi Knight
Chelmsford 2.20 Demetrius 2.50 Archer Royal 3.20 Groundsman 3.50 General Assembly (nap) 4.20 Estmrar 4.55 Star Of St Louis
Newbury 4.15 Black Endeavour 4.48 Leone Alato 5.20 Chicory 5.55 Heated Moment 6.25 North View 7.00 Golden Redemption 7.30 Masterinthewoods
Southwell 5.45 Everyoneknowsadave 6.15 Bajan Bandit 6.45 Havana Rum 7.15 Zealandia (nb) 7.45 Mysteryofthesands 8.15 Charmaine 8.45 Tan Rapido
O’Brien, who was in California for the Breeders’ Cup, was infuriated by the decision, as the result of what was described as a “shadow” on a scan. This, in the opinion of the local vets, meant that Jan Brueghel “was currently at heightened risk” of injury.
“I would imagine that with any developing three-year-old at this time of the year, you would get shadows, and the same with human beings,” O’Brien said at the time. “It’s probably gone a little bit ridiculous but that’s the way it is.
“One time when horses were trotted it was always the vet’s opinion whether they were sound or lame but now there’s an app on the phone and a phone video, and the phone tells the vet whether the horse is sound. There comes a time when it gets a little bit ridiculous.”
Jan Brueghel was due to be O’Brien’s first Melbourne Cup runner since the introduction of heightened veterinary protocols for overseas competitors in 2021, a year after the same trainer’s Anthony Van Dyck, the Derby winner at Epsom in 2019, was put down after sustaining a broken fetlock during the Cup. He was the sixth overseas runner to suffer a fatal injury in the race since 2013.
There was immense pressure on the Australian racing authorities to act, and to be seen to act, after such a sustained run of fatal injuries, and they can point to four subsequent injury-free runnings of the Melbourne Cup as a sign that the policy is proving to be effective.
The fans have also been returning to the country’s most famous race over the last two years, from a low point of 73,816 in 2022 to 84,492 a year later and then 91,168 in 2024. The Australian sporting public, it seems, is slowly learning to love its biggest race again.
Four renewals of a single Flat race, though, is hardly conclusive evidence that the fatal injuries between 2013 and 2020 were down to anything more than a run of bad luck. And though the Australian authorities, perhaps, may not be too concerned, this year’s Melbourne Cup will be a poorer race without Ethical Diamond cashing his Golden Ticket.
The treatment of Jan Brueghel, meanwhile, whose abortive trip cost about £120,000, is also a potential disincentive for international runners. Over time, it may be, as the League of Gentlemen might put it, a more local race for local people.
There is a potential lesson here for British racing, which has faced similar pressures to “do something” several times in the fairly recent past after abnormal clusters of fatal injuries at Cheltenham or Aintree in the spring.
Saturday marked the start of the fifth National Racehorse Week, which actually runs for nine days until 31 August giving members of the public a chance to go behind the scenes at racing yards, stud farms and retraining centres around the country.
Catterick 2.15 The Lost Sock 2.45 Rogue Attraction 3.15 Rain Cap 3.45 Hidden Pearl 4.15 Lexington Blitz (nb) 4.45 Desert Dream
Musselburgh 2.30 Madame Koko 3.00 Twist Or Stick 3.30 No Nay Nevermind 4.00 Simple Star 4.35 Highland Olly 5.05 Royal Duke
Hexham 5.15 Mohawk Chief 5.45 Dickens 6.15 Nachtgeist 6.45 Ribeye 7.15 Huit Reflets 7.45 Lady Cara
Kempton 5.37 Moment Of Light 6.07 Grizedale 6.37 Sarab Star 7.07 Circios 7.37 Advancing 8.07 Haazeez 8.37 Karthon (nap)
The initiative is part of a broad strategy around welfare issues, which has included the founding of the independently chaired Horse Welfare Board and the development of data-based risk models in partnership with the Royal Veterinary College.
It is proactive, not reactive, and focused on the overall picture, which is the only sensible approach given that racing will always carry an element of risk and also how easy it is to be fooled by randomness when what are essentially very unlikely events suddenly occur in clusters.
The fact that a likely favourite can in effect be ruled out of Australia’s biggest race on vets’ advice because different vets have successfully treated an injury in the past should be a reminder of the possible drawbacks of trying to micro-manage risk, when the risk itself – 31 deaths from 33,189 runners on the Flat in Britain in 2024 – is already extremely low.
