Marco Botti has had a lucky escape at the start of the new turf season as one of his horses returned from racing in Dubai with a dose of strangles, a highly infectious equine disease, but did not enter the trainer’s main yard in Newmarket. Had the horse returned to Prestige Place stables on Snailwell Road, Botti would have had to close it until all the other horses there had been proved clear of infection, a major disruption when so many major prizes are just weeks away.
But Botti said on Monday that the horse, which he did not wish to name, had been sent straight to a pre-training yard called Southfields stables, about a mile away on Hamilton Road. “When they come back from racing abroad we like to keep them in isolation stables for a couple of weeks until we are 100% sure they don’t have anything,” Botti said.
“This horse was at Southfield stables and they have now closed down for two or three weeks. I’m really sorry for them but we couldn’t know. It’s frustrating but that’s the way it is when you travel horses.”
Strangles is a respiratory infection resulting in fever, nasal discharge, depression, difficulties with eating and sometimes abscesses on the head and neck. It is easily spread by contact but not by air, according to current advice.
“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.” However, the infected horse flew back from Dubai on the same plane as another of Botti’s horses which has since been in his “overflow” yard at White stables. That horse and all others there have been tested and will continue to be tested until Botti is satisfied that the infection has not spread. Those tests have so far been negative, he reports. “We have two-year-olds and backward horses there.”
Botti said the infected horse had left Newmarket and would be stabled in isolation until recovered. He said he had been asked not to name the horse as it could be resold once healthy, its owner having died earlier this year. That appears to narrow the possibilities to Energia Davos, Energia Fox, Energia Fribby and Edu Querido, four horses that ran for Botti in Dubai this year, all owned by Stefan Friborg, who died in February.
Andi Brown, who runs Southfield stables as a pre-training yard and also trains a handful of horses there, said: “I’m pee’d off and I don’t see why I should talk to anyone about it.”
There are many other trainers based near Brown’s yard on Hamilton Road, including James Tate, Rae Guest and Stuart Williams. But Mark Tompkins, the chair of the Newmarket Trainers Federation, said there would be no panic among trainers in the town so long as the correct procedures were followed, as had happened with similar cases in the past.
“Strangles is not a nice thing for a horse to have,” Tompkins said. “Depending on how bad he gets it, it can take three or four months to get over it. And it is very contagious.
“But it wouldn’t be a worry for Newmarket if that yard is shut down and no horses go in or out and they do the proper thing with disinfectant and so on. You’ve just got to have a good quarantine procedure and then, once the tests are clear, you’re back to normal.”
Botti has five horses entered for the valuable All-Weather Championships card at Lingfield on Friday, headed by Grendisar in the Coral Easter Classic. He said Naadirr, his winner at Doncaster on Saturday, would run next in the Duke Of York at York’s May meeting.
In Grand National news, Donald McCain said he hopes to have two runners in this year’s race a week on Saturday, including Across The Bay, who was leading last year’s National field at the halfway point when a loose horse all but carried him off the course. “He’s been so unlucky, it’s not true,” the trainer said.
“He was running a good race at the Cheltenham Festival [in the Kim Muir] when he got brought down last time. He’s in good order. Henry Brooke will ride him again.”
McCain will also run Corrin Wood, although he said it had been a struggle to get the horse back to peak fitness after he pulled muscles at Haydock in January, after which race the eight-year-old was “sick and sore”.
“He had a racecourse gallop the other day, so we’re getting close,” the trainer added. “I’ve always thought of him as an Aintree horse.” Wilson Renwick has been booked for the ride.
Jason Maguire, who won a Grand National for McCain on Ballabriggs, has finally conceded that he will miss this year’s race, following a back injury caused by a heavy fall at Catterick early this month. The jockey has not ridden since then.
“He’s been having some work done on his back so he can start the next season running,” said Maguire’s agent, Chris Broad. “He’s going to miss the rest of the season and start afresh on around 1 May. He’s been bugged with his back and is going to put it right, so he doesn’t have any hiccups.”
