The 2023 Perth Cup at Ascot has been Canceled mid race after a horrible fall that involved horses Dom To Shoot and Chili Is Hot.
Perth Cup 2023 : Canceled | News | Death of horse
The Perth Cup is a Group 2 staying showdown contested over the mile and a half at Ascot Racecourse in Western Australia each January during the Perth Summer Racing Carnival.
The 2400m quality handicap clash offers a lucrative $500,000 in total prize money and Perth Cup Day is one of the biggest summer race meetings anywhere in Australia.
Traditionally held on New Year’s Day, there were two editions of the 2016 Perth Cup one run in January and the other on New Year’s Eve in December.
That meant there was no official 2017 Perth Cup, with the next edition run on New Year’s Day in 2018. Perth Cup Day is the final race meeting of the annual Festival of Perth Racing and the day’s feature has run since 1887.
Perth Cup 2023 Canceled
The $500,000 Perth Cup (2400m) has been declared a no-race when two horses fell shortly after the start at Ascot racecourse on New Year’s Day.
Chili Is Hot ($81) appeared to clip heels and immediately fall with Dom To Shoot ($11) crashing over the top approximately 200 metres following the start of the Group 2 race.
Dom To Shoot galloped riderless after the fall but Chili Is Hot remained on the track in the home straight. Stewards immediately ordered the abandonment of the race with the message conveyed to riders by clerks of the course with 900 metres remaining.
“This is going to be a race for the ages, this is a Cup that is about to be called off,” race broadcaster Darren McAullay said as jockeys restrained their mounts to a walk in the back straight.
On-course reports indicated jockeys Jordan Turner and Peter Knuckey walked away from the fall with only superficial injuries.
“I was right behind the fall,” Steven Parnham told the West Australian as “I went to my inside just as it happened to avoid it but didn’t realise a second horse had fallen as well.
“I didn’t know the race was going to be called off until we were in the back straight.”
A quick scan of history books suggests it’s the first time the Perth Cup has been called off mid-race since it was first held in 1887.
However, the 2008 Perth Cup was also marred by a six-horse fall 200 metres after the start. Cats Fun won that event, the most recent 3200-metre Perth Cup, crossing the line with riderless horses spread across the racecourse.
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The two horses fell to the turf just 200 metres into the Perth Cup, held in front of around 10,000 spectators on New Year’s Day.
The event was abandoned mid-race.
West Australian mare Chili Is Hot had to be euthanised at the track, after being attended to by staff on the course.
Dom To Shoot, the other horse involved in the fall, “suffered abrasions and is slightly lame in the off-foreleg”.
Perth Racing said an investigation was underway.
“This is one of the hardest events for anyone involved with racing to deal with,” Perth Racing chief executive James Oldring said.
“The welfare of jockeys and horses is always our top priority.
“Our thoughts are with all those connected with Chili is Hot.”
The two jockeys walked away without serious injury.
The Perth Cup will be re-run on January 14.
Perth Cup 2023 Death of horse
A horse has been euthanised while two jockeys were fortunate to escape serious injury in a fall during the Perth Cup that forced the event to be called off for the first time in its 136-year history.
More than 10,000 punters on the track were left in silence after gallopers Chili Is Hot and Dom To Shoot tumbled to the turf just 200m into the 2400m race at Ascot Racecourse on Sunday afternoon.
Replays suggest Chili Is Hot fell after clipping the heels of Buster Bash. Dom To Shoot was unable to avoid the fallen horse.
Officials were forced to race to the back of the track to alert the rest of the field that the race was to be abandoned with about 900m left to run, as Chili is Hot lay motionless in the middle of the main straight.
The clerk-of-course captured the runaway Dom To Shoot soon after.
Jordan Turner, who was riding Dom To Shoot, returned to the mounting enclosure with a bloodied nose.
He and Peter Knuckey, who was aboard Chili is Hot, were quickly cleared of serious injury.
Dom To Shoot “suffered abrasions and is slightly lame in the off-foreleg”, according to a stewards’ report.
The mood at Western Australia’s highest-profile horse racing event quickly turned sombre as news filtered through that Chili is Hot was euthanised on the track.