A strange accident caused the death of two horses just before Saturday’s scheduled Totesport Trophy races; most of the races were canceled in what the Guardian’s Greg Wood called “one of the most miserable racing afternoons that most of us can remember”.
The accident occurred during the pre-race parade. “Four of the horses seemed to have some kind of reaction,” explained Joint managing director of the racecourse Stephen Higgins, per Newbury Today. “One of them went out to race and seemed to recover very quickly, the other one seemed to slip and then carry on and the other two suffered some king of seizure and went to ground and unfortunately both died.”
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Any sportsbook affiliate operating in or to the UK should have Totesport Trophy betting odds readily available to site visitors. It isn’t the biggest race in the UK, but it’s a huge event for betting. The kind of analysis given to Totesport Trophy odds at places like The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Mirror rivals any sport betting event in the U.S.
Hosted at Newbury Racecourse, the race is a premier hurdle-style race, also called National Hunt racing. CAP Listed Program Totesport has sponsored the event since 1986.
And anticipation this year was high even before the delay: Clive Smith, owner of Kauto Star, one of the most successful Hunt racing horses of all time, was treating “the totesport Trophy meeting at Newbury as the curtain raiser for the most intense build-up to a big race that he can remember in several decades in the sport,” writes J.A. McGrath at the Telegraph.
Odds and speculation are widely available through the mainstream UK sports media — the sites listed above blog about the race pretty much every day. And this year’s tragic turn of events means the event is getting even more publicity than usual.