In January 2024 San Remo was killed following an injury sustained during training. San Remo survived three falls, numerous injuries and 87 races including 21 jumps races before his body finally gave in. He lived to be just 9 years old.
Victorian jumps racing star San Remo reached the height of his career on 6 August 2023 when he won the Grand National Hurdle jumps race, which earned his owner the lump sum of $300,000. But that wasn’t enough. San Remo wasn’t afforded any time to rest.
Only eight days later San Remo was raced in a trial, and 13 days later he was entered into a 4.5-kilometre Steeplechase in Ballarat – a jumps race in which San Remo was struggling so much the jockey had to pull him out before the finish line.
After being raced a total of 22 times in 2023, on January 2024 San Remo sustained a fracture to a hind pastern during track work and was subsequently killed. According to San Remo’s trainer, they were devastated at losing him, “but it wasn’t a horrific end for him or anything like that.”
Risking his Life Jumps Racing
Jumps racing is the deadliest type of horse racing in Australia, and Victoria is the only state to still permit the dangerous ‘sport’. In the 2023 season, 1 in 38 jumps horses lost their lives on the track. According to the 2023 steward reports, an astonishing 84% of all the horses who started in jumps races, had difficulty clearing the obstacles, suffered serious physical damage, died, or was struggling too much to even finish the race.
When horses are jumps racing, they are confronted with the task of galloping as fast as they can whilst being forced to jump obstacles in a crowd of other horses attempting to do the same. The stress, the crowding, and the high speed makes it difficult for the horses to negotiate the obstacles. Jumps racing has been found to be almost 20 times more deadly for horses compared to flat racing.
San Remo was 6 years old when he competed in his first jumps race in 2020. At that time, he would have already sustained considerable wear and tear on his body after nearly four years of flat racing. However, entering older racehorses into jumps races is a common way for owners in the racing industry to squeeze an extra few dollars out of their horses before they are too old to race.
Started Racing at Just 2-years-old
It is fair to say that San Remo had a tough start to life. He was born in Ireland and shipped all the way to Australia to be raced at only two years old. Whilst racing horses years before they have reached skeletal maturity is business as usual in the racing industry, it is a highly contested issue.
Australian research shows that among the immature horses who survived the initial race training and continued into a racing career at 2 years old, 80% suffered from shin soreness and 40% were unsound at the end of the racing season.
San Remo though, seemed to have been made of steel. He survived a total of 66 flat races, 15 trial races, and 21 of the dangerous jumps races. Nonetheless, no one is invincible. And given the intense physical and mental pressure that San Remo was subjected to in his career as a racehorse, it would have been obvious that at almost ten years old, he was at particular risk of a fatal injury.
Fell Three Times in Jumps Races
Not surprisingly, jumps racing wasn’t kind to San Remo. On 21 June 2021 he fell after the very first jump. On 5 May 2022, he fell and rolled over on his neck after a jump in the Grand Annual Steeplechase. On 21 May 2023, San Remo fell after a jump in a trial race. All on Victorian racetracks.
On 6 August 2023, San Remo’s jockey breeched the whipping rules and whipped San Remo 13 times before the 100m line. Nonetheless, his owner was rewarded with $300,000 in prize money.
Considering San Remo’s age, years of wear and tear and his record of falls and past injuries, at this point in time his owner could have chosen to retire him. With his celebrity status as the 2023 Grand National Hurdle winner, San Remo would have had a fair chance of being rehomed to a genuine, caring retirement home as he deserved.
Fly free, San Remo. We will continue to fight for your equine brothers and sisters who deserve better.
