A leading Australian racing organization has called for European runners at the Melbourne spring carnival to be given more time to acclimatize to local track conditions before racing to avoid further high-profile breakdowns such as Anthony Van Dyck.
John O'Shea, speaking on behalf of the New South Wales Trainers' Association, said the Australian racing industry would "continuously get black eyes on its biggest day" if rules were not changed after last year's Investec Derby (G1) winner sustained a fatal fetlock injury in the closing stages of last week's Lexus Melbourne Cup (G1) at Flemington.
Cliffs of Moher and Red Cadeaux were also put down due to injuries sustained in previous Melbourne Cups, while QIPCO Two Thousand Guineas (G1) second Wichita was euthanized this year following a training injury in Australia.
O'Shea pointed to the differing training surfaces in Europe and Australia as the reason for the injuries and stressed his view that those coming from the Northern Hemisphere needed more time to adapt to the harder tracks before racing.
"If you're an athlete and you spend your whole life training on the beach and then you turn up to Olympic Park and run on a hard surface your body's not going to cope with it," O'Shea told racing.com.
"A lot of those European horses train their whole lives on what they call woodchip surfaces and when they're not on those surfaces they're on very soft grass. Then we bring them out here and, to the best of our ability we provide tracks that are safe for our horses, but those horses haven't had the opportunity for their skeletal systems to adapt to the new surroundings.
"Moreover we ask them to go on and train and race in really hard races over a mile and a half and two miles on different surfaces and their bones can't adapt that quickly."
The NSWTA has reportedly written to Racing Australia asking for it to take control over horse welfare at the Melbourne Cup, rather than Racing Victoria and the Victoria Racing Club, and create "an established period for internationals to adapt to Australian conditions before they are permitted to race," which could be up to six months, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
O'Shea is adamant changes need to be made, and said: "The approach needs to be a concerted approach to work out how we can rectify this in the long term so our industry doesn't continuously get black eyes on its biggest day.
"It's for the rule makers to work out how they rectify it, we're just pointing out the reality of it."
