Racing shockers: Cran Dalgety has nightmare

Pat's Delight was one of the favourites for major events next season. Photo / Stuart McCormick

Cran Dalgety lay awake on Saturday night wondering what Pat's Delight might have been trying to say to him.

Earlier that day the best horse in the Canterbury harness trainer's stable, a horse valued at close to $1 million earlier this season, let out the strangest neigh as he slowed down at the end of a normal workout.

Pat's Delight then collapsed to the track and was dead within a minute.

The outstanding 4-year-old pacer, one of the favourites for all of harness racing's major events next season like the New Zealand Cup, Inter Dominion and Miracle Mile, had died of a burst aorta.

Dalgety is a lifetime trainer and like almost all of that calling he loves his animals. But he is also a pragmatic, hard-nosed worker who realises that when you deal with livestock, you also, sadly, deal with dead stock.

But the final noise he heard from Pat's Delight as the magnificent looking entire slouched to the track haunted him on Saturday night.

"I lay in bed wondering what he might have been trying to say, even though I know that will sound silly to some people," said Dalgety.

"When you choose to spend your life around horses you learn the hard way you will lose some of them.

"It is always hard but you tend to get close to the really good ones, like him, because they are the ones you travel with and spend the most time with one on one.

"So it bothers me, yes. We were just warming down after a mile heat before his main workout and he let out the strangest neigh and then just collapsed.

"I lay in bed that night wondering whether he was saying, 'hey boss, something ain't right here'.

"Or whether he was just confused by what was happening.

"There was nothing in it work wise, it was just a normal day at the office. So it is bloody hard."

And not just on Dalgety. His 16-year-old son Carter sat next to the dead pacing star for nearly 30 minutes, failing to comprehend how the horse of his dreams had ended in such a nightmare.

The loss will also be a nightmare for 88-year-old owner Pat Kubala, who turned down a massive offer for Pat's Delight when he exploded on to the open class scene last summer. As crass as it is to ask, Pat's Delight wasn't insured.

Compared with the other horses mentioned on this page, world champions like Enable and Roaring Lion, Pat's Delight was a very minor racing star.

That might have changed a bit next season. Now it won't.

And it will take Dalgety a few more sleeps to get over that final neigh.