Another horse has died at Cheltenham Festival this year, bringing the death toll for the week's races up to four. Ginto sustained a fatal injury in the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle, according to a post on Twitter from Racing TV.
Their tweet said: "Incredibly sad news that Ginto sustained a fatal injury in the Albert Bartlett - our thoughts are with connections". And it added: "A star of the future taken far too soon". The horse was involved in five races before its death, which included four wins.
Earlier in the week, three other horses died while they were taking part in the event in Gloucestershire. Shallwehaveonemore died on the first day of racing, and yesterday (March 17), Mindsmadeup fell in the day's final race and was later put down.
Read more: Second horse dies at Cheltenham Festival
The third, Born Patriot, suffered fatal injuries following his fall in the Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle on Thursday, the Mirror reported.
Yesterday, Chris Luffingham, director of external affairs at leading animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports, commented on what was the second horse death at the time. He said: “The death of Mindsmadeup today at the Cheltenham Festival – the second death in only three days – is incredibly upsetting for everyone.
"But it is not an isolated incident. An astonishing 71 horses have now been killed racing at the Cheltenham Festival since 2000.
“For any horse to lose its life in the pursuit of a ‘sport’ is an unnecessary tragedy but this sickening death toll points to the need for new and much tighter safety measures to be implemented – we are calling for an independent regulatory body to be created with horse welfare as its only concern. We will also be calling for the ban on the whip which forces horses to go beyond what they are comfortably able to do resulting in deaths, injuries and stress.”
This article has been amended to show that four horses have died at Cheltenham Festival 2022, not three
