Racing lost one its most talented performers at Newbury on Wednesday when the high-class chaser Twist Magic took a fatal fall whilst leading at the second last fence of the re-routed Grade 2 Totesport.com Peterborough Chase, bringing to a sudden end a career that had seen the popular eight-year-old scale the heights of the winter game, writes Elliot Slater.
One of the highest rated horses currently in training, with an official BHA mark of 175, Twist Magic had been a shade mulish in the parade ring and also gave trouble at the start before being led in, but he consented to jump off with the rest of the field. This was not the first time the Paul Nicholls-trained gelding had shown himself to be a shade quirky (he refused to race at Punchestown in April), but the 10-time winner of very nearly £580,000 in career prize money travelled sweetly throughout the race and appeared to be going best under Sam Thomas, when coming down at the second last while holding a length lead over stable companion Breedsbreeze and Tom George’s Tartak (the eventual winner of the contest).
It was very quickly assessed by Horse race betting pundits that Twist Magic had sustained a shattered fetlock and the veterinary team on hand had no option than to humanely destroy the popular chaser.
A winner of five Grade 1 races during his career, Twist Magic will probably be best remembered by those studying the Horse racing betting odds for his two victories in Sandown’s Tingle Creek Chase, in 2007 beating the high-class Voy Por Ustedes by three lengths and then, in 2009, slamming the smart Forpadydeplasterer by a massive 15 lengths. His last victory came in the Grade 1 Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot in January where he again slammed the opposition, Petit Robin finishing a distant second, beaten 12 lengths.
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