Emma Lavelle, the trainer of Eclair Surf, said on Sunday morning that her eight-year-old gelding had become the second horse to die as a result of an injury sustained in the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday, further confounding hopes raised in the immediate aftermath – and shared widely online – that all 40 runners had returned to their stables with “no fatalities” in the race.
Lavelle said on Twitter that Eclair Surf had sustained “a traumatic head injury” at the third fence, and that after being treated at the racecourse he had been transferred to Liverpool University’s equine hospital, where “he was treated all night, however very sadly it was not to be”.
