Tips for today

Racing at Newbury has been abandoned in extraordinary circumstances after Fenix Two and Marching Song collapsed and died in the parade ring before the first race.

An inquiry and immediate post-mortems were announced, with the reasons for the deaths unknown amid speculation the horses died from some form of electric shock emanating from underneath the paddock. Some horses had already made it down to the start and there were reports that others had "wobbled" on entering the paddock.

Despite running the first race, a decision was taken to call the rest of the big meeting off. A statement released at 2.10pm read: "The Newbury executive have decided that racing today has been abandoned."

Newbury chairman Christopher Spence said: "It's a nightmare for everybody. We can't be certain what it is, we all think it's electric, but we don't know. It's easy to say carry on and hope for the best, but just hoping is not something we should or could do. We've got to look after our customers and we've got to look after the horses.

"It's defeated everyone and we don't know the answer. We'll have a meeting to decide if we can re-run any of the races and we'll make further announcements as soon as we possibly can. We've looked at the cables and we couldn't see any damage and no work has been carried out on the paddock since the last meeting."

Nicky Henderson acted quickly to withdraw his runner in the first, Kid Cassidy, while Andy Turnell, trainer of Marching Song, said: "It looks like they've been electrocuted. My fellow seemed perfectly all right and I was about to leg him up but he just went straight down."

Jonjo O'Neill, trainer of Fenix Two, said: "Kid Cassidy was in front and he took a turn. We thought he was bucking and kicking and he went down on his knees then he seemed to be OK. Mine reared up and we couldn't get him back, it was like he was stuck to the ground. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life."

Marching Song's part-owner Graham Thorner said: "I was very fond of him and he had great potential. To a layman with no evidence, you would say it was electrical. The lad who was with him was saying 'I'm getting an electric shock off this horse'. It can't be coincidence four horses have done the same thing and two have died, all in the same area.

Henderson said: "About a minute before it happened, Kid Cassidy was walking in the same corner of the paddock. I had my back turned but my daughter said 'your horse has gone down'.

"He got back up again and he went to the start. All the horses at the start had their hearts checked and he was fine, but he was desperately keen so I decided to take him out. Electrocution is the most obvious possibility. Nobody is to blame really, but I think you'd only really find out when they've done a post-mortem."