COURTS
Owner loses £200,000 claim against vet he blamed for racehorse’s death
Peter Crate said that vet Barbara Portal had failed to diagnose Sand Diego’s superbug
A racehorse trainer has lost a claim for £200,000 after he blamed vets for the death of a three-year-old horse that was said to have a bright future.
Peter Crate told a High Court judge that expert equine vets had failed to detect that Sand Diego was suffering from an antibiotic-resistant superbug only days after the horse had won his first race.
He was put down when a lump developed in one of his hind legs in 2020.
The court was told that a vet from Shotter & Byers Equine Veterinary Services, a partnership in Surrey, had examined the horse and concluded that it had “probably knocked himself”.
However, the swelling turned out to be a sign that Sand Diego had a serious and ultimately