BROKE HER BACK.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 368, 9 March 1932, Page 10

BROKE HER BACK.

Fate of £SOOO Irish Steeplechaser.

(Special to the "Star.”) LONDON, January 23,

Captain Sassoon’s West Indies, the most spectacular steeplechase mare that has been seen for many years, fell in the Winchester Steeplechase at Newbury to-day and broke her back. Thus ended her owner's high hopes of winning the Grand National on her, and thus ended the life of a mare whose career has been as chequered as it was tragic.

She was a good two-year-old when she was in Ireland, and in the following season she won the Irish Two Thousand Guineas for the late Lady Mahon in a manner so devastating that Ireland went crazy over her prospects when she -was sent to Newmarket to run for the English One Thousand Guineas. Failure to Success. She was a bad failure there and in every other race subsequently in which she ran on the flat. Lady Mahon died, and West Indies came to England, but was a hopeless disappointment. When Mr Claude Rowe, a London stockbroker, bought her he put her over hurdles and she won races. Then she was sent steeplechasing. Here she was dazzling. She paralysed the opposition in her races last season in a manner that induced Captain Sassoon to give a sum in the neighbourhood of £SOOO for her. She gained him his first victory at Liverpool last November and he intended to ride her in the Grand National next March.

West Indies was ridden to-day by J. Tolley, the boy who looks after her at home and the only person she would allow near her in her box, for she had always had a demoniacal temper. Her rider was not injured.