Horse racing: Shock retirement after Orchestral loses her rhythm – Michael Guerin

Orchestral's New Zealand Derby win in the hands of Craig Grylls was one of the most dominant in the classic's history. Photo / Kenton Wright

Superstar race mare Orchestral has been forced into retirement by a rare heart condition.

Trainers Roger James and Robert Wellwood have told the Herald the $2.7 million earner won’t race again after suffering an atrial fibrillation in the Dunstan Breeders Stakes at Pukekohe last month.

Atrial fibrillation is when a horse’s heart beats irregularly and is not uncommon in racehorses. In most cases, the heart returns to normal within days – but that hasn’t happened with Orchestral.

Even after being treated with Quinidine, the drug most successful in getting the heart to return to its normal rhythm, Orchestral still has an irregular heartbeat, so can no longer race.

“She has had the best treatment possible and even had some of the world leaders in the field from Europe advising on her condition but her heart won’t return to normal,” Wellwood said.

“It won’t affect her having a normal, healthy life but she obviously can’t race anymore.

“But she is going to be fine, which is the most important thing.”


Orchestral only raced 18 times but produced some stunning performances among her seven victories, three of them in races worth $1 million or more.

All of those were at Ellerslie, with her richest victory coming in a drama-filled $1.5m Karaka Million Three-Year-Old on the official reopening day of Ellerslie’s Strathayr track in January last year.

After rain during the meeting saw the then new surface become slippery in patches, the $1.5m race was in danger of being called off.

But after the jockeys agreed to keep riding, James McDonald piloted Orchestral to a three-and-a-half length win.

The daughter of Savabeel then bolted away with the Avondale Guineas at her next start, before thrashing the boys by three-and-three-quarter lengths in the $1m Trackside Derby two weeks later, so dominating the classic that she paid just $1.30.

Orchestral went to Sydney and won her second Group 1 in the Vinery Stakes at Rosehill before finishing third in the ATC Oaks, when probably a run past her best.

Her 4-year-old season proved a frustrating one with a luckless Melbourne campaign but James and Wellwood were able to peak her for another Ellerslie major and she cruised home in the $1m Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic in January.

“When we look back on some of those wins you just pinch yourself being lucky enough to be part of her career,” Wellwood said.

“She was such a wonderful mare and full of class,” he said, adding that “you just don’t see horses win those big Group 1s” and $1m races as easily as she did.

“We are disappointed this has forced her into retirement now as Roger and I believe we had just got her back to something like her best.

“But she has enormous value as a broodmare.”

Orchestral will be retained by owners Colin and Helen Litt for her breeding career but won’t start her new role until next spring.

“The decision to retire her has only just been confirmed so they haven’t even had the chance to talk about which stallion she could possibly go to and I suppose there is no real hurry for that,” Wellwood said.

“But we have loved training her and are tremendously proud of what she achieved.”

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.