Racing: Leading filly operated on after mishap in Melbourne

Bettor Cover Lover was badly injured in a transport mishap after winning the Victoria Oaks. Photo / Greg Bowker

Champion New Zealand pacing filly Bettor Cover Lover has been left fighting for her life just hours after winning the Victoria Oaks.

Even if she survives, the glamour pacer will never race again.

Trainer Brent Mangos is shattered and still confused by the events which saw his best-ever pacer badly injured either before or while being loaded on a flight from Melbourne to Auckland on Saturday.

Bettor Cover Lover got one of her back legs caught in a horror position and cut it all the way through to the coffin bone.

She was rushed to the Werribee Veterinary Centre, where her owner, Perth veterinarian Trevor Lindsay, assisted in the operation which is hoped will save her life.

"I still don't really know what happened but it is bloody terrible," said a teary Mangos.

"All we are hoping now is that she can be saved a as a broodmare but she will never race again.

"It's very, very sad."

Just 12 hours before the incident, Bettor Cover Lover had led throughout to win the A$100,000 Victoria Oaks at Melton. That came on top of her first defeat of arch-rival Carabella in the $175,000 Sales Series Pace at Rangiora last month, when she paced a national 2000m record.

She was boarding the flight to Auckland only because she couldn't be flown to Perth, where she was to have contested the West Australian Oaks, because of a restriction on domestic horse flights in Australia while regulations governing them are changed.

That forced Mangos to try and bring his filly home, something he will be hoping he can do now in a few weeks.

"The operation sounds like it was a success but the next few days are crucial," he told the Herald.

"Because if she gets an infection in the wound and it gets to the bone then she might have to be put down."

The injury is a tragedy for her connections as Bettor Cover Lover was the co-favourite for the Nevele R Fillies series, New Zealand Oaks and Harness Jewels in coming months.

Her clashes with Carabella this season have been extraordinary and have developed into one of harness racing's great filly rivalries.

Bettor Cover Lover was a unanimous winner of the Two-Year-Old filly of the year last season after winning the Caduceus Club Classic, Sales Series Pace and the Harness Jewels.

She has raced 15 times for 11 wins, with three seconds and a third, three of those defeats to Carabella.

Her Oaks win on Friday took her to more than $570,000 in career stakes and she also has a 1:55 mile rate time.

While her record alone would guarantee her a highly commercial broodmare career, Bettor Cover Lover is closely related to former champion filly Under Cover Lover.

That, coupled with her size and being by boom sire Bettors Delight means if she survives she could be one of the most valuable commercial broodmare prospects in Australasia.

FIGHTING FOR LIFE

* Bettor Cover Lover is fighting for her life.
* She was badly hurt being loaded for a flight home from Melbourne.
* Her race career is over.
* Bettor Cover Lover won the A$100,000 Victoria Oaks on Friday night.