Victoria
STAR PACER AMORE VITA SUFFERS TRAGIC HEART ATTACK IN TRAINING
Star pacer Amore Vita suffers tragic heart attack in training
LEAD NEWS
Brad Reid Harnesslink
7 DEC 2023Last Updated 7 Dec 2023
There is a saying in harness racing that bad luck and injuries only happen to the ‘good ones’.
While we know that not to be the case, the loss of a champion brings with it its own news cycle and seems to resonate more with the general public in the sense of the trials and tribulations that come with racing an equine athlete.
They aren’t machines, but living and breathing creatures who regardless of capabilities mean something different to each and every person connected to them.
Having just experienced the ultimate high of training his first Group One winner on his home track at Addington Raceway, Canterbury trainer Steve Dolan received the phone call no owner ever wants to receive this morning informing him of tragic news.
His star race mare, Amore Vita, a four time Group One winner and earner of over $668,000 had died suddenly in training having suffered a heart attack while out jogging on the Tonkin/Stewart training facility.
“It was a devastating phone call to receive, and I don’t mind admitting that I shed a few tears when Clayton called me to break the news,” said Dolan.
“Clayton is a big specimen of a man and I could tell as soon as I heard his voice that it was a fatal injury. Given her future stud career and everything that was before her, you could live with a tendon injury or something where you still have your horse.
“Look at Millwood Nike for example, she will be out for six or so months and at the very worst still
have her future in the broodmare paddock,” he said.
Amore Vita was a revelation of the Australasian female pacing ranks since being shipped to join the Nathan Purdon stable in 2021.
She had her first three starts at Addington in Christchurch, however long before the daughter of Art Major raced, Dolan’s mind wandered to sending her to Australia to compete.
“I thought she was good enough and would be suited to the style of racing over there. Throw in the fact she was paid-up for the Breeders Crown and Vicbred and it became an easy decision,” Dolan said.
“She was beaten at her first two starts here at home, but it turned out she was quite sick, so we put her out and started again and she won her third start by seven lengths at Addington. I asked Nathan Purdon to watch that to see if he wanted to take her … I got a thumbs up text as soon as they crossed the line.”
Amore Vita won 10 of her first 13 starts for Purdon – which included the Group One 2YO Vicbred Final – but winning the Redcliffe Oaks at that 13th run took its toll.
“That’s the night we found out our Superwoman had a chink,” he laughed. “It was the first time we’d really rushed her off the gate and, although she won, it fired her up and she wasn’t herself for a while.”
She went winless in her next nine starts, her last five with Purdon and the first four in the care of Stewart and Tonkin whom Purdon recommended taking over the training duties with his impending shift home.
“We were always confident she would get out of the bad habits and back to her best … I loved the day I got a message from Clayton (Tonkin) saying they had sorted her out and she would win the Vicbred (last year),” Dolan said.
History tells us she would go on to win the Vicbred 3YO Fillies Final on New Years Eve, which seemed to catapult the daughter of Art Major in her four-year-old season like she had been fired out of a cannon.
Amore Vita would then go on and sign off an incredible 2023 by becoming just the second ever female pacer to win all three divisions of the Vicbred Series with a win in the Group One 4YO Mares Final which would consequently be her third to last start of her career.
Among her eighteen career victories were the aforementioned four Group Ones, a Group Two and two Group Three’s with her lifetime mark of 1:50.5 coming in the Group One $150,000 ‘The Golden Girl’ at Melton.
