Swale

[Riot]

Sports Illustrated

June 25, 1984

Suddenly A Young Champion Is Gone

Just eight days after his great Belmont victory, Swale, the top 3-year-old in the country, fell dead

By William Leggett

At 6:25 Sunday morning, Swale, the Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner, went out for a routine 1 1/4 -mile gallop around Belmont Park. He was not scheduled to race again until early September. Swale felt comfortable under his regular exercise rider, Ron McKenzie. "He went just the way he always did," said McKenzie afterward, "kind and willing." Less than half an hour later one of the most famous and valuable horses in the United States was dead.

After the gallop Swale returned to the backstretch, where, as usual, he was hosed off. Suddenly, the dark bay colt reared and fell over backward. He was most likely dead before he even hit the ground. Swale twitched a few times, then lay still. "It was probably just nerves," said Phil Gleaves, an assistant to trainer Woody Stephens, referring to those last movements. "I have never seen a horse die like that before. And Lord knows, I never want to see it again, or anything like it."

At first, a massive heart attack or a ruptured aorta was believed to have been the cause of Swale's death, but an autopsy performed Sunday afternoon failed to reveal any damage to the heart or the aorta. In fact, the pathologists weren't sure what had caused the death of what must have been one of the fittest race horses in the country. No evidence of foul play was found. Burial was to have taken place Monday at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., where Swale was foaled and, had he lived, would probably have entered stud service in 1986. But it was postponed, and the body was shipped to the New Bolton Center, a veterinary hospital in Kennett Square, Pa., for further study. "He was never sick one day of his life," Stephens had said earlier. "He never even took an aspirin."

Continued
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...2220/index.htm

New York Times, July 11, 1984
Note the writer

TESTS FIND FLAWS IN HEART OF SWALE

By STEVEN CRIST (The New York Times); Sports Desk

July 11, 1984, Wednesday

Pathologists have discovered evidence indicating that Swale, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, may have died of heart failure. A statement issued late yesterday by the New Bolton Center of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Science, where extended tests had been run on samples and organs from Swale's body, said that an area of fibrosis on his heart had been discovered in recent days. The statement said that Dr. Helen Acland, the center's head pathologist, had ''found a very small area of fibrosis'' below the aortic valve and that ''lesions of this type can produce an arrhythmia in the heart, which can be fatal.'' Telephone calls to the center last night went unanswered. But, in an interview with United Press International, Dr. Peter Mann, a senior pathologist at the center, said, ''We can't say, 'Yes, this killed Swale,' but it's possible.''

1984 Newspaper article that talks about various causes of sudden death in Swale, and race horses, including "toxicity" (septicemia, although Colitis X wasn't recognized at that time as a disease entity)

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...pg=5399,257352