Honeyball in shock after stable star Fountains Windfall dies in freak incident

The Anthony Honeyball team suffered the cruellest of blows on Friday when stable star Fountains Windfall, who had been as short as 7-1 for next month’s RSA Chase at Cheltenham, died during a schooling session.

With an official rating of 158, the sky appeared to be the limit for the eight-year-old, who was an impressive winner on his most recent start at Kempton last month, and was due to have his Cheltenham Festival prep in a 3m novice chase at Warwick on Saturday.

Honeyball, who had thought long and hard about bypassing a clash with Native River and Saphir Du Rheu in Newbury’s Grade 2 Denman Chase in favour of the easier Warwick assignment, said: “It’s an unbelievable kick in the teeth. It always seems to happen to the good ones. He was our stable star; he'd probably have been any stable's star. I’m in shock.”

Fountains Windfall draws clear to register a decisive win at AintreeCredit: Alan Crowhurst

Fountains Windfall, winner of a Grade 3 handicap hurdle at Aintree last April as well as two of his four starts over fences, was being given a short refresher when tragedy struck.

Honeyball said: “I was just giving him a canter and a school over a few poles and obstacles in preparation for Warwick.

“He either had a momentary lapse of concentration and fell funny or it’s possible he had a heart attack or a seizure. Whatever the reason he ended up flat on the ground.

“It was a totally freak incident. I can’t believe it.”

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