Festival hero Langer Dan retired because of heart condition

Dual Coral Cup winnerLanger Dan has been retired due to an “unexplainable heart condition”.

Trained by Dan Skelton, the nine-year-old is best known for his back-to-back victories at the Cheltenham Festival, while he also finished a narrow third in a thrilling conclusion to last season’s Aintree Hurdle.

Speaking on X, Skelton said: “Unfortunately we have got to retire Langer Dan from racing.

“He has got an unexplainable heart condition, we don’t know how it’s happened and the vets have no idea how it has occurred, but he has to stop racing effectively immediately.”

Langer Dan was declared a non-runner in the Stayers’ Hurdle earlier this month due to a respiratory infection, with further investigation revealing the heart problem which is significant enough to signal the end of his racing career.

Skelton continued: “If you think back to Cheltenham week, he had that slightly dirty trach wash which was actually a secondary effect of his heart not working quite as it should. We’re quite lucky really he gave us an indication that was the case, as his heart rate was never raised or any other signs at all.

“It was only when we sent him to the vets for some stronger antibiotics to clear what we thought was infection that they diagnosed a heart problem with further examination using a heart scanner.

“It has come as a big shock to us all that that was the case and I spoke to Colm (Donlon) who has been an absolutely brilliant owner to him and it was obvious we had to retire him immediately.”

Langer Dan won six of his 27 races overall, with Skelton reflecting on the impact he has made on his training career.

He said: “We will miss him and he’s been part of the furniture here.

“He’s obviously a horse who gets plenty of attention around Cheltenham and you never know, with a bit of luck and on a different day, he may have won four races at the Cheltenham Festival as he got brought down once when favourite for the Martin Pipe and the other time he ran into Galopin Des Champs in a handicap.

“He was a bit unlucky that day but we won’t look at the unlucky bits, we will look back on the other days he was brilliant and winning those races at Cheltenham are days ourselves and Colm will never forget.”