Horses are important too

SMB · Feb 12, 2011

Poll.....

Did Telectrix wire up Newbury race course?

Eschatonic · Feb 14, 2011

This is Mythbusters territory but I really don't think these animals were electrocuted. I tried to do a bit of investigation on the interweb and got diverted into some really strange stuff that I hadn't heard about viz Tommy 'the Sandman' Burns who was an equine hitman. I ---- you not - Google it. The Sandman used to wire the nags into the mains (in the U.S.) with crocs on an ear and the anus. Bad peeps would hire Tommy to kill horses as part of insurance scams and auction hustles. This went on from 1975 until the 1990's when a case finally came to court in 1993. Tommy used to brag that he got paid more for killing horses than for killing people (up to $35,000). Ironically Tommy finally got caught in a sting when he used a crowbar to break a horse's leg.

Anyhow back to the point here. I've just seen some video on TV of these horses falling over and they are not even close together.

1. Racehorses are generally fitted with aluminium shoes secured by steel or titanium nails. You still have to explain how charge could conduct through the hoof material from the nails.

2. Horses are not that dumb. If they thought the ground felt dodgy they would have run well away from it.

From a technical standpoint what would have to be wrong for these conditions to occur?

D Skelton · Feb 14, 2011

I'm liking your thinking. I just don't know what to think. From what I have been lead to believe it would be possible that those horses were electrocuted, however, my first thoughts I still hold to be the more likely cause of death. There are still just too many backhanders going on within the horse racing and jumping world to completely rule out any dodgy goings on.

Kamikaze · Feb 14, 2011

telectrix said:
was my first ever attempt at under floor heating.

Does that mean your banned now from doing anymore?

sparkiegaz · Feb 14, 2011

Deff don't think the horses were drugged, if u want a horse to run crap just get the jockey to sort it,?? As for four legged animal being at more risk to shocks, they found a herd of elephants in Africa that all suffered heart attacks and died few years back, turned out lightning hit a tree and the current travelled through the sandy soil and the experts explained the difference in potential due to them having four legs,

Andyroid5 · Feb 14, 2011

Hi guys,
Stumbled across your forum whilst googling the Newbury incident and thought that my thinking was along similar lines with regards to the step voltage/gradient theory..shame about the loss of the animals but it still doesn't quite sit well in my mind about the heat generated in the bits and charring of the lead reign which would indicate one hell of current flow...

Burnt Fingers · Feb 15, 2011

Anything with it's legs far apart is going to suffer far more than thos ewith legs close together. And with that i am just waiting for the jokes to roll in...

pushrod · Feb 15, 2011

Eschatonic said:
Anyhow back to the point here. I've just seen some video on TV of these horses falling over and they are not even close together.

1. Racehorses are generally fitted with aluminium shoes secured by steel or titanium nails. You still have to explain how charge could conduct through the hoof material from the nails.

2. Horses are not that dumb. If they thought the ground felt dodgy they would have run well away from it.

From a technical standpoint what would have to be wrong for these conditions to occur?

Think you must be a bit of a conspiracy theory guy . Just searched for video 'Electrocuted' horses stop race | The Sun |News ( half way down the page) and they both first react in exactly the same spot.
1)The hoof is made of the same material as finger nail - i don't know about its conductivity but the hoof does not cover the entire bottom of the foot anyway. The charge could well have flowed through other parts of the foot.

2) While you are getting a belt of 10mA plus you can not control your muscles. If your heart is stopped you will not die immediately and will be able to move in a more coordinated fashion once you are no longer being shocked, but will die fairly quickly afterwards as your body runs out of oxygen.

The usual thing that happens to kill livestock by electrocution is that an overhead power cable comes down - obviously not that in this case, but reports do say there is an underground cable in the region - if the insulation on the conductor or a joint was damaged and breakers did not trip you could get the sad story that unfolded.

Or it could have been aliens

Burnt Fingers · Feb 15, 2011

Ok..Actually its not that uncommon. Here in North Yorkshire where even electricians have horses (or two), there are a few deaths a year - an Equestrian Centre lost about 4 recently to a leaky joint under a school area, and a couple of years ago one bought it on a pavement following a new lampost install. Truth is, horses are one of those species that have thought up more ways to die easily and in often spectacular circumstances than most. Only takes a dicey CPC on even a small load to leak a few mA, and, it only takes a few mA.

Saddest thing is in the regs there is as much mention of livestock safety as there is human - but no-one can predict when a cable is going to get damaged after a particularly wet week.

As for subtereanean cable- there are loads out there, all forgotten, some live some not and the A&S Cable Spiker is as popular as ever when you find one.

koodokan · Feb 15, 2011

It was said in news paper that the 2 horses that died were wearing steel shoes and the others were wearing aluminum ones,surley steel is a poorer conductor? Also if underground cables are 230/400 volts then why were only horses affected? Safe touch voltage for humans is 50V and 25V for animals so why the lower potential?

rocker · Feb 15, 2011

Koodokan look through this post, it's been explained 3 or 4 times why horses are more prone than humans.

pushrod · Feb 15, 2011

koodokan said:
It was said in news paper that the 2 horses that died were wearing steel shoes and the others were wearing aluminum ones,surley steel is a poorer conductor? Also if underground cables are 230/400 volts then why were only horses affected? Safe touch voltage for humans is 50V and 25V for animals so why the lower potential?

This has been explained by various posters in this thread, certainly if you read my posts at #18 and #28 they deal with this.

Re the aluminium Vs steel shoe point the conductive path may well have not even be through the shoe as that is nailed to the hoof which is quite likely to possess fairly low conductivity. It is more likely that survival of other horses was down to total chance and their position in the diminishing potential field around the damaged underground conductor.

koodokan · Feb 15, 2011

rocker said:
Koodokan look through this post, it's been explained 3 or 4 times why horses are more prone than humans.

Missed some of earlier replies,just read them.Explains part of my question about voltage ect but not about shoes being different metals.

telectrix · Feb 15, 2011

ther's not a lot of difference in the conductivity of steel and aluminium. i just think that 1 horse was lucky, nothing to do with the shoes.

Paul.M · Feb 15, 2011

It boils down to the number of electrons surrounding the nucleus of the atom. Eg cooper has 27 therefore a good conductor. Steel has about 26 I think and carbon horse shoes are a semi conductor (depends upon the materials added at manufacturing if it conducts or not)

Penance · Feb 15, 2011

telectrix said:
ther's not a lot of difference in the conductivity of steel and aluminium. i just think that 1 horse was lucky, nothing to do with the shoes.

I reckon you are bang on there.
Assuming the thickness of the shoe is the same as horse shoes i have seen the it is only about 15 - 20mm, i doubt the metal type would make much difference in that thickness.