She’s A Maneater, in her third race as a four-year-old, produced by far her worst performance yet, finishing last of six starters in the Grade One The Viceroy Trophy over nine furlongs (1800 metres) at Caymanas Park on Saturday.

This caused grave concern for ardent racegoers and questions began to be asked as to exactly what happened to the filly when the gates opened to signal the start of the race. She’s A Maneater seemed to have pitched forward at the back of the field of six runners and, although hard ridden, never managed to recover to be competitive thereafter.

Trainer DaCosta related in the post-race interview to the Supreme Racing Guide what might have happened: “What I saw was when the gates opened for the race to begin, she pitched and went down on both knees and she took a while to recover. The jockey came back and reported that the sand in lane four (where She’s A Maneater exited) was not properly wet, so when she grabbed leaving the gate (at the beginning of the her race), the sand that which was only wet on the surface started to come apart and she just tilted over. When the jockey came back after the race, he reported it to the Stewards who reported it the track manager. They then went around where the incident took place and they saw exactly what the jockey reported was true: the track was not wet properly at the front of gate four and that caused her to pitch forward.”