THE painful sight of Diamond Mile favourite She’s A Maneater bursting through her starting stall door and wildly running around in the infield brought shock and disbelief to many who witnessed the incident.

The She’s A Maneater disturbance, trainer of the filly, Wayne DaCosta and his main rival Anthony Nunes were locked in a titanic struggle to gain the ascendancy in the trainers’ championship with the $14-million Diamond Mile being the rich decider.

Just before the actual running of the Diamond Mile itself, Nunes and DaCosta had both saddled three winners each.

Nunes, who was the winning trainer of the final race after the Diamond Mile paid little attention to his success with Exhilarate as he was left saddened by the failure of the top filly getting to compete in the Diamond Mile.

“You may not believe it, but when I saw She’s A Maneater breaking out of her starting gate, I felt sad, really sad, as I thought that was not good for horse racing.

“No true horseman is going to be pleased with such an incident in such an important race and occasion. It is to me extremely unfortunate and for that, I feel very, very saddened for the connections that she did not get to compete to show her class and how great a filly she is today (Saturday, December 1, 2018),” an emotional Nunes stated.

Turning his attention to the Diamond Mile which ended with his Bigdaddykool losing by a short head to Will In Charge at the death, Nunes said: “We lost by a short head but if Halledeen (the jockey on Will In Charge) was not showboating then he would have won easier and maybe if I did not get stopped at the 5/8ths pole, I thought that I would have got there but the ‘big man’ upstairs seems to know what he is doing and we are just playing a part in it”.