On Feb 13, 10:50*am, harry wrote:
On Feb 13, 11:40*am, wrote:

On 13 Feb, *
* * (greenaum) wrote:

Bloke on news said the cable'd been untouched for at least 30 years. I
suppose maybe the insulation could've worn down. It's interesting to
see posts from people who know about this sort of thing, something you
never get on the news.

Probably aluminium cable from the 70s. Corroded badly by now.

--
* B Thumbs
* Change lycos to yahoo to reply

No reason to be. The armouring would be double steel tapes or double
steel wire. *The corrosion bit was on the joints when it occured.

Electric cable theory;

The trouble with all this is that they spike paddocks to airate them
before a race meeting; they could sever an unknown cable by doing
that. Due to the very wet nature of the ground, if the cable came into
contact with another cable, even if the first was not live the contact
would be able to make it so, and that way the cables would both be
live, hence capable of killing the horse even from an unused cable.

Equines and electric;

As for the earlier comment on why it took so long for the horses to
die if it was electricity - electricity can stop the heart and can
interfere with the nervous system, but it is not always an immediate
effect of death. Potential difference across the heart can cause it
the fibrilate (flutter) or stop altogether, so the first doesn't kill
the animal for a very long time, if at all eg Kid Cassidy could have
been affected in this way. The second (heart stopping) is a slower way
of dying than you'd think - it's possible to have a human's heart stop
for several seconds at a time, many times a day as they age (in
certain heart conditions) and for the person not to die. Horses are on
a larger scale but I expect it works in the same way. So electrocution
is very much possible.

(Also)

My concern is that they really need to review the CCTV because you're
right - the cable would be a really odd thing to happen, really very
rare. My fear is that someone may have been using a taser or something
similar to strike the horses. A live cable would have affected the
grooms more (most only reported getting shocks off the horses, not the
grass), and the other horses when they walked over that part of the
paddock.