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Platinum Kingdom, the classy Kiwi star who won Group and Listed races in Sydney and Brisbane last season, has died in New Zealand.
Photo by Racing and Sports
The Lisa Latta-trained four-year-old was in pre-training when he suffered colitis and subsequently had to be put down with laminitis.
“It was really sad and it was all ahead of him. It was pretty gut-wrenching for us, the owners and all of the staff,” said Latta.
Platinum Kingdom enjoyed an outstanding three-year-old season in NZ and Australia.
He won the Listed Metalon and Southland Guineas and then beat the older horses at Trentham before finishing third to Survived in the G3 Manawatu Classic.
The son of Magnus then became Latta's first Australian winner when he won the Listed South Pacific Classic at Randwick in April before an unlucky fourth in the Listed Hawkesbury Guineas.
Platinum Kingdom then headed to Queensland where he won the G3 Fred Best Classic at Doomben.
He was then unplaced in the G2 Queensland Guineas and had what proved to be his final career start when fourth in the Listed Daybreak Lover at Eagle Farm.
Platinum Kingdom won nine of his 19 starts plus seven minor placings for earnings of $343,721.
Meanwhile the Melbourne spring campaign of the highly rated Kiwi three-year-old Cauthen is over.
Connections decided to pull the plug on further starts in Melbourne following his failure at Flemington last Saturday.