‘He’s literally risen from the dead!’ Haaland the horse’s incredible recovery from heart attack

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A racehorse named Haaland has ‘literally risen from the dead’ to win again on the track. The New Zealand-bred seven-year-old, who is trained in Australia , is one of a number of equines to share the same name as Manchester City ’s prolific Norwegian striker Erling Haaland .

But he doesn’t score as regularly as the Premier League star having a record of two wins, six seconds and four third from 22 career starts. Yet he reached a notable goal last week when he broke a long barren spell to record his first victory at a metropolitan track, the top division of Australian racing, at Sandown-Hillside in Victoria.

Haaland, who had not won in 800 days, won a £25,000 handicap under jockey Lucinda Boyd, who is also his trainer.

Wearing a striking green a white-chequered visor the horse was driven out to win by a neck, giving his 28-year-old the 118th victory of her riding career and the tenth since she took out a training licence.

The success sparked emotional scenes in the winners' circle between Boyd and husband Anthony who run their small Ballarat yard together.

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“The horse has been really deserving of the win,” Lucinda told Racing.com . “I am so rapt that he has done it.

“He was the fittest horse and he was coming back in trip with the headgear and I was hoping that might do the trick.

“At one stage we had 18 in work and it’s just the two of us. The kids slog it out with us. They are really long days but days like this make it pay off.”

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However on Tuesday she revealed there was a lot more to the success than she had initially let on.

“This horse had atrial fibrillation and he had to go to Melbourne and get put on the table and was shocked 11 times to get his heart back into rhythm. In recovery he actually had a heart attack," she expalined.