Just around the time Sir Peter Cosgrove was presenting the Melbourne Cup, describing the event as a celebration of life, Red Cadeaux was being loaded on to a veterinary ambulance.

That’s a flash term for a truck.

“He’s gone to Werribee,” said Channel 7 commentator Bruce McAvaney, but with memories of Admire Rakti and Araldo fresh in the memory, many of us heard ‘heaven’.

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Red Cadeaux, however, is nothing if not persistent, and at 5:30pm news emerged from his trainer Ed Dunlop that the 10-year-old was expected to recover.

“He’s eating grass … he looks happy, has fluids,” Dunlop said.

“It’s a bad injury but it should be repairable. I thought he was going to be put down. At this stage he hasn’t, he’s obviously immediately retired.”

Red Cadeaux is attended to by vets at Flemington. Photo: AAP

University of Melbourne vet Dr Chris Whitton said the injury was not life threatening but Red Cadeaux will not race again.

The vets were talking to other world-leading equine orthopaedic surgeons to come up with a plan to repair the injury.

Dr Whitton said Red Cadeaux would not undergo surgery on Tuesday, given the horse is comfortable, and several options are being considered to treat him.

His last win came in the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase in 2012. He had only seven wins from 54 starts, but was always good for a place.

Becky Dunlop, the wife of trainer Ed Dunlop, walks along the race track as her horse Red Cadeaux fails to finish. Photo: AAP

That’s why Australian racing fans loved him so much. He finished second in the Melbourne Cup three times between 2011 and 2014, and he was the sentimental favourite to take out the 2015 edition.

He won more than $8 million in prize money, making him the most successful British horse – in terms of prize money – ever.

In the last race he completed he was third in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes in August.

The lure of going one better at Flemington caused the horse’s owners to bring him back for another tilt at the gruelling two-miler.

Just metres from the end, the 10-year-old’s fetlock fractured and he collapsed.

Last year, when Red Cadeaux claimed his second-placing in the Cup, Dunlop said he was something special.

“He’s a late-maturing horse. He takes care of himself,” he said. “A nine-year-old horse needs some maintenance.

“We’ve all seen champions around the world and there will be many better horses than him, but for the horse to do what he’s just done is mind-boggling.

“I hope they love him for a long time.”

They will.

Red Cadeaux, in his glorious, beautiful failure, will be remembered long after the names of Dunaden, Fiorente and Protectionist – the horses that beat him on the first Tuesday in November – have faded from the mind.