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Good ground yesterday? Given the start time of 5.15 it should be no surprise. An hour earlier on the Mildmay course though we had the supposedly mud loving Sam Brown romping away with the handicap chase. Difficult to draw any conclusions.
There seemed to be a lot of horses being hampered at various stages despite the width of the track being used. I expect field sizes will be reviewed
“When a horse such as Crystal Ocean is marketed as a NH sire, you know there’s a problem.”
I believe Mogul is being sold as an NH sire as well.
Two of my favourite jumps horses were both trained by Peter Beaumont. Young Kenny and Jodami.
Will we see their likes again, I wonder?
Most Derby winners are NH sires nowadays. Even siring a Derby winner isn’t enough to make the flat register (Pour Moi).
Unless they are gelded like Serpentine.
BUY THE SUN
Unfortunately with the demise of the owner-breeder has come speed speed speed. Takes longer for flat stayers to show their abilities than it does for sprinters or milers. So breeders (or rather “owners” / buyers) don’t want to wait.
Those not good enough at 1m2f (like Crystal Ocean) are deemed too likely to produce stayers so are marched off to become National Hunt sires.
Value Is EverythingPreviously Sam Brown has been best on officially Soft or Heavy, Pilgarlic. Disappointed on good and Irish “good to yielding” but has never run on good-soft before yesterday; a surface that does have give underfoot. Sam Brown ran on a different course to the grand national anyway and race times suggest it was good-soft on the Mildmay.
However, the Grand National course Topham on Friday looked a Good ground time and the Grand National itself doesn’t just look a good ground time, 0.94 fast looks impossible on genuine good-soft. Well, unless Any Second Now is the 4m3f chase version of Constitution Hill.
Value Is EverythingIt seems very strange to someone on the outside such as me. The Derby, King George, and Arc are three of the most prestigous races in the entire pattern. So why doesn’t anyone want top class 1m4f horses as sires any more? You could call it a paradox.
BUY THE SUN
They are still the most prestigious races TTC, but it seems only if also able to win a 1m2f Group 1.
Daft but that’s the racing fashion.Value Is EverythingIt’s nuts, horses marketed as NH sires without proving they’re up to it. Yet an entire Gp1 Flat winner has won over hurdles in this country this year – okay so it was Ludlow, he was then retired and sent to France to stand at stud. He’s more of a NH than they’ll ever be; they’re Flat sires masquerading as NH sires.
“Silly decision to go around the 19th (the widest fence on the course). Could easily have jumped the outer two-thirds of the fence and was arguably more dangerous to squeeze the field through the narrow gap on the outside.”
I have never seen a race where horses would be ok to jump a fence where an injured horse and rider are receiving attention.
I love the national it is a great spectacle. Yes it can be chaotic and jockeys and horses get injured or God forbid worse. Every effort is taken to lessen the risk.
If you want a race with no risk take away the fences. Let’s not play rugby,football or cricket either it is too dangerous.And Sam horses go wrong and break legs etc just running on the flat.
Except dominoes perhaps, every sport carries some kind of risk but more so when you include horses.Listen to some people and we will have absolutely nothing left to watch.
GSP
Caribbean Dominoes is definitely a contact sport and has laid the groundwork for some of the greatest Rugby league players and cricketers this country has produced.“Let’s not play rugby,football or cricket either it is too dangerous.”
What is the fatality rate in the above mentioned sports? About 100 times lower than in horse racing. Let’s no compare apples with dominoes….
I guess the arguement animal rights protesters would give is humans are free to choose when taking part in a supposedly dangerous sport; horses aren’t.
Value Is EverythingJump racing comes with risk whichever course it is so i don’t think it was a horrible spectacle. In regards to the fatalitys, Discorama went lame and Eclair Surf in hindsight didn’t have to run as trainer raised concerns about his jumping during the season, but they went for it.
Illavim and Ginger made some good points further up about why it was wise not to jump the fence where the injured Eclair Surf was located.
You need to keep the injured horse as calm and still as possible, and having the field thundering past nearby is unlikely to help with this. I’d also add that it’s surprising how much distance a horse can cover when it makes a mistake or falls. Having another horse crashing into the area where the veterinary attention was being given would be terrible from both a welfare and a PR perspective.
It’s also best to take a consistent approach re omitting fences as some jockeys have enough difficulty interpreting the rules even before we introduce areas of ambiguity.
Here we probably go again with the Kneejerkers & Tinkerers Club at the BHA and Aintree Executive coming up with other great ideas in how to back themselves and NH racing into a corner.
Next on the agenda field sizes as if that would have saved Discorama when the field had already been reduced at the time of his sad injury on the flat.
Remember how they reduced the widths of the fences to allow run offs and then all horses came together at Bechers resulting in Dooneys Gate horrific fall in 2011?
At the end of the day 3 horses fell independently on Saturday and if 40 horses had run over that distance over a widened park course at the same speed encountered on good ground I’m pretty sure the ‘carnage’ would have been much the same.
We lost another horse in the Scottish National the previous Saturday but I haven’t heard a call to reduce the maximum field of 30 not that 30 ran anyway.
Aintree is not Ayr. Saturday’s deaths were nothing to do with field size. However, there will be a time when field size kills. The course may be pretty wide but Canal Turn is a right angle. So pretty much only around three horse widths in the corner of the fence is ever used. Forty or near forty horses jumping one corner. Difficult for many to take evasive action when all are aiming at one small section of the fence. At some point in the future one or two prominent horses will fall, bringing down many more. Lives will at some point be lost with such an incident and suspect it’ll be then when the number of runners will be reduced.
Value Is Everything
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