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Does anyone know whether there have been any injuries or fatalities after today’s racing? I sincerely hope not for fear of giving further ammunition to organisations like Animal Aid.
Does anyone know whether there have been any injuries or fatalities after today’s racing? I sincerely hope not for fear of giving further ammunition to organisations like Animal Aid.
Who cares about the possible ammunition they might get? The horses count the most and they should come first. Not the fear….. The fear doesn’t count much, only the fact if they all come back safely.
And if not, then the circumstances that led to the injury. Today’s fatal faller jumped perfectly throughout the race, but he fell at the toughest fence on the course right now, the Canal Turn.
No matter how safe you make it we are still talking about half a ton of flesh and blood travelling north of 30mph jumping a 4-5ft obstacle. The law of averages will eventually catch up at some point like they very sadly did at Cheltenham this year.
The sport has been incredibly lucky to avoid National fatalities recently but sadly you know we are just 1 away from having the sport called into question again by those who are maybe only a couple of times a year viewers or the ban racing altogether brigade that only seem to really surface at this time of year.
Fingers firmly crossed that we don’t lose any more of these magnificent animals at this meeting.
The sad irony of Lilbitluso’s demise in the Foxhunters was that up until that fence, it had been the jumping performance of his life.
Those of us who’d seen him between the flags frequently in the preceding years had long harboured a few concerns that his quick, flattish but often one-note style of jumping would hinder his progress either around bigger courses with bigger fences and/or once the win penalties started to stack up; and those fears had been realised in the more recent past.
Aintree, however, was inspiring him to bend his back and improvise like never previously, until that misjudgment at the Canal Turn which did not appear at first glance to be the worst-looking fall you’ll ever see by any means, but which quickly proved first grave and then terminal.
As an added poignant note Lilbitluso’s regular work rider Vicki Park had died suddenly on the weekend of her local Flint & Denbigh point-to-point fixture at Bangor-on-Dee in mid-March. It had been the intention that the Foxhunters would have been both her and the gelding’s valedictory, with Park leading her pride and joy around the paddock and both enjoying retirement thereafter. Tragically, neither lived to.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
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