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It’s a real shame, and yet so predictable with his dodgy jumping. Should this horse have been racing in chases after his past jumping faults?!
zome, I also couldn’t figure out why on earth they were persevering with chases, when the horse was obviously a lot better over the flaps. Bacchanel was unbackable for me as I am fully aware he is better at hurdling. So why aim him at a chase? I don’t understand it.
Come on yuo can’t blame the connections for this tragedy. Are we talking about the same horse anyway, the horse that has finished 3rd in the last two King Georges, the horse who won a Aon chase, the Reynoldstown and the Feltham! His hurdles and chase ratings were virtually the same! It was an accident, nobody’s fault, just one of those things.
My point was mainly that the horse had a better chance of winning the staying hurdle than the gold cup.
I was watching the race without commentary, so I wasn’t aware the fall was fatal until I saw the dreaded chequered flags on the next circuit.
I was under the impression the blinkers seemed to have sorted out his jumping; he seemed much straighter with only a few occasional kinks. I don’t think connections can be blamed for persisting with him; he was top class and they were working hard on improving his jumping.
A very sad day for racing, I will miss Baccanaal.
Such good racing today and then this has to happen. He was a real gutsy horse, that low head carriage and he always looked like he was really stretching his neck out. RIP Bacchanel.
He was as good at chasing as hurdling more or less, and the result of today’s race was going to be the decider of whether he would have gone for the Stayer’s or the Gold Cup.
Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. Sickening and cruel to see that happen so quickly and finally. RIP Bacchanal, we’ll miss your gutsy racing style and your brilliant jumping.
absolutely gutted
at first i blamed the connections for sticking the blinkers on as i doubted very much this would help his jumping and he still jinked right even at the early fences. i espcially doubted the wisdom round cheltenham which must be the worse course possible for him. on later reflection though has this horse ever jumped properly he’d have been the best for some time and i can understand the connections wanting to try everything to that end..i just hope they’ve learnt something from this for the future
What a crappy day.
First of all heard that Davenport Milenium was out for the rest of the season and then this happened.
Poor Bacchanal.
Exactly……poor Bacchanal.
Lump in throat & tear in eye watching the race.
I have always loved NH & always will, but days like this make you wonder a little.
He will always be lumbered with a "bad" jumper tag – but does he deserve that?
He may have had is quirks and always skewed to the right in the air, but I don’t recall him ever falling over fences before – is that right?
I had just thought how well he jumped the fence before and to my eyes watching it on C4 I thought his leg broke as he landed – therefore nothing to do with being a dodgy jumper. I didn’t video it so couldn’t be sure but I knew he’d had a terrible accident before the commentator even said so.<br>So so sad.
I love NH racing, always have always will, but I have major reservations about the strain that Cheltenham places on horses.
It’s all very well saying that an accident such as todays can happen anywhere, but cast your minds back down the years to horses that have been fatally injured at the Grade 1 tracks. I can barely remember a fatality at Sandown, Newbury, Chepstow or Haydock, whilst Ascot gets the odd one now and again. Aintree has it’s own set of circumstances that I don’t think are relevant to my point.
Both the Cheltenham tracks are totally unforgiving with open ditches placed at the slowest uphill parts of the courses, and have turns to negotiate all the time – the Pillar chase runners had to turn left to varying degrees 12 times today for example. The fences are no stiffer than those at the other tracks but because the horses are under so much strain they either dont get high enough or have trouble sorting out the landing gear. Todays going was officially Good to Soft but how tired was Behrajan up the run-in – Johnson did his carpet beating impression just to maintain the crawl to the line – not a pretty sight and after the demise of Bachanal he had an uncontested lead.
By all means enjoy Cheltenham – I’ve been on a number of occasions and it is a fantastic arena for NH racing, but the track is a killer in more ways than one and Bachanal is only the latest in a long line of horses to die in action there and I’m afraid the list will be added to sooner rather than later. Before posting I made a list of the horses that I remember dying at Cheltenham down the years, (Lanzarote onwards), and came up with 27 without much effort – I shudder to think what the total would be if I dug the form books out.
Rest In Peace Bacchanal
Here’s hoping there’s a right handed track in horsey heaven.
I was just enjoyng seeing him flying at the fences with his ears back, as if he was enjoying himself and feeling proud. I’m not saying his flights were necessarily the height of elegance, but he seemed to be feeling good about them.
I`ve never been so upset about a horse not coming home for a long while .<br>Bacchanal :crying:
I know Bacchanal was a really top-flight chaser, but I still don’t belive he was a natural, but that it was his incredible athleticism that won the day, so to speak.
I remember a trainer called Richard Morley saying how some horses were natural hurdlers and some natural chasers, as there were different respective requirements for them. Obviously, some were able to excel at both, such as Champion Hurdle winners who were able to go on and win the Gold Cup, as I seem to remember there have been. On the other hand, there must be others who show as much aptitude for either, as my wife seems to think I show for coordinating my passage across the road with the flow of the traffic…! (It makes me mad when she says "watch the road"! when I go out).
Incidentally, I hope the old boy’s flattening his ears was enthusiasm, and not nervousness or fear. <br>
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