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Swinbank has made money buying 1m4f flat breds and running them in 2m bumpers. Winning slow paced races where NH bred runners do not have the pace at the finish.
Jump jockeys seem to believe they can still give 15 lengths start in a mile sprint.
I was once all for starting to (flat) race as three year olds instead of at two because I thought it was unfair to race a weak horse. Until the West Berkshire Racing Club had a vet as a panelist who had done a study in to which horses got the most injuries / spent most time injured.
The answer, not chasers or hurdlers or even two year olds, but bumpers.
It seems when older horses do not race until later in life their hooves etc. are fully formed. So it is more difficult to repair horses hooves. Where as with two year olds that get injured the growing process speeds the heeling process. And horses who race as two year olds are more inclined to be tougher, less suseptable to injury.So instead NH breds getting injuries when first sent hurdling, they are now getting them when running in bumpers.
Is it legalised schooling? You might think it is, I couldn’t possibly comment.
Mark
Value Is EverythingAh, DJ. Apart from Cheltenham, Aintree and Haydock, bumper racing is the only form of the winter game I can fully engage with.
Please don’t ban it!
At first I never understood the purpose of bumpers but then it clicked.
Horses bred for jumps generally want cut, and in some cases plenty of cut. If you are wanting to do away with bumpers and school potential jumpers on the flat then you are going to struggle to find cards where there is a) a 2 mile race on the card and b) there is suitable ground. If you think of how many bumper races there are in a season (and the size of the fields) and then imagine that all those horses are trying to get in on a card with a 2mile race where there is gd-sft, soft or heavy ground on the flat, which lets face it there arent that many of to be fair and field limits would be well exceeded by the demand, resulting in many not getting a run.
If you had a horse bred by roselier for example, and you wanted to put him through a 2 mile (or further) flat race as part of their overall racing prep that will eventually build towards a jumping careers, and bumpers didnt exist then you would spend the whole flat season (which remember runs over the summer) looking for a race with plenty of give in the ground and constantly training them up (on probably unsuitable training ground) and pulling them out of races as they keep coming up gd-fm, the better side of good, good etc.
Another factor, which has already been raised is speed of bumpers. Most jumps races arent actually run at paces similar to the flat, which is illuatrated by the fact that the last two winners of the champion hurdle were both 8/9/10f horses on the flat (as was the favorite for this years). If horses were to attack hurdles or fences at the same speed as if they werent there (ie the flat) then most wouldnt ever see out their trips with a jockey still attached.
On the flat IMO the purpose of the 2yo season is to train horses for speed which is why most milers will run over 6/7f at 2yo and most middle distance horses will run over 1 mile at 2. It is to get them to work on the speed that will see them finish out their races at 3, this also IMO why most horses who miss their 2yo season never really make it in the top grade at 3.
Likewise for jumps, if bumpers were to be run at furious gallops then what would come from them, horses would be training to run at gallops that they are unlikely to ever get in their races over jumps and wouldnt be trained to have the finishing speed to win their races over jumps. If anyone has ever done much training then they will surely know that you will build more muscle, and work your lungs more, doing "jog and sprint" interval training than going for a brisk jog in a quicker overall time, and to a lesser extent that is what you get in a bumper, and in most jumps races too. Where in many cases you need to find gears between fences (usually in the last quarter of the race), rather than just keep a momentum going for a full distance over obstacles.
This is also probably why horses who tend to do well in competetive paced bumpers (ie a champ bumper) dont tend to do well over jumps, and especially over the same distance as they were winning champion bumpers at, as the attributes which set them apart in a competetive 2 miles slog without fences are not the attributes necessary to win a 2 mile hurdle or a 2mile chase.
Another issue is that if you put a potential jumper out in a 2 mile race on the flat then you also have to train it to deal with going into a stall, which it would never have to do over jumps.
IMO bumpers have a purpose in the bigger picture, but I rarely ever bet them as I find them to be a nightmare to pick as they are really more of a training aid than a final target.
Bumpers are a great way of giving a horse a bit of experience or at least they should be. David hit the problem right on the head when he said they should be more exclusive and for jump horses only and not ex would be derby winners.
They have plenty flat races for them to run in.
If bumpers become easy picking for flat horses who may never run in a hurdle race what’s the point of having them?
I don’t really pay that much attention to them but surely they should be strictly for jump horses ? Perhaps it’s their way of getting as many entries as possible and brining more cash in that encourages them to have them are set up the way they are…….money is the route of all evil as they say.
Hardy Eustace won a high profile bumper in Ireland before going on to a three timer at Cheltenham
Personally I love bumpers – people tend to lump on whatever the fashionable stables are running and a good perusal in the paddock can often lead to a bit of value on something else. And it’s great when something you see win a bumper goes on to much better things.
In Ireland the bumper is often one of the hottest betting heats of the day – but their is a tendency over there to value ‘a buzz’ more than anything like form anyway!
Missed That was another champion bumper winner who went the right way. Pity he died so young, as he could have filled the current hole at the top of the Irish staying chaser scene.
Regarding the lack of suitable maiden races on the flat if bumpers were to be phased out, well, courses would put on more 12f+ maiden races to meet the demand. It shouldn’t be a problem at all
FoF, how can you make bumpers "more exclusive"? They’re already just about as exclusive as they could be, being restricted to horses who have never contested a "proper" flat race.
Posters keep on about "jumps bred" horses needing special races (bumpers), but what is a jumps bred horse?
There’s no such thing as a "jumping gene", so isn’t the term merely a euphemism for "slow, unsound horse"?
The point is you cannot deny that some horses are bred to jump, whether that’s through their pedigree, or was the intention when the breeder made the mating decision.
Maybe the owners of these increasingly lucrative (as they can cover mares all year round) jumping stallions should have to register their stallions as jumping stallions (for a fee) and the horses by those stallions would be eligable for bumpers? Could also help combat their rancid prizemoney.
The point is you cannot deny that some horses are bred to jump, whether that’s through their pedigree, or was the intention when the breeder made the mating decision.
I’m sorry as an earlier post alluded to this is a total fallacy no horses are bred to jump. Jumping is totally unatural to a horse and its something that a wild horse will never do and has to be taught. Horses are bred for longer distances, but certainly not to jump!
Sorry to be a bit pedantic
A horse like Ollie Magern is surely bred to be a better jumper than flat horse.
By Alderbrook out of a Monksfield mare.
I know Alderbrook won a Group 3 or was it a listed? But nobody would’ve expected Ollie to do any good on the flat but they would’ve over obsticles.
Mark
Value Is EverythingIf a horse is jump bred or even flat bred but looks asthough he’d do better over jumps:
What is the point of running it on the flat? Even in a bumper.
The best way for such a horse to gain experience for jumping is to run over jumps.
I know people keep quoting horses who win a bumper before doing well over hurdles or fences (Florida Pearl). But who’s to say these horses would not have done just as well if not better, had they gone straight over jumps? Seems to me they are almost wasting a year.Mark
Value Is EverythingThe point is you cannot deny that some horses are bred to jump, whether that’s through their pedigree, or was the intention when the breeder made the mating decision.
I’m sorry as an earlier post alluded to this is a total fallacy no horses are bred to jump. Jumping is totally unatural to a horse and its something that a wild horse will never do and has to be taught. Horses are bred for longer distances, but certainly not to jump!
Sorry to be a bit pedantic
There’s pedantic and there’s wrong.
These horses ARE bred to jump, that is the intention of those that breed them! You hear such things as "blah blah bred Best Mate", they bred them to jump.
Whether or not it is natural is a different, and pointless, discussion.
A good example of the growing plague of ‘championship’ bumpers is the one staged on the same card as the Tote Gold Trophy, Aon Chase and Game Spirit Chase.
In Feb 2009, this race, called the Winter Bumper, is classified as a Grade 2 race and carries prize money of £21,000.
It will be run as the sixth race on the card, immediately after a 0-140 handicap hurdle worth £16,000 and before a novice hurdle worth £10,000.
So to accomodate the bumper, all the hurdles will be taken down after the handicap, then put up again after the bumper in order to run the novice hurdle – total madness!
Maybe the owners of these increasingly lucrative (as they can cover mares all year round) jumping stallions should have to register their stallions as jumping stallions (for a fee) and the horses by those stallions would be eligable for bumpers?
But stallions marketed as jumping sires don’t cover mares all year round. Only fashionable flat sires that do that.
If a horse is jump bred or even flat bred but looks asthough he’d do better over jumps:
What is the point of running it on the flat? Even in a bumper.
The best way for such a horse to gain experience for jumping is to run over jumps.
I know people keep quoting horses who win a bumper before doing well over hurdles or fences (Florida Pearl). But who’s to say these horses would not have done just as well if not better, had they gone straight over jumps? Seems to me they are almost wasting a year.Mark
Its a learning curve ginge, walk before you can run, run before you can run and jump together. You could train a horse to jump all day, but if it hasnt ever raced then if you stick it straight into a jumps race, it wont be either physically or mentally prepared for what it is to do.
Usually the line of attack (with jumpers) is stick it out in a bumper, or a flat race so that it learns what racing is about, then introduce a small obstacle (like a hurdle) and if it jumps well enough then go for a bigger obstable (like a chase fence). There arent many horses that make their racing debut in a chase, and this would suggest that there is a lot of faith in this method. Henderson, Nicholls etc all use bumpers with their horses.
For the record, when people use the term jumps bred, they dont mean that the horse is bred to jump, more that it is bred to have the right attributes needed to compete in the national hunt season. For example Old Vic is usually one of the leading sires over jumps, but you generally dont see many of his at all on the flat. Why, because if you are planning to breed a horse to be competetive on the flat, there are plenty of other sires who have better attributes to comptete on the flat than old vic, so generally if you breed from old vic,it is pretty fair to say that you are aiming to get a national hunt season horse. Hence you would generally refer to old vics offspring as jumps bred.
I do not think it is fair or wise to make a rule in bumpers for sires to be either flat or jumps. What if you were into breeding, and thought for example that Refuse To Bend may be able to knock up a decent horse from a proven mare who has had plenty of success with jumpers, refuse to bend may be thought of as a flat sire. That would mean that you couldnt use bumpers to train your horse. Also, High Chaparral was very much thought to be a flat sire, but has looked much more like a jumps sire on the balance of what he has done so far, that would mean that his offspring couldnt compete.
To the best of my knowledge, neither Kauto Star, Master Minded or Denman ever ran in a flat race or a bumper.
And I know for certain that Supreme Glory (winner Welsh National, second Grand National) never ran in a flat race, a bumper or a hurdle race. He had one outing in an Irish point, was sold and sent straight over fences by his trainer.
Obviously there are exceptions AP. I dont know what way Foucher or McCaire do things in France, or indeed what training facilities they have but Kauto and Masterminded both made pretty decent hurdling debuts so perhaps it was felt thatthey didnt need a bumper prep (may be mistaken but did denman get picked up from point to points originally) .
There is no set rules with how to prepare a horse, but with the amount of trainer that field horses in them in GB and Ireland, they must clearly feel that many horses benefit from the experience. In much the same way as many chasers passing through hurdles first.
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