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First race of the day and all the hurdles in the home straight are being omitted due to low sun.
It might as well be a bumpers for jumpers meeting.
Now missing out all five fences in the home straight in the first Chase of the day. The last fence must be about six furlongs from home.
Its a long home straight
a bit like the weatherspoons in Taunton goes on forever got to be about 6 or 7 furlongs the finish line to the last jumpMember since March 2008Champagne Rhythm was 13 lengths fifth to Stage Star here in a bumper.
A decent chance perhaps with so many hurdles omitted in the 2.35.
Isabel Williams takes five pounds off the horse’s back.What baffles me with this situation in general is that it seems to be a much more recent thing as I don’t recall very many times during all the time I have watched racing where fences were omitted as regularly as they are now.
I remember a Sandown meeting when the Pond Fence got omitted for low sun and I had just happened to have watched a YouTube video of Sprinter Sacre winning the Tingle Creek and low and behold there was low sun and he and Sanctuaire jumped the Pond Fence pretty much headon into the sun as the attached clearly shows.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O4QtHB53iRA/hqdefault.jpg
Are jockey’s making assumptions that horses (who see things vastly differently to humans) can’t see the fence in direct sunlight or is this suddenly become a jockey issue where it didn’t appear to be in the past?
I remember a meeting at Sedgefield when all the fences were omitted due to low sun in the back straight because it was claimed it would be too difficult for the horses to see them. They ran past all the fences and the leader then promptly took a crashing fall at the first supposedly safe fence!
When fences were omitted at Punchestown yesterday, Kevin O’Ryan said something like “It is disappointing but safety is paramount.” If you are going to take that to its logical extreme, you would never jump any fences.
The problem is our increasingly litigious culture and racecourses are terrified of being sued. I wonder if this is playing even more heavily on their minds since the Tylicki ruling?
Peter scudamore has said that in all his time riding not only did they never omit jumps but he couldn’t recall ever having any issues with low sun.
It must have moved.
2 points: first, many of us have noticed that horses’ eyes are on the side of their heads. Obviously they can still see things in front but they don’t see the world as we do. I am no expert in ocular biology but the fact that predators of horse-like creatures aren’t documented as driving them into the sun as a hunting technique suggests they aren’t that affected by glare. Jockeys a different matter of course and I’m sure a panicking jockey can cause a horse to fall. I can’t believe there isn’t some sort of goggle that may do the trick (skiers seem to manage).
Second, failing that, how about deploying one of those intrusive blimps? Instead of marring the racegoers’ experience at big meetings, they could be parked to block the sun on at least some of the jumps. May not be a solution for a Monday at Chepstow but got to be worth it for major events.
Like others, I’m not convinced this is a real problem anyway but still disappointed in the lack of imagination shown by racing authorities in their response (not for the first time).
When this first started happening at Cheltenham John Francome asked why they couldn’t just erect a screen at the top of the run in. It’s a fair point, work out exactly where the sun is when it causes issues and put some poles in that position with a black tarpaulin which you pull up whenever the sun is causing problems.
Sorted.
Pretty sure I remember something along the lines of they worked out that in order for that to be effective, it would end up having to be so ridiculously high that it wasn’t actually feasible to implement it.
The technology is around for normal glasses where the lens automatically reacts to sunlight by darkening to protect the eyes so I don’t see why that cannot be incorporated into racing goggles as some jockey’s already have tinted version that they wear……..like most things it would probably be a cost issue but you would think that the BHA and other interested parties would look into the development of something like that if the end results would mean potentially not having to doll off multiple hurdles/fences the moment the sun makes an appearance in the sky.
I’m almost certain this has something to do with Charles Montgomery Burns and his sinister plans.
BUY THE SUN
“am no expert in ocular biology but the fact that predators of horse-like creatures aren’t documented as driving them into the sun as a hunting technique suggests they aren’t that affected by glare.”
Corpora nigra innit?
Good point about the hunting technique which would almost certainly have evolved if zebras were more affected than lions.
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