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Schooled over eight “fences”. Rather French style hurdles…
“Our hurdles are on the grass, so he couldn’t jump them”
So I guess they don’t water their grass at Seven Barrows
I still don’t understand how this could have been a “crucial” schooling session. Any horse in his yard could jump those baby fences they way he did.
There is nothing special about the entire article. It won’t tell a thing no matter what the outcome at Punchestown will be. But, at least they’ll go there.So I watched a reply of a race run on the inside course at Puncestown on 20 February this year and the only hurdle you got a view of directly from behind was the one going away from the stands and that had the orange boards on the bottom and top of the flight. Oddly enough when you look at the hurdles front side on all the dividers inbetween the birch are white in colour.
Unless anything has changed in the last few months to the contrary, I would expect that it will be the same make up for the hurdles on the outer course as well.
I know they’re made of foam and are said to be safer but I hate the sound of the horses knocking the top of the new style hurdles.
Irish hurdles are marked with orange and are the traditional style, not padded.
I’m not sure what good schooling over any type of fence will do. He needed to learn to get in a bit closer to his hurdles, not jump them bigger than he’s already doing imo.
That being said, I expect him to jump the Punchestown hurdles much better than the new padded style at Aintree and Cheltenham.
Wonder who decided orange hurdles was the thing in the first place? Don’t know why anyone would prefer them to white ones, white is much easier on the eye to me never mind the horses.
Reminds me of when Greg Norman introduced orange golf balls to golf for a few quid, they didn’t last long.Heres a good comparison between the traditional style and new padded hurdles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2g58vxnexo
I think the padded hurdles definitely look like they’d appear to be more imposing to a horse, especially with sunlight beaming down on them.
I think this is possibly the reason why Constitution Hill has been extremely guessy with his jumping at Cheltenham and Aintree this year.
State Man’s final flight fall was very out of character also.
They also do seem to spring back sometimes. In general, though, there do appear to be less falls when they’re used but I could be wrong about that.
I can’t believe this has made news, a horse has schooled over eight fences HOLD THE FRONT PAGE!
The more I know the less I understand.
No doubt they will come up with another idea that a different colour are seen better by horses for jumping (how in god’s name anyone would know what colour a horse sees better than any other is anyone’s guess) and change them again.
I actually prefer the original orange ones as they are not as garish on the eyes as the brilliant white colour is – I am also not of the opinion that this change of colour on the hurdles has caused CH jumping issues to materialise, he was inches away from falling when going very long at the last when he won his Champion Hurdle and he was absolutely fine jumping around Kempton first time out with the white hurdles.
This jumping issue seems to be that when he is on an overly long stride he looks to go long and then changes his mind to take an extra stride right at the time he launches and subsequently he does neither and as a result barely even makes it halfway up the flight with his front hooves – they said they schooled him extensively bewtween Cheltenham and Aintree only for him to do the exact same thing again at Aintree.
Rather than schooling him over some baby fences maybe they needed to purposefully get him to meet a series of hurdles on the wrong stride so that he has to go in and shorten his stride and pop the hurdle instead.
Pretty certain if he does win there will be some sort of mention of the different colour of the hurdles making the difference. What will be interesting is if they decide to change tactics and let him bowl along instead of sitting in with him.
“How in god’s name anyone would know what colour a horse sees better than any other is anyone’s guess”.
This is how horses are believed to see orange and white:
LD73
He has no issue jumping the traditional hurdles with white markings like at Kempton or in his Champion Hurdle win.
It’s the new padded hurdles used at Cheltenham & Aintree where his overall fluency hasn’t looked great. He’s been taking off too early and also getting too much height over those hurdles on a few occasions.
In the head on shots I’ve seen of the padded hurdles on race days, I think they do look more imposing than the traditional style especially in sunlight. They have more white on them and appear to reflect a lot of light.
I agree with you on the orange markings and prefer them also.
Regards the schooling over fences, I’d posted similar to you earlier. In my opinion, he needed to be taught to get in closer to the hurdles and jump them more economically rather than jump any bigger than he’s already doing.
Who am I to critique Henderson on how to school a horse though lol. I’m sure he knows the right thing to do.
I’m guessing he thinks the falls may have frightened him a little so by jumping a few fences, the hurdles will look a lot less scary in a few days time.
CAS – ‘are believed’ still leaves a lot of doubt but assuming it is correct on how they see them, does that equate into them paying more attention to them and/or jumping them better because they are framed in white over orange?
I am not certain it makes one jot of difference as to what colour they see them as when they approach them, you assume that whatever the colour is that is bordering the flight that they will still clearly see it as an hurdle/fence in their path that they have been trained to jump over.
We see experience and inexperienced horses jump in all kinds of ways and not always in the same way at consecutive obstacles, a lot of the time they will ultimately decided themselves (sometimes with some input from the jockey) on whether they will be brave and jump it cleanly on a long stride or be cautious (going against what the jockey is asking them to do) and take an extra stride and pop it.
Don’t recall hearing from jockey(s) that have come out and said that the horse they were riding is now jumping so much better since the colour change…….that improvement could just as easily be because the horse has more confidence/experience, was simply on good terms with themselves and having a going day or the penny has finally dropped with what they are being asked to do.
Being sentient animals there could be a whole host of reasons why some do and some don’t jump well or started out jumping well and then got worse or vice versa and everyone of those reason could potentially have absolutely nothing to do with what the colour of the hurdle/fence is.
At the end of the day, CH could have just had his luck run out on him by continuing to stand to far off one hurdle too many in back to back races, whereas in the past that luck was on his side.
The fall in the Champion Hurdle can be attributed, in part at least, to Brighterdaysahead clattering the flight immediately in front of Constitution Hill, resulting in the hurdle not being where it was when the horse was taking off.
The fall at Aintree is less easy to explain.
I maintain that making the running, as he has done in the past, is the best thing for the horse: remove the risk of something else getting in his way, as at Cheltenham.
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