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In the interest of horse care and welfare, that didn’t look good at all, i have to say.
The winner only just got over the last fence, and it looked as though the horse that finished second, wasn’t actually going to get his hind legs over the final fence.
He was absolutely out on his feet and stopped after the last fence.
A very game, gutsy and determined performance from the winner.
- Total Posts 102
Think the place should be closed, imo the ground has been totally inconsistent and patchy for a very long time now and im surprised that it went ahead
It was a pretty bleak spectacle all told, these weren’t a bunch of namby pamby ex-flat novice hurdlers that were having a hissy fit because they’d got a bit of mud on their hooves, there were horses in the field who had won over 4m+ on heavy ground and yet they still absolutely out on their feet.
I didn’t know until after racing had finished that Morgan Be had completed.At the previous meeting there were only a handful who could put one hoof in front of the other at the finish of the chases, so it really came as no surprise to see how the Eider Chase finished. Much as I like my staying chases, this event does pose questions as to the advisability of running such events in bottomless ground.
Thankfully most jockeys saw fit to pull up their mounts when tired instead of chasing place money. I’m not sure that would have been the case in the past. I presume that Morgan Be was given a rest before completing since he was first off noted as having pulled up then ‘eventually completed’.
All credit to Companero for clearing the last from a virtual walk. How Giles Cross got over, I’m really not sure.
I believe that Newcastle have carried out drainage work in the last couple of years. On that basis the meeting would presuambly have been called off in the past.
Rob
I’ve seen similar at Uttoxeter in the past. There was the race where only Iris’s Gift finished and the other two finishers had a race from the final hurdle having both stopped approaching it and turned.
But I agree – a 4m race in those conditions is a pretty desperate spectacle. Giles Cross literally walked through the last.
- Total Posts 17716
I don’t know if they did but any caring person would’ve got off the horses as soon as they crossed the line. My heart was thumping out my chest when the first 2 home jumped the last couple. I thought they was gonna collapse
They were told on Tuesday there was nothing they could do to save him, whether he was put down not heard.
I find the whole idea and discussion of reducing the Eider in distance laughable, much like Giles Cross’ trainer.
I didn’t hear people scrambling for the Midlands National to be scrapped when the same horse finished an equally tired runner up and then blow me both the first and second in that race go on to be first and second in the Welsh National. Sure didn’t end those horses careers did it?
And Tom Segal writes that if the ground comes up heavy in future the race should be reduced in distance on the day. Hasn’t really considered what that then does to the ante post market given his position has he and presumably he feels we should do the same for the National. Segal can be a buffoon on occasion.
And the postscript of the race for me is that when I think back on this season my equine hero won’t be the winner of the Byrne Group Plate, Coral Cup or the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle it will be plucky old Companero, a brut of a horse by a proper National Hunt stallion out of an extremely robust mare and built for such a job…something that can’t be said for an ever increasing number of horses entering the NH sphere and that’s where the real problem lay.
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