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I didn’t want to add any more as I think that Seabird has said all that needs to be said, really. (although GC makes some excellent points also!)
I just wanted to answer Firefox’s question about sending the horse hacking instead – connections felt that the horse wouldn’t have enjoyed hacking; he was strong at home and wanted to get on with his "proper" work, if you like, rather than pootling around. I know plenty that are very buzzy whilst out and about before getting on the gallops, it sounds like Happy was one of these.
Also, in fairness, there was as much chance of HH dying in a point to point in the same manner as under rules – after which much of the same would have been said anyway!
Pretty much ditto could be said about going out hunting – and with a horse reportedly as strong as HH it would be a little daft from a safety point of view to take him out hunting, ditto eventing.
A spirited and enjoyable riposte, Firefox.
Permit me to counter a few points once more.When they [sprinters] retire from racing I presume they go somewhere, be it a field, or to another pursuit. I cannot readily recall reading about too many, if any sprinters, being taken out of retirement because they were unhappy. So I am presuming the job of retraining them is working ok – unless they are being destroyed behind the scenes and we dont get to read about it.
Sadly the latter may be nearer the truth than you’d hope in some instances. A friend of mine intermittently involved with websites such as Famous Racehorses has also been entrusted with maintaning the bespoke websites of several licensed Flat trainers over the years. Nothing depressed him more, he told me on a couple of occasions, than having to remove lists of horses from the “in training” list on these sites once or more a year, having been given the word that these horses had made their final, one way trip away from the yard. These were, for a large part, sprinters regarded – rightly or wrongly – as mentally beyond passing on to another yard, a different equine discipline, or a rehabilitation centre.
Equally, another friend of mine worked for several years at the Bransby Equine Rehabilitation Centre in Lincolnshire. They ran the whole gamut of inmates from barge horses to Shetlands, but the types that invariably gave him the most headaches (some of them sadly insuperable) behaviour-wise were ex-sprinters.
Hope springs eternal, of course, and those former sprinters that appear in the Post‘s occasional “Where Are They Now?” series proves what can be achieved if the subjects in question are naturally prepared or otherwise re-programmed to relax. However, I’d be surprised if a straw poll of trainers found too many such animals being used as, say, their personal hacks, much less that many trainers who’d entertain the idea.
If the only genuine option was for Happy Hussar to be run into the ground until he collapsed and died then we are in a sad state of affairs.
“Run into the ground” is still possibly too loaded a way of putting it, given he’d still proven more than capable in the same grade only nine months previously and was having his first run back in it since. For reasons already suggested in this thread, being out on the course yesterday was probably regarded as the best option for him, given what connections know about him – not really the same as the only genuine one.
I sympathise with the sadness of connections, but given their time again would they honestly say they would not have given the Moorcroft Boy centre a try? After all the Pritchards train horses, they don’t rehabilitate them as far as I know, so was it their call that the horse was beyond rehabiliation? Putting it another way, could they have least have tried?
In common with all centres in the country, demand for places at Moorcroft far exceeds supply. It’s a perennial grumble of all involved in rehabiliation that they cannot take on more cases than they do, given the number of animals dropping out of training each year. Even if Bransby went “all racehorse” instead of its current mix tomorrow, it would still only be able to lighten the load by 250 (assuming the capacity is the same as when my associate worked there, and even before then assuming the centre has reopened following its outbreak of strangles last year).
Only the Pritchards will know to what extent they rehabilitate or put up for rehabilitation their horses post-Rules, but I’m not sure they’d be especially impressed at any suggestion that Happy Hussar ran on owing to a complete dearth of other options, be they rehabilitation, retirement or something other.
Grayson I dont think it was lazy to make the criticism many levelled at Pritchard for running inferior horses in big races
It was hugely lazy of the hacks of the day, of course it was! It was a stick to beat the Purton handler with whilst never so much as raising the issues in mitigation that;
– as mentioned previously, he was pointing out how to pick up good money that better trainers were too slow / daft / busy complaining about lack of opportunities to,
– aside from Fifth Generation and latterly Milligan, both of whom could and often did serve as pacemaker to others’ benefit, his runners possessed no additional threat to themselves or others compared to, say, an animal like Redemption who was classier but frequently a far less safe one to be around (especially over fences). A quick bit of research reveals that of the 23 runners Pritchard has sent out in Graded contests in the last five years, excluding the two pacemakers mentioned, only nine were going any better than last / behind by one quarter distance. Of these, pretty much the lot had assumed that position by halfway.
– hacking around for prize money is hardly what training is about – isn’t it about finding your horse’s level and trying to win races?
Motives across the whole of racing for running a horse are far more multifarious than that. The strapline of Pritchard’s training operation for many years has been “affordable fun”, and it is very much a plank of that philosophy to give owners occasional days out at better tracks and try to win them some nice money in good races at the same time. The bulk of his owners appear both to know and appreciate that, judged on how little one sees of Pritchard horses being pulled and moved elsewhere.
As far as I am aware horse’s need their confidence building to be competitive and often we hear trainers say “now he has got the confidence of getting his head in front we can go on from here”.
So doing what he did was hardly going to boost his horses confidence, even if he plundered a bit of prize money.
Most of his horses are utterly exposed when he acquires them and in many cases serial losers, too, so expecting them to run up sequences even at a more realistic level isn’t especially wise – run well to a point, yes, but not win one and then suddenly a hatful more off the back of that.
Not that this should be construed as any maltreatment of or acting against the better interests of the horses in question; they usually pop round carefully enough in those hotter contests or pull up out of harm’s way, are given sympathetic rides rather than being utterly pasted to live with the better horses for longer than they are entitled to, and none of them exhibit any significant signs of despising running.
Neither yourself of SL have successfully come up with an alternative to the events that brought about the sad demise of Happy Hussar which is very unfortunate.
How do you suggest we come up with a measurably successful alternative for Happy Hussar (for surely any such suggestion would need to come with its own success matrices)? Retiring him at 12, only for him to have died running into a post at home at 13 one year into a retirement, wouldn’t have counted as a more satisfactory outcome to me than letting him contest – and occasionally still get involved in – races for two year longer than that.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
I tell you what, ask my best friend who looked after Happy what he was like….. at the moment she is heartbroken! She spent many a hour with him, he would have hated retirement, some racers don’t take to it well and he was one, hence why they kept him going, he was a bugger to ride at home… this is the text she sent me: Imagine me giving a watery smile, he was my ‘one’, I was lucky to know him and know he loved me almost as much back, he went doing what he loved best…. he never looked right before the race, its easy to say she should have pulled him up earlier, but doubt it would have changed anything, today was his time, going for a big cry now
Firefox, I don’t really see the relevance of myself or GC coming up with another option for a now dead horse that neither of us owned or had any say whatsoever in what he did – it’s a moot point really!
What makes you say he was run into the ground? Or would continue to be? I do actually believe it was considered to make this his swansong yet I also believe connections were unsure what to do with him as they were sure he wouldn’t be happy out of training.
At what point do you draw the line? At all horses over the age of 12? At all horses once they hit 15? Where? What makes them definitively too old to race, not least when they are still full of life and loving their racing?
We have a 14 year old 3m chaser in training at home – he is still going strong and there is no talk of retirement for him on the cards as of yet. He is out in the field enjoying his summer break at the moment but will come in at the end of the summer to go back into training and yes, he will no doubt run as a 15yo. He would make someone a lovely hack yet he is full of life, can be a little bugger when he’s fresh, has run off with more people than you can shake a stick at (hasn’t managed it with me though!!!!) and will still p*ss off with someone on the gallops given half a chance. If shown this animal you wouldn’t put him at a day over 12. There is no reason why he should retire – he suffered a little stiffness earlier in the season but that is about it. Is my yard and trainer to be slagged off if he were to collapse in a race? If so, why would he deserve it anymore than, say, Henrietta Knight for running the obviously well over the hill Best Mate at Exeter
or any other horse who collapses and dies on a racecourse? There is no rhyme nor reason to heart attacks, anyone can be susceptible.As an aside, some of you might like to read the point to pointing website forum on Jumping For Fun where, after some vociferous attacks on Pritchard, someone who was riding in the race has posted that they had just pulled up when HH passed them coming into the last. They said he didn’t look exhausted at all, he popped the hurdle neatly having being "bowling along" at his own pace before he suddenly collapsed soon after the flight.
Racinggirluk – same friend!!!!
I’ve not been on JFF for a few days, SL – it’s a bit disappointing to learn that he’s been copping for it on there, given his background and pretty damn decent reputation in the point-to-point sphere in the early 1990s. That’ll be the same sphere, incidentally, in which the achievements (including, but not limited to, wins) of many horses even older than Happy Hussar have found favour on JFF and elsewhere over the course of this term.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
your protracted defence of Pritchard on these pages suggests the only option for owners unwilling to retire a horse to a field (which may require rehabilitation) is to race him until he drops dead.
No it doesn’t – it challenges that the assumption (all too easily trotted out when a veteran dies – see also Mighty Fine’s demise) that keeping a horse campaigning under Rules into his dotage is to keep him campaigning beyond the boundaries of sense.
Grayson it is a very poor argument that he is as likely to run into a gate post in a field as he is to die on the course. This is totally misleading and designed to make people think that retirement to a field is an equally precarious thing.
It does no such thing, but at the same time it profits nobody to think that a horse cannot be taken away from its people at a second’s notice in any environment, be that on his own in the field, or, as last week, with 11st of lady rider atop him.
I still haven’t read anything here that has convinced me that a different set of connections couldn’t have devoted the time to the horse being gradually eased into a happy retirement.
That’s still presupposing the horse has the propensity to be gradually eased. Many do, many don’t. Only Happy Hussar himself would have known for sure how he wanted to spend his autumn years, and in the absence of any language in his lungs it was entrusted to his connections, on the strength of knowing what makes him tick for the last eight years, to try to represent his needs as best they could.
Also, it was mentioned the horse couldn’t be ridden at home – so how was he schooled and exercised?
Quite possibly on the end of a lunge rope or in a loose schooling barn.
And even if that argument were to be believed, in retirement why does the horse need to be ridden anyway? Does JP McManus ride all his old campaigners at Martinstown?
Retirees of horses differ greatly. JP’s preference appears to be little more than making sure his former charges have as luxurious a post-race life doing as little or as much as they want. From my time following every tick of the Norman Mason / Richard Guest operation at Brancepeth, I know that Nosam would have caved in as a horse were he not ridden every day in retirement (he ended up being Guest’s hack) whereas Red Marauder had few ambitions other than getting old and fat. It’s an inexact science.
I am glad Grayson you accept the culling of horses does go on to a greater extent than the public think. However I don’t see why this is such a problem anyway – I would far rather an animal not suffer in anyway whatsoever by being humanely euthanised than being asked to do something that will cause him pain, discomfort, even death (eg life transport abroad).
Where this is the only option available, i.e where the animal proves too mentally or physically unsound, I wouldn’t disagree. It’s where this occurs as anything other than a last resort that I’m saddened. The sheer paucity of rehabilitation centre places, etc., may well precipitate this happening somewhere within racing, although I couldn’t say I’ve personally come across an instance of a horse being shot just for being surplus to requirements or a substandard performer. Others may well have.
Finally I would also revisit the point that equally has not been effectively answered – although Happy Hussar was trotting around in his own time in recent races, what toll was the rigours of his training regime having on him, which in turn may have been a contributing factor to his sad demise?
As long as that regime is commensurate with his own requirements, maybe very little toll at all. Not without reason do you hear of some horses being described as needing very little time or a lot of time to get ready – for all we know a little light lunge or two in addition to a regular jog round the Purton yard might have been all Happy Hussar actually required. As with much in this thread, it’s too inexact a science to be posited as The Thing That Killed Him, or such like.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Since I’ve been going racing over the past few years I’ve always enjoyed seeing Dr Pritchards horses ; my partner will often point out that one of his horses is in the race….I don’t know the doctor, and, apart from having an old pony for many years know little about horses but, in an intuitive sort of way I have always felt that what Dr Pritchard does is for a bit of fun; a bit of sport, and that is for everyone concerned including the horse…every case of a horse dying whilst racing is different. Yes, we mustn’t gloss over these things and questions do need to be asked, but I honestly feel that he was doing what he felt was right for the horse. I still maintain that the worst thing that can happen to any horse is to die of colic.
Viking Flagship fatally injured himself on the schooling grounds at Barbury Castle, he was on his own in there at the time, after surviving some memorable battles on the course without injury.
Shi*t happens!
Colin
This really has been done to death – do you not feel like you are going round in circles, firefox?
I have to point out that nowhere (to my knowledge) has it been said that HH could not be ridden at home (not by me, at least) – he was keen and strong and just wanted to get on with his work, but he was ridden.
Like GC, I too cannot see why an older horse who is loving his work and showing zest for life should be retired simply due to his age? As this is what you are saying, isn’t it? Is my trainer to be lambasted were anything to happen to our 14yo, who is just as capable of taking the p*ss out of a rider as any of our four year olds? The old boy won a 3m chase on heavy at Lingfield last season and, although he only ran 3 times this season for one reason or another, he came 3rd and 5th in two of those three runs – in large fields too.
Anyway, in my view Happy Hussar’s connections have been dragged through the mud too much already. Enough is enough.
As I understand it Grayson you are a former industry publication journalist so it would be very surprising for you to write any controversial statements about racing professsionals in case they came round and bit you in a future life – especially as you choose to post with your real name.
Nine months on a doomed daily newspaper either side of an inglorious career in librarianship, with just the odd bit and bob of freelance work since then, hardly qualifies / qualified me as an “industry” figure of any great significance.
Moreover, were I that worried about how some of my TRF output could queer my pitch in the racing world, I’m sure I would have buried the lot under an assumed name. The occasional street fights in the Lounge and random screams of “Sodmonster!” doth not the most compelling calling card make.
You persist even in implying that a retirement in a field is every bit as precarious and a risk to a horse’s life as racing over obstacles – now you really are clutching at straws.
You’ll do well to find where exactly in this thread I have actually said this is every bit as likely – the original comment was, “Retiring him at 12, only for him to have died running into a post at home at 13 one year into a retirement, wouldn’t have counted as a more satisfactory outcome”. Maybe that line should have been suffixed with “,were it to happen” to have prevented any misinterpretation.
The problem is that for every point made both of you have introduced your own set of assumptions, without actually being able to convince me that the Pritchard’s were doing what was best for the horse.
Short of reading the horse’s mind, and interpreting the contents correctly, aren’t we all making assumptions for him? It becomes a matter of whose best represent(ed) his needs. I don’t think either of us will ever agree with the other on what’s the right answer here, but it’s been stimulating trying.
If the horse was a 10 year old this thread would never have been created. The fact the horse was 15 has led some of us to reach a certain conclusion.
…and it was the entire raison d’etre of my postings to posit some suggestions as to why that particular conclusion may or may not be valid. No more or less than that, really. Equine fatalities, particularly where older horses are concerned, excite that strong a reaction from so many people that it seemed only right and proper to discuss them at length here, rather than let any poster call the running of Happy Hussar at 15 misguided, cruel, whatever, and go unchallenged.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
The lingering perfume of a Princess fills the air
That would have to anti-princess drone as there have been a lot of threads praising jockeys appearing…
A clever piece of prevaricating?
Drone – I see your princess and raise you a faux-Hendrix.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
I agree with the opening post by DJ. People are saying ‘the horse loves what it’s doing’…..losing by a WIDE margin. Didn’t need to keep running
Why should everyone be racing to win? That’s not in the rules of racing. It is performing to the best of their ability.
If the horse is happy in his work, happy on the racecourse, fit enough to race and putting in to the best of their current ability each time, why should they not race? If all horses in training who are incapable right now of winning a race off their current handicap mark were retired, we would probably halve the racehorse population.
Ditto if all the golfers who had no chance of winning the club tournament, London marathon runners who had no chance of winning the race, tennis players who can’t win a game against their neighbour, park footballers who had no chance of scoring a goal, all retired – there would be no SPORT.
As someone else said, hindsight is a wonderful thing – bad things happen in all sorts of circumstances, but also do not happen in the majority of instances, so it is ridiculous to expect connections to anticipate in this one case.
And to firefox (flaming?), you have to realise that all horses have different personalities. Some horses (my sister’s ex-racer) can be rehabilitated effortlessly. Some horses can be rehabilitated with some training, some with a great deal of patience and time. And some cannot be rehabilitated without a deal of suffering to the animal, with no guarantee of a happy final outcome. It depends entirely on the horse.
It’s similar to the broken leg situation – some horses can tolerate the extended immobilisation and box rest while the leg heals; others will simply fret themselves to death. Sometimes it is kinder to end the suffering rather than attempt to heal the leg.
Permit me to counter a few points once more.
or any other horse who collapses and dies on a racecourse? There is no rhyme nor reason to heart attacks, anyone can be susceptible.
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