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There is a price to pay for our entertainment within racing and it is injuries and fatalities to both horses and humans. The humans have a choice over whether to take part but the ‘cost’ of injuries to horses is one that the individiual must weigh up against the overall benefit the sport brings.
I am prepared to accept that cost. I make no apologies for that, it is my view and I stand by it, but I accept that other people have a different view and may not feel the cost is justified and I respect that viewpoint.
But my accepting the cost doesn’t mean it is any easier for me to see any horse hurt.
Thanks Corm , a thoughtful post, at least some awareness had been highlighted , whether it will make any difference , heaven knows
For me the cost is too high
cheers
Ricky
Is this thread about how racing and it’s dark days come across to the public, or is it questioning the morality of the sport, which seems to be the direction the thread has gone?
The author hasn’t exactly helped matters!
If you think the horses are dying for your entertainment Ricky then you should go to the Bull Fights.I for one have never been entertained by the death of a horse at the track.
What an absolute load of bollox this thread is. Has our old friend Ricky taken over from Mr Wilson as the new forum troll?
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I feel that a good deal of the ill-feeling generated by this variant of the perpetual thread has come from the way the question is framed. It’s cheesed some people off: understandably so in my opinion.
* Horses do not die
"for"
our entertainment. Seeing them die does not entertain anybody. Quite the contrary. Only a psychopath is going to be entertained by seeing horses die.
* To globally label horse-racing
"entertainment"
is unfair. For many people involved, on either side of the fence, it is a way of life and/or a way of making a living. Professional punters, pundits, breeders, stable staff, jockeys, trainers, officials … none of them do this for "entertainment", but to live. It is their life.
* Very few people who are interested treat Horse Racing as some sort of idle pastime, but as a passionate pursuit. I’d guess that it means something
spiritual
to the great majority of posters to this forum, something very personal to each and every one of us. To denigrate that by hinting that we spectators are callous, inured to suffering, or thoughtless in our responses, is therefore wounding – and to something very deep within us.
Ricky
, your question is something that of course we should all be asking ourselves – and not just on those rare occasions when a horse dies (there are worse things done in the name of the "sport" in my opinion.)
The problem, I feel, has been the way you’ve framed the question.
Pinza
Fair comment
Mr Pilsen , dont worry I will revert to the norm BHA bashing very soon , apologies if I offended anyone by raising this thread, perhaps I should have couched it in a different manner
Thing is though , I am glad I did, as it might actually make people think about the big picture in our sport
cheers
Ricky
* To globally label horse-racing
"entertainment"
is unfair. For many people involved, on either side of the fence, it is a way of life and/or a way of making a living. Professional punters, pundits, breeders, stable staff, jockeys, trainers, officials … none of them do this for "entertainment", but to live. It is their life.
It is probably a semantic discussion but I would argue racing is
entertainment
in so much that it is ultimately a leisure pursuit and it is not an industry which is essential to the infrastructure of the country.
I do very much take your point that many people work in racing and rely on racing as a career – that does not mean it is not an entertainment industry.
Taking another example, which is not that unrelated, many are employed working in theatres be they impresarios (owners), producers (trainers), actors (jockeys), technicians (cameramen), production staff (officials), front of house (racecourse staff), critics (press) – they also to do it "to live" but nonetheless that does not mean the theatre is not entertainment does it?
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Taking another example, which is not that unrelated, many are employed working in theatres be they impresarios (owners), producers (trainers), actors (jockeys), technicians (cameramen), production staff (officials), front of house (racecourse staff), critics (press) – they also to do it "to live" but nonetheless that does not mean the theatre is not entertainment does it?
Nothing semantic about this,
Paul
! Theatre makes a perfect example to support my point. It is crudely categorised by the beancounters as an "Entertainment Industry", but nobody I know (on either side of the footlights) thinks of it in that way. Like Racing, Theatre is so much more than that.
For anyone working in theatre – in any of the capacities you name – or for anyone who cares about it from the audience side, theatre is absolutely not mere
"entertainment"
, or a
"leisure pursuit"
(ghastly phrase!) as if it were on a par with idly watching television.
Everyone participates. It is a way of life, nothing less than real life itself, and it always has a
spiritual
dimension. For many over the centuries the theatre has been described as a
"temple"
, and rightly so. To label British theatre "entertainment" is as inadequate as to give racing the same label.
We can’t meaningfully talk about either pursuit without bringing in the human, spiritual dimension. And that doesn’t strike me as being a matter of semantics.
We can’t meaningfully talk about either pursuit without bringing in the human, spiritual dimension. And that doesn’t strike me as being a matter of semantics.
I think we’ll have to agree to differ on this one – I don’t do "spiritual"
When I go to the theatre I go to be entertained.
When I go racing, unless it’s a wet Monday afternoon at Wolverhampton, I go in the expectation of being entertained by some competitive racing.
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I think we’ll have to agree to differ on this one – I don’t do "spiritual"
Having read so many of your excellent posts which seem to show precisely the opposite, I guess I’d have to differ about that too!
How on earth has this topic got to four pages ? The sensationalist title of the subject sets the tone.
How on earth has this topic got to four pages ? The sensationalist title of the subject sets the tone.
With posts like this.
This subject started out okay with a sensible debate. Ricky even warned one or two posters about being emotional. Then Ricky you let yourself down with a bit of doomsday preaching about the follies of jump racing.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black
Sorry to bring this subject back, but the is an article about deaths in this week’s Weekender (volume 28 number 4; Wednesday 27/07/11 to Sunday 31/07/11 issue).
The article is from Nick Mordin, so as you can imagine the a system worked out from this, but I’ll try and keep the article on topic.
He says that deaths occur in pattern races almost 8x as much the lower classes.
Here is a table of percentage of horses dying
Class 1 0.22%
Class 2 0.18%
Class 3 0.17%
Class 4 0.16%
Class 5 0.08%
Class 6 0.07%
Class 7 0.03%Nick’s conclusion is that the better a horse is, the more likely during the course of a race. Some years ago he asked
Deborah Baker
who use to be the head of the
British Equine Veterinary Associationb
about this and she’d replied with because they are the ones who try the hardest. This comment made sense to Nick, fundamentally the best ones get to be that way not simply because they physically superior but they’re more prepared to push themselves to their physical limit.
He also broke the deaths down into the type of races.
Flat 0.033%
AW Polytrack 0.033%
AW Fibresand 0.059%
AW Equitrack 0.107%
HN Flat Race 0.131%
Hurdle 0.215%
Chase 0.336%Nick links this with how hard a horse hits the ground. A study by George Pratt of MIT some years back showed that the fastest dirt surface in USA were as much as 10x harder than turf and produced up to 90% of the 26,600lb per square inch concussive force required to break a racehorse’s cannon bone at racing pace.
There’s more of Nick’s Article to come, but time has forced me to bring his article to a close, might post more when time allows.
I’ve felt physically sick before each of Carter’s races over hurdles which is probably why I spend the post race period making such a fuss of him. I can’t explain why I’m prepared to take the risk of him injuring himself over hurdles but I know that when he comes back to the winner’s enclosure he feels on top of the world and I wouldn’t deny him that feeling for anything.
I’ve felt physically sick before each of Carter’s races over hurdles which is probably why I spend the post race period making such a fuss of him. I can’t explain why I’m prepared to take the risk of him injuring himself over hurdles but I know that when he comes back to the winner’s enclosure he feels on top of the world and I wouldn’t deny him that feeling for anything.
I remember thinking how sick the owners of Bajan Parkes must have been, after watching the horse jump the last hurdle and break his shoulder on landing at Bangor over a week ago.
The horse was performing really well on the flat prior to taking his chance again over a few flights, and had the race at his mercy after travelling and jumping superbly. From elation to devastation in one bad step on landing, and it was all over for the poor lad. I couldn’t help but think how gutted his owners will have been, and how they (obviously) wish they’d kept him on the flat for the time being, or waited for ground with a bit more give. Sickener.
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