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Following the very sad loss of Our Conor yesterday I was thinking about the the upcoming National and all the fuss that will again be made about the size of the fences.
I wondered if there any statistics re fatalities in hurdle races versus chases? Are the smaller fences actually more dangerous, due to the speed and the disrespect the horses give to them?
Encouraged to skim over hurdles and spend minimum time in the air, so many horses clip nearly every hurdle it’s a wonder more aren’t brought down. And look at how much harder they hit the ground if and when they do fall.
Are the hand-wringers are fretting about the wrong races?
I’m not sure anyone’s done an in-depth analysis of all the racecourses, but my gut feeling says hurdles are probably more dangerous due to the faster speeds.
I’ve just found this report on the AnimalAid site which does provide some interesting reading with many comparisons, including hurdle v chase:
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/ … am2014.pdf
I haven’t gone through it all, but it is pretty damming about our premier jumps course.
Thanks for that BG. Though obviously heavily biased against all jumps racing, the undisputed statistics when Cheltenham is compared with a similar but lower profile course (Hexham) the figures are shocking. I felt sick reading them.
One thing that stands out is fence construction differences. If a small course can make its fences safer, with more "give" in them, then why not the biggest and supposedly best course in the country?
It seems that Cheltenham has a lot of hard thinking to do. It should be ashamed of these statistics. It must NOT be about spectacle for the punters at the cost of equine lives.
I am afraid that at least a small part of the answer to these statistics must be the prestige of the Cheltenham Festival (and I am not saying this is the case with any of the tragic incidents of this year’s festival).
If a trainer/owner feels that the horse isn’t 100% ready for a race at Hexham, they will withdraw it without question. Likewise, if a jockey is unhappy with a horse during a race, pulling it up early on at Hexham is an easy option. The pressure of big meetings and the chance of winning a once-in-a-career race is a different matter.
However, this isn’t just a jump racing problem. As a keen follower of flat and jump racing for 40 odd years, deaths during races seem to be increasing, despite the advances in veterinary medicine which should have seen their substantial reduction. There have always been horror falls like that of poor Our Conor but these days it seems that, even at flat meetings, you’ve got a good chance of seeing horses die on the track in apparently innocuous incidents. I don’t know whether it is changes in training methods, breeding, track design, watering or just coincidence but am concerned that it is constantly being dismissed as "that’s racing" and anybody asking questions branded an "animal rights" nutter, when clearly some objective, scientific investigation is surely justified.
Selective breeding, Tonge. Over the last 40 years the racehorse has been almost exclusively bred to be faster and more powerful the flip-side of that is more fragile. In addition modern training methods are more specialised and intensive with many trainers, losing the general fitness training that protects the whole body.
True aji. There are many more purebred Thoroughbreds jumping now than used to be back in the 50/60s iirc. Often jumpers used to be only half Thoroughbred with the dam often being a hunter, cob or draft type. They provided the thicker, more substantial bone structure that Thoroughbreds lack.
Fences need to be wider at Cheltenham, Auteuil has fences that are nearly the width of the entire course. Plenty of room for the horses to get a good position and run a race. Very quick ground, better ground seen in summer at Dieppe for jumpers that Cheltenham have had this week. That is why Cheltenham had the horrendous injuries to horses and riders this week, omitting Daryl Jacobs. Interestingly off the top of my head cannot think of a French course that allows alot of public et al in the middle of the course.
I think I have seen pictures of the fences at Cheltenham being wider in the past than they are now. Of course there are the portable fences these days on many of the National hunt courses, they did have proper wider fences but they were removed. Does anyone know why these are used so much? Is it so they can move them about for better ground? Take them out for bumpers? Are they shared by a group of courses? For cheaper maintenance or is it the lobbying of RSPCA or other organisations? I am sorry the fences at Haydock went, they were also a good preparation for Aintree.
Tonge also makes a very good point about the difference between a runner at Cheltenham and one at a smaller course. I remember asking my Dad why so many horses were injured at the Cheltenham meeting and he told me that everyone wants to win there and jockeys and trainers often throw caution to the wind.
As for the make and shape and breeding. Flat horses seem to be less light framed, as they are no longer bred to stay much longer than 12 furlongs, 10 seeming the optimum. The jumping horses are becoming lighter as the old jumping families are exhausted and more flat bred rejects are being sent jumping. Quite a few horses are inbred to Northern Dancer. However back in the 1960s Anglo won the Grand National and he was inbred 3X3 to Hyperion. So it is not an entirely new phenomenon.
There are very few half bred mares in the UK, or horses jumping who have hunter ancestors. A lot of the French bred horses, Sprinter Sacre and Neptune Collonges for instance, are Selle Francois rather than thoroughbred.The state of the ground might be a factor. Has anyone anystatistics on how many horses lost their lives during the very wet spell we have just had in comparison with that of the drying conditions?
I do wonder about training on polytrack and then racing on turf having an influence. Also quick finishing of potential horses, rather than slow rearing of jumping stores on limestone pastures.
Crepello, I don’t know if there are any statistics re ground conditions, but there didn’t seem to be many fatalities when the ground was bad this winter to me. Yet a year or two ago when conditions were just as bad, if not worse, there were many casualities.
I wonder too what the stats are for fatalities compared to falls overall in both hurdle and chase race are? How many hurdle falls prove fatal compared to chase ones?
Would fatalities be reduced if there were more hurdles per race to jump so the pace isn’t so fast? Thinking back to Cheltenham there are only 2 hurdles in what, 6/7 furlongs that have to be jumped compared to something like 4/5 in the same distance in the chases.
Two thigs come to my mind first:
1.) Obviously the faster ground leaves no room for mistakes at a higher speed combined with the fact that there is no such thing as cushion when the horse falls on ground firmer than soft or heavy.
2.) The bone structure of the horses isn’t as solid as 20-30 years ago. Just watch the races from the late 80s and early 90s. There were fatalities at that time as well, but horses looked more massive and stronger than nowadays.Right now we also have the tendency to send lot of smaller horses over fences than in the past. WHY?
Because the fences at some tracks have been made easier to jump and there is also a lot more racing where to send your horse to.
For example Right On Ruby:
No way this horse is a chaser and no way one can tell me he has experience over fences. He has ZERO experience over fences, because those 2 and 3 runner races at Plumpton and Doncaster don’t count at all. He lines up in the Arkle and is beaten after just jumping the second.
There are many examples of horses running in the wrong disipline.
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