- This topic has 91 replies, 35 voices, and was last updated 3 weeks ago by
.
- Posts
Punchestown this week. I wonder how many people will watch the steeplechases and think “I wish there was one fence on the course which is smaller than all the others and with some water after it. The absence of such a fence ruins it”?
There doesn’t seem to be enough fatalities (a good thing) to warrant a removal of water jumps from what i’ve seen or heard.
I appreciate this is an older article but i am not aware its changed much in recent years, not hearing anything much away from this thread that are into the sport to ‘get rid’.
The water jump is supposed to be representative of a fence with a brook/stream running alongside it which may have been jumped in the days of racing from steeple to steeple which racing is supposed to replicate. I’m not sure I’ve seen a hedge with such a wide stream alongside it which the racecourse’s portray.
The more I know the less I understand.
ExRubyLight, It is obvious that you know nothing about horse racing. For a start, a fence no longer takes up the whole width of a course so a riderless horse can simply go round it which is what they sometimes do. Secondly, in every race there is a strict limit on how many times a jockey can hit a horse and where he can hit it. Exceed this number by one and the jockey gets a suspension. Exceed by 2 and the suspension is longer. If the number exceeds the upper limit the horse is disqualified and the owner gets nothing. So there is no incentive to win at all costs. Racing is NOT cruel
Haydock’s water jump was a hedge with some water on the landing side. It was situated in front of the stands.
It disappeared at the same time as the famous old drop fences.
“The water jump is supposed to be representative of a fence with a brook/stream running alongside it which may have been jumped in the days of racing from steeple to steeple which racing is supposed to replicate. I’m not sure I’ve seen a hedge with such a wide stream alongside it which the racecourse’s portray.”
The water jump in the Maryland Hunt Cup is an actual brook, 6’3″ wide at the fence
For as long as this debate has occasionally raised its head (and we must be talking well over three decades now), I’ve always wondered whether the trainers of the better horses in particular school their horses over a water jump at home, and if not, why not.
It isn’t as if the bigger training centres don’t have the resources (they appear to be able to knock up Aintree-style fences for their National aspirants readily enough), and a horse thought or shown to be good enough to go chasing at Cheltenham or Sandown is going to encounter a water – that can’t be swerved.
The safety of these jumps’ design should, rightly, never not be subject to continuous review, and a more tapered exit from the water – rather than a tray or lip that a horse can catch its hind legs on – is an absolute prerequisite as far as I’m concerned. Ultimately, however, there is a shared responsibility and accountability here – trainers as well as racecourses. I don’t believe it should all rest upon the latter.
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.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.