- This topic has 384 replies, 85 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by
.
- Posts
As for what ‘we’ do… I just don’t know. I agree with Ginger, I think it’s speed that kills, but I don’t know how you stop that.
Easy. Stop trying to sanitize the damn race and leave it as it was. Speed kills and in order to gain a vital edge jockeys take more chances with the fences. Make the fences the size they always were and run the race a fortnight earlier. If trainers want to start choosing between Chelt and Aintree then let them.
Lets face it, after seeing Peddlers Cross run like a drain it just goes to prove that Chelt sours the horses for the year anyway. They get their hardest race of the year there, then get asked to reproduce it three weeks later. Running a tired horse on Aintree’s Mildmay course is more risky than bypassing Chelt and aiming solely for Aintree.
You would seemore
fatalities if 40 runners took part over 4m4f of the Mildmay course. When did it become necessary for horses to run at Chelt AND Aintree anyway? AND, is that the reason why Aintree is being held later?
edit: The race has become a giant billboard for John Smiths beer too. The only thing missing was Peter Kay and an airship in the shape of a beer can. The sponsorship of the race has been taken to ridiculous, keystone kop levels. Yeah, let’s advertise the National to the country as a good reason to get pissed up on a six pack of beer
Run the race a fortnight earlier. If trainers want to start choosing between Chelt and Aintree then let them.
Lets face it, after seeing Peddlers Cross run like a drain it just goes to prove that Chelt sours the horses for the year anyway. They get their hardest race of the year there, then get asked to reproduce it three weeks later. Running a tired horse on Aintree’s Mildmay course is more risky than bypassing Chelt and aiming solely for Aintree.
You would seemore
fatalities if 40 runners took part over 4m4f of the Mildmay course. When did it become necessary for horses to run at Chelt AND Aintree anyway? AND, is that the reason why Aintree is being held later?
Agreed.
Its not just the
Grand National
that needs looking at! on average
158
horses die each year purely for our entertainment.
And thats just a mainstream race meetings not Point to Point.
It is said that that NH racing require bravery… yes it does! but who can tell me the name of the last jockey that was killed in a race! ( not that I wish that on anyone!!!)
The current legislation requires that unneccessary suffering is not cause to animals.
There is not, in law an absolute requirement for horses to be made to jump for our pleasure and therefore it is unneccessary.33 horse fatalities in the last 11 years – that’s a 7% attrition rate. If your average grand prix driver thought he had a 1 in 14 chance of being killed every time he raced, I think that sport might die out rather quickly.
Eh!
Bit of artistic journalism in that article if you ask me.
11 years???? Really?
11 years and 1 day more accurately!
That is 12 Grand Nationals not 11. Probably "journalistic license, done just to make it sound worse than it actually is.It is NOT just the Grand National Mr Brough, though I excuse your mistake, as it is seemingly done to mislead.
Where do you get the 7%, 1 in 14 chance?
33
deaths are in the whole meeting, ie
3
day
meeting not just
1 race
:
7
were in
hurdle
races.
1
in a
FLAT RACE
!
25
over fences.
Of those 25 over fences, just9
were in the
Grand National
.
479 horses ran in the Grand National in those 12 years
.
9 out of 479 means 9 ‘/, 479 = 0.0188. A1.88%
attrition rate
!!!
Value Is EverythingI’m afraid there’s a fairly ill-informed debate on LBC Radio in London at the moment with a hapless host who knows nothing about racing trying to argue the case for the race against a spokesman from Animal Aid who is running rings round him.
The thought I had was that the improvements in the fences and the quality of the field over the past few years were huge factors in yesterday’s events. Yesterday, we had unusually hot weather (should the race be moved ?) and a quality field which meant fast ground and horses travelling quicker.
It’s speed that kills in jump races as much as the fences. Back in 2001, 38 of the 40 fell or were unseated in a quagmire and as I recall, everyone came home safe and sound.
IF our climate is changing and drier and warmer springs are the outcome, we should consider moving the race to say, late February, at a fixed point independent of Easter, Cheltenham or anything else.
The fences are inviting for horses bred to jump though as Ruby Walsh mentioned, the horses soon respect them if they get one wrong. Are they now too easy? Possibly, on fast ground, yes. We therefore have to stiffen up the obstacles or ensure the ground is slow enough to prevent the speed that causes the fatal falls. Simply telling the jockeys to go slower doesn’t seem to be working.
The fourth fence (20th on second circuit) has become especially troublesome and I bet statistics of fallers would confirm that. In former times, the 1st and 3rd had higher attrition rates – I can only think the better horses are getting over those and the jockey thinks the two before Becher’s aren’t too significant.
That’ll teach me to check my facts before posting.
Still, even a 1.88% attrition rate is too high. I think Jenson Button might balk at even those odds. The Jackass team might balk at those odds!
Totally respect, understand and sympathise with the views expressed on this thread in terms of horse welfare. And I speak too as someone who, whilst I love top class NH racing, thinks of himself as a Flat man and has always regarded the Grand National as over-hyped and of little interest to me personally.
However, the events yesterday only mirror what we see in NH racing every day of the week. It is upsetting but the only option is to ban jump racing (not just the Grand National) and I for one would regard that as not only a wrong move, but an utterly stupid one.
Paul Nicholls lost 2 horses last summer running around in the paddocks. The fact is that, sadly, horses get injured in all sorts of circumstances and just because the one race of the year that Joe Public can be arsed to watch ends with 2 fatalities should not force those that love the sport to make far reaching changes or to feel embarrassed.
I am shocked by what I am reading by some people in this thread. The "if you don’t like it, change the channel" comment above was utterly disgusting and made me lose a little faith in the racing community.
We
want
to make horse racing safer, right? That is our collective aim – we should strive to maintain the grandeur of the occasions which make our sport great, whilst doing our best for the safety of participants. Horses breaking their backs and necks with regularity in one particular race should never be accepted as "part of the race" or something that is unavoidable.
Let’s face it – running a marathon chase on quick ground in scorching heat is not a bright idea. I don’t think anything else can be done to the fences without taking away from the challenge, which I don’t view as unduly unfair. I think a Winter National would be a far more sensible idea. Of course, there will be blinkered traditionalists who will say I am a kid making a ridiculous suggestion. "It would devalue the Welsh National" is hardly a valid point in this situation though.
Moving the National back a few months would dramatically reduce or even eliminate the number of horses suffering from dehydration. I believe the boundary between acceceptable racing and
cruelty
is breached when the horses are too exhausted to walk back with their jockeys after the race. Winter ground would also come with the guarantee of being much safer, plus the pace of the race would be reduced with a purer stamina test.
I know I am suggesting a major overhaul that would completely change the National Hunt calendar, but Animal Aid’s ill-informed campaigns could easily gather momentum with another year or two of sadness like this one. If conditions like the past few years of the Grand National continue in the near future, we may regret not having acted more decisively to save our great race.
I’d like to know how many of our horse population are killed every year by disgraceful owners who keep horses in the lap of luxury in stables and fields? Barbaric!
Ban stables and fields! (irony)
Value Is EverythingAgree with everything Racing Daily has written. I understand the race will be held a week later next year as well.
A pedantic point really to Mike Brough –
In the 60’s/70s the average grand prix driver faced significantly worse odds and still queued up to drive. Between 1963 and 1973 if a driver raced for five years or more he was more likely to lose his life than to survive and retire.
Horses breaking their backs and necks with regularity in one particular race should never be accepted as "part of the race" or something that is unavoidable.
Agree with a lot of your sentiment Young Fella, but to say they "break their backs and necks with regularity" is simply not true.
With trainers not wanting to run their horses in Cheltenham trials these days: I think the two big meetings of Cheltenham and Aintree could both be a couple of weeks earlier. That might have some effect. Meetings like Newbury’s Totesport Trophy can also be run earlier.
Do believe drainage systems have been over developed in recent years. Making the water drain easier to ensure more meetings go ahead, has meant it draining quicker and hence quicker ground.Value Is EverythingI’m afraid there’s a fairly ill-informed debate on LBC Radio in London at the moment with a hapless host who knows nothing about racing trying to argue the case for the race against a spokesman from Animal Aid who is running rings round him
I haven’t heard the show but the presenter would have been James Max, bit of a useless twit but thankfully he was trying to stand up for the sport. THank god it wasn’t Petrie Hosken, she would have tried and convicted the sport of being cruel without hearing any evidence to the contrary.
On another point I’ve been switching between Racing UK and ATR all afternoon, and so only caught the tale end of a conversation on the latter channel with Andy Stewart, who’s horse Ornais died yesterday. I believe he was saying that any horses’ death is awful, but it is part of the sport which has to go on. We’re so lucky to have such a thoughtful and intelligent man supporting the jumps
I have tried to comment on the Daily Mail article but they won’t post my thoughts. The facts are that the anti racing groups have caused MORE Grand National course deaths by getting the fences lowered back in 1990.
There was a listing somewhere of all National fatalities in history and I am pretty certain that the unnamed fences have claimed more lives since they were lowered than before 1990. It used to be Becher’s, Canal Turn and The Chair causing any injury and they have been made a lot safer and rarely cause injury now than before 1990.
So bowing to the (lets face it) uneducated extreme animal rights bodies (as opposed to the constructive RSPCA) will only lead to more death and pain for the horses than they currently get.
And the reporting in that Mail article also fails to mention that 3 of the fatalities over the last 11 years (McKelvey, Graphic Approach and Tyneandtyneagain) were caused when they were running loose under their own steam (instead making out the fence they fell at was the cause)
Ironically Aintree being safety conscious has caused even more outrage as normally they would jump the half of the fence where the fallen horse was and nobody would know. Bypassing fences was so unprecedented that it has opened a lot of eyes to what has been happening for years.
I agree with the suggestions of keeping the race and rules as they are (the animal rights people making out the race contains no hopers is ludicrous – that was ironed out after the 1998 race) – I would keep the field of 40 though. I would move it 2 weeks back into March. I would make sure the ground was always the soft side of good. And I would RAISE the height of the fences to stop them being taken like hurdles.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.