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Not a good idea. For 8-y-o’s and older. 8! Some horses can reach their peak at 11 or 12. The 2.15 at Taunton today, two thirds of the field are 8 including one who has had just four runs of any description – winning them all. Just the sort of exposed, veteran handicapper these contests have been created for!!
A good idea but perhaps the qualification terms could be tweaked. I’d agree that the basic ‘8yo+’ criterion can’t be right.
If the idea is to give older and exposed hurdlers a chance to win races, perhaps “10yo+ and/or 35+ runs over hurdles” could be better. Then the field would be made up of veterans in both senses of the word.
It is not rocket science, you just use the same criteria that you have for the veterans chases – 8 yrs old as a starting point is frankly idiotic and the person who came up with that idea should be slapped several times just on general principle.
You could easily argue that most NH horses don’t actually reach their peak until 9/10 and after that the general belief is that they won’t be getting any better and we will gradually start to see a decline in their best level of form (some obviously decline quicker than others). The ones that do decline quicker can then transition into the veteran races where they will be up against similar type of horses in races they actually have a chance in instead of subjecting them to racing against up and coming rivals that could be 2 or 3 yrs younger.
With the rules as they are now, if you had a horse that may have been more backward type or had injuries early in life, he/she could potentially at 8 still be in their first or second year out of the novice stage and yet they are running in a Seniors race…..
Hurdles and chases are not the same. Horses generally start earlier and reach a peak earlier over hurdles. So it makes sense to have the minimum age “younger” for Senior Hurdles races… And because some horses start hurdling at three and some at six it’s not as easy as setting an age. May be 9 year old and up would be better. However, the whole point is to keep older horses in training by giving them a race/s to aim at. So the problem is will those thouroughly exposed in their 7 to 8 year old season hurdling who have raced from 3 or 4 years of age be kept in training a full year before they can race as 9 year olds? So I think there should a “minimum number of runs” in order to stop the less exposed 9 year olds. Where that should be, not sure.
Value Is EverythingNot a good idea. For 8-y-o’s and older. 8! Some horses can reach their peak at 11 or 12. The 2.15 at Taunton today, two thirds of the field are 8 including one who has had just four runs of any description – winning them all. Just the sort of exposed, veteran handicapper these contests have been created for!!
This is NH racing and horses should be encouraged to run in chases and not that much in hurdles races.
It is quite obvious that you need some hurdling experience before you go chasing, but then again, why revert them to hurdling when they get older?I wouldn’t want them to be somehow isolated from the better and younger horses.
It’s National Hunt racing, not purely steeplechasing.
NH includes hurdles and nothing says hurdlers have to go chasing. Some hurdlers don’t have the size or the technique for fences.Value Is EverythingFaugheen, yorkhill, the new one, pingshou, Wicklow brave, my tent, moon racer and identity theif are all champion hurdle entrants who are 8+. We want more competitive races in hurdling divisions. 4 runner grade 2 race at haydock and the likes of Irving taking the route of a ” senior hurdle” takes from having more competitive graded races.
Many races have various restrictions on them, sex, age, breeding, races won, grey etc. Does it really matter out of all the racing we have (far too much) if the odd one or two hurdles are restricted to 8yo’s plus?
It was the big race of the day at Taunton with the most prize money and they probably wanted to try and ensure a certain standard of horse running in it. You could probably have had a lower class race restricted to 10yo’s plus but for only 3 grand.
Maybe they shouldn’t have had “Seniors” in the race title, would anyone have noticed much on a busy Saturday without it?
There probably is a strong case to raise the limit to 9 which I’d gladly welcome but the main thing is that we have these races which is a positive for the sport.
But yeah, raise it to 9.
Faugheen, yorkhill, the new one, pingshou, Wicklow brave, my tent, moon racer and identity theif
If those lot turn up at Taunton I’d make sure the camera was on over charge….
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I think in practice it would be very hard to get working well. Hurdlers only peak earlier because they progress to chasing later and there is less to gain from experience and improving at their jumps.
Surely the limit would have to be at least 10 or there would be plenty of horses near their best clearing up.
I think retiring horses while theyre fit and young enough to go in to another line of work should be encouraged. There is nothing worse than seeing a once 160 rated horse running off 130 for a couple of grand and breaking a leg when they should be been given a well earned retirement 2 seasons previous. Having said that, probably the second worse things is seeing a poor jumper pushed to death over fences because there was no money left in hurdling for them.
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