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For you, Darren, and the rest of you, herewith a few lines from 221 : Peter Scudamore’s Record Season, written by Dudley Doust and published in 1989. It leaves little doubt about the attitude towards David Pitcher from the other jockeys at Aintree that day.
The Julian Wilson incident is referred to also.
gc
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David Pitcher was another matter. Pitcher was an amateur, a 54 year-old businessman who had taken up the game at the age of 48. In the weighing-room, he changed by himself, without the aid of a valet. ‘I’ve got the best tack that money can buy’, he will explain, ‘and I don’t trust it in anybody’s hands but my own’…
Pitcher’s horse, Brown Trix, was his own. He had bought it for £25,000 two years before from Fred Winter, who had made it into a good chaser. Together, Pitcher and Brown Trix ran in the 1987 Grand National: he fell, the horse didn’t, and riderless, went on to beat the winner Maori Venture to the winning post. In his other National, Pitcher had also fallen. Yet today his plan of attack was untrammelled by doubt.
‘Go like stink to the Melling Road and take a pull. Then get over the first half dozen fences’, he said, ignoring any intricate view of Becher’s, the sixth. ‘Then “hunt” the first circuit and put yourself in the race the second time around’. What about Becher’s? ‘I’ve jumped fences bigger than Becher’s out hunting’. Pitcher hunts with the Berks and Bucks but he’s not everybody’s stirrup cup.
Before the race, Scudamore was generous towards the bumptious man, harsh towards his riding. ‘Unbelievable’, the champion jockey said simply beforehand. ‘Unbelieveable’.
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[section where the race had begun]
‘And Brown Trix, Mr Pitcher, 54 years old, on the far side leads the National field. Stearsby right up with him…’
The amateur Pitcher sped on, as he had planned, ‘like stink’. He kept the lead over the second fence and [Brendan] Powell found himself directly behind those dark blue colours. Powell thought: he’s pushing his horse’s head off. This is a nightmare.
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‘And another faller at the back is Brown Trix. He’s down…‘.
Scudamore hadn’t seen the crash of Brown Trix, the horse twisting and shouldering the fence, flinging out Pitcher like a rag doll.
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At Becher’s, now plainly in second place, Scudamore was puzzled by the orange disc raised at the outside of the fence. He didn’t, of course, hear Julian Wilson’s television commentary that offended millions of viewers. ‘…and they’re being forced to the right to avoid a dead horse…’. The BBC cut out the dead-horse reference in its evening transmission.
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It had been a brutal National, Seeandem and Brown Trix were killed following their falls at Becher’s Brook… In Brown Trix’s fall, Pitcher suffered a broken nose, teeth driven into his gums and the slings and arrows of his outraged fellow riders and the media.
Scudamore didn’t spare the whip. ‘I like David Pitcher. He’s a nice man and as a person I’ve got a lot of time for him. But, in my view, he had no right to ride in the Grand National’, said the jockey after watching video tapes of the race. Scudamore’s belief was later substantiated by the new regulation that all amateur riders must be approved before competing in the National. ‘He’s a bad tactician and, as far as I could see, he had no race plans. He just rode like a maniac down over those first three or four fences and, to me, that’s not fearless. It’s brainless. He rides a horse like he’s swinging from the heels against west Indian fast-bowling.
Pitcher, for his part, had no self-recriminations about the fatal fall.’There was nothing I could do about it and, with all due respects to Freddy Winter and all the other good jockeys in the past, there was nothing any human being could have done about it’, he said. ‘It was Brown Trix’s fault. I was exactly where I wanted to be. I was stoking him up as much as possible and I was going at exactly the speed I wanted to go. I saw my stride. I got hold of him to lift him and he backed off. He just didn’t get high enough.
‘Once you’re in the air, other than being unseated or unbalancing the horse, there is nothing any human being can do about it’, Pitcher said and added, ‘and what could the best jockey in the world do about his horse falling back into the ditch? In National Hunt racing, you learn to live with dead horses’.
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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.
Good grief what an arrogant tosspot and, more importantly, what a danger to other horses and riders …. never mind the fact he clearly was responsible for the demise of his own horse.
I suppose the silver lining is it did lead to the rule change to ensure jockeys had some idea of what they are doing.
The amateur Pitcher sped on, as he had planned, ‘like stink’. He kept the lead over the second fence and [Brendan] Powell found himself directly behind those dark blue colours. Powell thought: he’s pushing his horse’s head off. This is a nightmare.
Scudamore hadn’t seen the crash of Brown Trix, the horse twisting and shouldering the fence, flinging out Pitcher like a rag doll.
‘Once you’re in the air, other than being unseated or unbalancing the horse, there is nothing any human being can do about it’, Pitcher said and added, ‘and what could the best jockey in the world do about his horse falling back into the ditch? In National Hunt racing, you learn to live with dead horses’.
Thanks for posting this Jeremy – interesting, but quite chilling reading. This sounds like someone riding in an early 1980s Velka Pardubicka, where half the field were off the bridle by the time they got to the Taxis (fourth fence), because the jockeys saying at the time was ‘get there as quickly as possible so it’s soon over’. This happened in 1984, where I think there were 12 fallers (and several fatalities I think).
I’m not one to court controversy, but I’m so pleased that now, riders like Pitcher aren’t allowed to take part in a race like the Grand National.
Darren – AngloGerman
I wonder if he ever looks back on that day and takes ANY responsibility for his horse’s death? How could he blame his horse?????? Why did he think the horse made a mistake – a maniac of a rider making him go too fast … what a complete and utter disgrace to racing … and his comment of "In National Hunt racing, you learn to live with dead horses" … words fail me. Was he ever allowed to race again??????
I was there that day, but didn’t know what had happened until I got home. A horse called Kingsmill was lost at the last fence in the hurdle, and another horse was brought down at the same fence, Condor Pan, but thankfully he got up. I realised then that if I was to stick with racing I would have to cope with events such as that, but it never really gets any easier….the way that presenters deal with it makes such a difference; when One Man died Clare Baldings coverage of the event was really sensitive, even though she was visibly as devastated as the rest of us. So sorry for poor Sixo.
I get the feeling it’s a recent deliberate policy.
If the TV news programmes are anything to go by, the producers, being ‘professional’ media types, wouldn’t operate on the basis of what is the reasonable way to serve the public.
It’s all about patronising ‘infotainment’, to distract from the real news of what’s going on. More and more Britney and Jordan, and as little of the real news as possible.
And if that’s how they deal with TV News broadcasts for public consumption, well… why would they report the deaths of horses and spoil the crazy hoopla at the races?
Fascinating report Grays
I thankee and its
opened my eyes
Grimes you mentioned Britney and Jordan.
Now Britney I knew about
but what is it with Jordan ?Jordan’s just a bit too fake. I saw an article about a young woman called Lily Cole the other day – now what is she famous for other than being scaringly thin and dangerously pale?
Lily’s a model isn’t she? Hasn’t she just got the M & S gig?
To be fair she really does stand out.
You don’t find the way Jordan or Katie Price pushes her sexuality desperately tacky, Gamble? She seems a visual version of that, imo, farcically unsexy song by Marilyn Monoe addressed to JFK.
But it’s really the "news management" that I was decrying. Instead of covering the real news of what’s going on in the world, and what they do cover,doing so in no great depth but, rather, focusing on people who are more famous for being famous than for any notable talent – when even if they possessed such talents, the events of their daily lives would hardly be any more newsworthy than those of any other individuals, however famous. Living ‘soaps’.
I was there that day, but didn’t know what had happened until I got home. A horse called Kingsmill was lost at the last fence in the hurdle, and another horse was brought down at the same fence, Condor Pan, but thankfully he got up. I realised then that if I was to stick with racing I would have to cope with events such as that, but it never really gets any easier….
I remember that race well – in fact I’ve still got the Radio 2 MW recording of Peter Bromley’s commentary buried away on tape somewhere. There was no shirking the issue as to how bad an incident that was at the time.
Condor Pan did at least win a hatful more races on the Flat and over hurdles before retiring in 1994.
It was heavy going that day as well, which makes Pitcher’s decision to go like a maniac on Brown Trix – for however long or short a period – at the start of a 4m4f trip all the more unpalatable.
And to think that the day had started on a cheerier note, the opening Captain Morgan Chase featuring Feroda’s second course and distance win inside 24 hours (he’d won the Listed novices’ race the day before), Bonalma comically overjumping the water by a mile, and that old rogue Vodkatini refusing to race. Again.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)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.
remember asking a guy at one of the hospitality tents ‘how do we get to see anything’ – his reply being ‘m’dear, go home and watch it on the telly’…can still hear the people cheering when Vodkatini refused [or did I imagine that]. We were standing by the Chair; on the first circuit a beautiful grey horse called Sergeant Sprite fell, and someone held him close to where we were standing – at the end the only horse I could make out was The Thinker running past me – I was asking everyone who had won but no one around me knew….it either seems like yesterday or something that happened to someone else a long time ago….tiny men in silk and all that……
If Leemac is reading this thread perhaps he could tell us if there is a Raceform policy on mentioning fatalities.
From what I have seen, some race readers mention if a horse has died whilst others do not.
A Jeremy pointed out different courses seem to have different policies – personally I think the truth, no matter painful, should be told. Sweeping such events under the carpet and maintaining an ostrich mentality does nothing constructive and merely undermines credibility in the sport.
Sorry it´s taken me a while to respond – have been away a few days. As far as I know, the Raceform/Racing Post policy is to mention a fatality in the close up comments if they are aware of it. However, sometimes the horse is taken away for treatment after a fall and then, sadly, put down later.
The clerk of the scales will pass on information of a death to the media if asked, but the news does not always filter through automatically. In those cases it may not be reported.
As a race-reader, I tend to keep an eye on the screens to see if the horse emerges from behind them. I know that sounds gruesome, but the evidence of your own eyes is best. Even then, you have to be sure it hasn´t been loaded into an equine ambulance. I can recall one case many years ago when a horse was reported as "dead" only for it to reappear a few weeks later.
Hope that helps regarding the form comments; I´ll check out the position regarding commentaries, and report back.
Thank you Leemac fro replying.
What about Campaign Charlie – he fell at the first at Taunton yesterday – apparently the screens were still around by the time the next race started but no mention of his fate – and there isn’t even today on the Rcaing Post analysis. His trainer, Kim Bailey confirms he didn’t make it.When this subject came up on TRF a while ago, I asked around to find out if the media could be automatically informed about the death of a horse during a race. I know from experience that this happens as a matter of course at the major three-day events.
However, one course of opinion turned out to be that a regular list of fatalities might provoke a backlash that would be bad for racing. Therefore the media are left to find out for themselves.
Personally, I am inclined to agree with Paul, that racehorse fatalities should not be "swept under the carpet". It’s only by allowing the numbers to be subject to possible scrutiny that the industry can claim to be completely open about it.
However, at the same time, I do recognize that statistics can be very dangerous, and therefore understand why there is some reluctance to issue daily lists. But I must stress that if the media asks about the fate of a horse, officials are very helpful and we are always told the truth – there is no cover-up.
I do know from a spectator’s point of view it is frustrating to see a bad incident and not hear the outcome. This year, I have seen two falls in which a horse appeared to have suffered serious injury, only for both to get up and walk away afterwards.
With that in mind, I’ll continue to see what I can do to make sure that this sorry but inevitable occasional detail makes it into print as often as possible.
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