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It was not so long ago, in fact a few days ago that Andrew Glassonbury was banned for eight days (March 7-14) for not pulling up the exhausted Nicto De Beauchene until the final fence, with another two days (March 5 and 6) for using the whip when his mount was showing no response.
Taking a look at the Eider chase today I believe the three jockies that tried to finish on their mounts should not be excluded from the same punishment as Andrew Glassonbury.
If you take the law literally then the Companero, Giles Cross and Morgan Be were all horses that had gone past the saftey limit and were in danger of serious injury which means in the stewards eyes their jockies should recieve bans?
Can some one explain the difference? or do the stewards pick and choose their moments when they see fit.
It does seem slightly absurd that the jockeys have been banned for horse welfare offences but the authorities apparently have no problem with a 4 mile 1 furlong swim.
That said, to me at least, Companero got home safely enough, and I don’t think the winning jockey used his whip at the finish, why would he when the next horse was 30 lengths away?
Still, watching Giles Cross virtually slither over the last was pretty sickening.
The difference is that Glassonbury was banned for continuing on a horse that had no chance of finishing in the places.
Since only three completed the Newcastle race, that important condition clearly doesn’t apply.
I agree that it was an unattractive spectacle, although the front two only got tired very late on – unlike Nicto De Beauchene who was legless some way out last week.
It would be very difficult for a rider to pull up in sight of the finish when still in the first three, and doubtless there’d be an immediate thread on here complaining about non triers if they did!
No easy answers I’d suggest, short of eliminating long distance races from the program altogether.
AP
What happens to each way bets if you don’t get enough finishers? If for example there are three places available but only 2 horses finish is the third place allotted to the one who got round furthest before giving up? I thought there were only 2 finishers in this race on the TV so I don’t know how the third place was decided.
The third had been pulled up and then the jockey had clearly cottoned on to the fact that third was up for grabs.
There was an enquiry into the riding of the third. Couldn’t hear the announcement totally clearly buit the gist seemed to be that the jockey’s explanation was that he’d felt the horse may have injured itself at the third last so pulled it up but then he felt it was Ok and with third place still available rode the rest of the race. I could be wrong about the detail though.
The horses were very, very tired. I went to the unsaddling enclosure to get a close up look at Comply Or Die after the race and he was absolutely awash with sweat and looked all out.
Oh no Corm, I was at Newcastle today too, if only we’d known we could have met for a drink
So do we want a race with no finishers because its all too hard? This sport is called horse RACING, the connections of everyone entered in today’s Eider Chase knew the going was almost unraceable, and they had the chance of pulling their horses out if necessary, but none of them did.
Fair enough it wasn’t great viewing today, but to go down the route of stopping long distance races would be an extremely bad idea, and the tip of a slippery slope that would add a great deal of ammunition to animal welfare charities arguing that under health & safety rules all national hunt racing should be banned leaving us with endless 5 furlong races on the flat.
If that ever happened I would no longer follow this sport.
- Total Posts 17716
Fair enough it wasn’t great viewing today, but to go down the route of stopping long distance races would be an extremely bad idea, and the tip of a slippery slope that would add a great deal of ammunition to animal welfare charities arguing that under health & safety rules all national hunt racing should be banned leaving us with endless 5 furlong races on the flat.
You think they’d stop there?
I disagree about today’s Eider, although I wasn’t there. It
was
great viewing, at a distance. Epic stuff, with the heartwarming sight of the horse who’d done the donkey work and run the rest into the mud coming home virtually alone.
If Companero never wins or races again (and after today he’d be excused from wanting to do either) he provided a sight to remember this dank February Saturday.
And I’m 100% sure there’s nothing here for anyone to feel apologetic about.
And I’m 100% sure there’s nothing here for anyone to feel apologetic about.
Thanks so much for your posting Pinza,I was at Newcastle today and backed the winner, so will forever fight for good old-fashioned jumps racing where the stoutiest horse wins the day, and get annoyed when anyone questions the wisdom of racing at all
- Total Posts 17716
Fair enough it wasn’t great viewing today, but to go down the route of stopping long distance races would be an extremely bad idea, and the tip of a slippery slope that would add a great deal of ammunition to animal welfare charities arguing that under health & safety rules all national hunt racing should be banned leaving us with endless 5 furlong races on the flat.
You think they’d stop there?
I disagree about today’s Eider, although I wasn’t there. It
was
great viewing, at a distance. Epic stuff, with the heartwarming sight of the horse who’d done the donkey work and run the rest into the mud coming home virtually alone.
If Companero never wins or races again (and after today he’d be excused from wanting to do either) he provided a sight to remember this dank February Saturday.
And I’m 100% sure there’s nothing here for anyone to feel apologetic about.
So bottoming a horse, or at the very least instilling an emotional aversion to racing, is justifiable if it manages to win a race by running itself, and its competitors, in to the ground in the name of spectacle?
Quite how you can castigate people for openly questioning particular rides, then complain incessently about the sponsor of one race and go on to applaud the almost Draconian beating Companero, Giles Cross and Morgan Be took today mystifies me completely.
Today wasn’t pretty and can only be considered an appalling advert for racing.
Thanks so much for your posting Pinza,I was at Newcastle today and backed the winner, so will forever fight for good old-fashioned jumps racing where the stoutiest horse wins the day, and get annoyed when anyone questions the wisdom of racing at all
Would you be quite so cheery, Phil, had an absolutely knackered Companero – nice aftertiming by the way – collapsed on the run-in, or fallen heavily at the last? Or would it still have been an example of "good old-fashioned jumps racing" with a similarly legless Giles Cross sluicing by in super slow-motion?
- Total Posts 17716
Quite how you can castigate people for openly questioning particular rides, then complain incessently about the sponsor of one race and go on to applaud the almost Draconian beating Companero, Giles Cross and Morgan Be took today mystifies me completely.
Today wasn’t pretty and can only be considered an appalling advert for racing.
To take your last phrase of skewed propaganda first, AJ, the Eider was not an
advert for racing
. It
was
racing. This is what racing is, and very stirring too. Now if you and the Animal Rights Activists don’t like horse racing over jumps in soft going, you can vote with your feet. But please don’t try and tell everyone else what to like and what not to like in such an angry puritanical tone, or try to skew every spectacle into an
"advert"
for … well, what? The Cheltenham Festival??
You would evidently have preferred an
advert
whereby no horse finished the race. What do you think the public, let alone your Animal Rights friends, would have thought of that? You see, it seems racing people can’t win, until you’ve banned the whole thing.
I did not see the "Draconian beatings" which you’ve invented, and yes I am happy to "castigate" you for carping at Peter Buchanan’s ride. I’d rather trust the stewards – or the trainer, who said the jockey " … gave him a superb ride, he’s a true horseman".
Last, I have no complaint against names such as
totesport.com Eider (Handicap Chase)
– unlike the flat pattern race at Lingfield which the spineless course executive allowed to be called the
Download The Blue Square iPhone App Cleves Stakes (Listed)
. At least commentator Mark Johnston wasn’t having that, calling it simply the
Listed Blue Square Cleves Stakes
as they left the stalls. Any more than that, and they’d have finished the damned race before he’d read out the advert.
Now that
was
an
advert
, if not for racing, then at least for the sponsor’s latest piece of mug-catching crap.
Thinking about this during a walk with the dog this morning.
What I wondered is this..
Did the jockeys go off too fast for this? Should they have gone at at no more than a crawl for the first two miles, say? Could you say a jockey has judged the pace badly when his horse is too tired to finish the race?
- Total Posts 17716
Did the jockeys go off too fast for this? Should they have gone at at no more than a crawl for the first two miles, say? Could you say a jockey has judged the pace badly when his horse is too tired to finish the race?
The problem with that, Corm, is that the two horses who finished the race without pausing for breath
led throughout
, so they at least judged the pace to a nicety.
Corm, mostly all jumps jockeys are terrible at judging pace by rule of thumb
Talking to a friend in the morning I said I’d be surprised if more than 3 finished the race. Watched with hands over eyes seeing Giles Cross trying to get over the last. If the definition of a race is to keep them running until only one is left going then that’s nearly what we got, was quite a horrendous scene in my opinion.
Thinking about this during a walk with the dog this morning.
What I wondered is this..
Did the jockeys go off too fast for this? Should they have gone at at no more than a crawl for the first two miles, say? Could you say a jockey has judged the pace badly when his horse is too tired to finish the race?
Well of course the winner went off too fast. He ran them all into the ground which is, for my money, why he won. I wonder if he would have ridden in quite the same way without getting into the winning way over similar ground on Silver By Nature the week before.
Well I say similar ground, of course at Haydock they didn’t have a chase earlier in the day that got the ground good & ploughed.
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