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See the clerk of the coure is looking at the possibility of reducing the distance (to 3m 6f). Looking at what Northern Racing did to the National Trial they used to run at Uttoxeter, in five years time it will be run at 2miles with a prize fund of £10,000!!! (Half the distance = extra time for punters to spend at the bar!!!)
Flippancy aside, and as a self confessed lover (for all my sins) of four milers, I personally admire a) the HORSEMANSHIP of the jockeys involved (both of those whose horses completed in being able to coax, push and cajole – I personally did not see anything that was tantamount to cruelty – and for those with the sense to allow the horses to give up the unequal struggle without allowing the lure of a share of prize money to cloud their judgement) and the courageous horses involved.
Ultimately, the clerk had the choice whether to race or not (based on a couple of false patches – both where Overquest injured himself and by the omitted fence where Minella Boys stumbled – and this in itself looks questionable, but hey, there,s money to be made by opening the bars!
Also, the connections had the chance to withdraw as they knew the score. None of the 12 declarations did.
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I don’t think your idea about extra time at the bar is at all flippant,
Katie
!
I remember once a friend of mine who’d been commissioned to write a play by one of our major subsidised theatres was asked (a) to put in an Interval, and (b) to take twenty minutes off the running length.
The reason for these suggested changes were – you guessed it – to make sure that the punters got a bit more bar time. They got their Interval, but not the twenty minutes!
What a pointless idea it would be swapping 3 furlongs of the Eider for extra time in the bar. You’d just be swapping one offering full of flavourless excess water… for a racecourse quality lager.
Under review by the BHA according to Jim Mc Grath…
I would be vehemently opposed to reducing the distance of the Eider. The problem yesterday was not the distance of the race but the condition of the course.
Have long thought there is a gap in the racing calendar for a decent 4m race in the early season; maybe one option might be to consider swapping the scheduling of the Eider and the Rehearsal Chases. The latter is weakened by being the same day as the Hennessy.
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?
Il Companero clearly did not go too fast, he was at the front throughout and won.
It is impossible for a jockey in a horse race to take account of the possible effects on other runners when deciding what pace to set. Il Companero’s jockey set the right pace for his horse.
The jockey of Minella Boys, for example, could have plodded round more slowly but would that have changed the result? I doubt it. How could he have known when the gas tank would show empty? Did he pull up at the correct moment, out of consideration of his horse’s welfare? I did not see any jockey go too far.
The race is one of a few that covers that distance and is an extreme event, especially in that sort of going. It was horrible to watch but I saw nothing to warrant a report to the RSPCA.
Good to see an outbreak of common sense on this matter.
The Eider is an extreme test of a steeple chaser. It is a test of stamina but also of accurate (energy efficient) jumping, horsemanship and heart. The record of horses carrying over 11 stone confirms that it is not simply a ‘slog fest’ but a race that is often won by the better horses contesting it.
Yesterday’s conditions were particularly demanding and demanded greater concentration, skill and determination from jockeys and placed a great emphasis on the ability and the fitness of the horses taking part.
The race was run and was won by the horse and jockey who turned out to be best equipped and best able to execute their strategy on the day. That’s how most races are won of course.
To pander to the ‘perceptions’ of those who don’t understand horse racing (or for that matter apparently the extreme physical and mental demands of all elite sport it would seem) is not just stupid it’s dangerous.
It’s yet another example of spineless, weak reaction. There is no evidence whatsoever – none, zero, nil – that the running of the Eider put any horse or rider at extra or unecessary risk. We need to have the courage, and the moral honesty, to stand up for this sport when it is subject to ill informed, baseless criticism.
I wonder sometimes what those who say they found the Eider ‘distasteful’ think horseracing is? Horses in their training, and particularly in their races, are asked to give enormous physical athletic effort. These efforts take them to the limit of what their body can do. It’s what happens in elite sport.
Is it an extreme test? Of course it is but so too is galloping thoroughbreds down the hill and round the bend at Epsom on quick ground against the most able of their peers in the world in the Derby. So too is jumping fences at the Festival at the highest speeds most horses will ever race at. Does this make the activity cruel or the enjoyment of it depraved? Only if you live in a reality that denies all risk, all drama, all colour and all sport. God forbid.
Good post, fine prose Seanboyce
This year’s Eider was a tough, tough race and for this viewer a compelling spectacle not unlike the Earth Summit/Suny Bay ‘match’ for the ’98 National
My heart went out to those horses then and on Saturday but not in a mawkish ‘this is cruel’ sense but more a sense of wonder at just what these amazing animals are capable of; and after all these years and all these races the amazement remains
It wasn’t ‘pretty’; it wasn’t ‘nice’; and like the National it wasn’t ‘a good advert for racing’ whatever that means; but for this lover of the noble steed it was an exhilarating, terrifying, draining 10 minutes
Thank you my four-legged friends for rousing those all-too-rarely-experienced emotions
God forbid we get rid of these (rare) extreme stamina tests; they are examinations only a few are capable of passing and as such should be celebrated
1st Class Honours go to Companero
Upper-seconds to Giles Cross and Morgan BeBTW Sean. Will you be blogging this year?
Is it an extreme test? Of course it is but so too is galloping thoroughbreds down the hill and round the bend at Epsom on quick ground against the most able of their peers in the world in the Derby.
And when did 10 of a field of 12 get pulled up through exhaustion Sean?
The example quoted by Drone of the Earth Summit/Suny Bay National also gives the lie to the idea that this sort of endurance test on soft ground means that the horses involved never recover.
Suny Bay won his next two starts, the Edward Hanmer and the Tommy Whittle, both over the old proper fences at Haydock.
Earth Summit returned to Aintree to win the Becher Chase on his next start, then finished second the Suny Bay in the Tommy Whittle.
Samlee, who finished third in that National, ran twice more the same month, finishing 6th in both the Scottish National and the Whitbread. He also recovered well enough to finish second to Earth Summit in the Becher.
AP
I wonder sometimes what those who say they found the Eider ‘distasteful’ think horseracing is? Horses in their training, and particularly in their races, are asked to give enormous physical athletic effort. These efforts take them to the limit of what their body can do. It’s what happens in elite sport.
I dont recall any race where over 80% of the field have failed to finish in any elite sport! You only have to look at the times from the meeting to realise it should have been abandoned and had it been a mid week fixture it surely would have been.To complete all 7 races took over 6 minutes longer than standard,that is the equivalent to a 3 mile chase around Newcastle,thank God 4 fences were omitted in the Eider or else none would have completed and at the worse Companero or Giles Cross could have dropped dead after the line,these were exceptional conditions on Saturday and not suited to a 4m+ Chase,the powers that be only just got a way with it imo.I dont think you would be so vociferous then Sean!
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The question is, what can true racing fans do to address the false public
perception
that races such as Saturday’s Eider, or Red Marauder’s Grand National, are
"cruel"
or (that horridly self-righteous puritan phrase)
"against the horse’s welfare"
?
It is a false
perception
, we know that. Yet when you have someone as sensible and committed to the sport as J.A.McGrath bending over backwards to accommodate the people fuelling this
perception
, then we’ve reached a point where something needs to be done to address it head on for the nonsense it is.
Because you can rest assured, that the people who want the Eider and the Grand National banned will not stop simply because these races are reduced in length, or the fences lowered or removed.
No. Their aim is to do away with Jump Racing entirely, as they’ve managed to do in Australia and wish to do here. And unless we do something to show how wrong this
perception
is, we’ll have colluded in the destruction of the sport.
Kingfisher, the Midlands National in March last year had 18 runners. Only 3 finished. The winner was Synchronised, who went on to win this season’s Welsh Grand National.
The third horse that day? Giles Cross. He went on to run 2nd in that same Welsh National and 2nd in the Eider we’re now discussing. His trainer today is quoted as saying
‘He’s eaten up and is no more tired after that than he was at Chepstow. He looks bright and perky. He wants those conditions.’There is no moral issue whatsoever with events at Newcastle. None. Unless of course you feel it is wrong for humans to work with animals in ways that will physically test those animals to the limits of their capabiliy because make no mistake about it that’s what happens in high level competition. It happens in sprints, it happens in eventing and so on. If people object to that then they shouldn’t really be involved in following racing because every race will test horses to the limmit of their cardio vascular/musculatory/mental strengths. That’s how we get winners and losers.
No horse in that Eider chase was operating at total exertion/exhaustion for prolonged periods. Those who hit that wall earlier in the race were pulled up and those that finished would only have hit the boundary of their endurance very late in the contest. The animals will have no sense of having been ‘abused’ in any way at all and to imagine so is to project our misunderstandings on to these wonderful animals.
I agree with Pinza. Efforts at ‘conciliation’ with those who have no agenda other than the destruction of the sport and the assertion of a political agenda that would ban many of the interactions with animals that we currently regard as part of our way of life would be totally misguided.
We need to be clear on that and can do so with a clear conscience provided that we are scrupulous in the monitoring and enforcement of welfare policy throughout the sport and willing to reassess our stance in the light of any new substantive evidence.No horse in that Eider chase was operating at total exertion/exhaustion for prolonged periods. Those who hit that wall earlier in the race were pulled up and those that finished would only have hit the boundary of their endurance very late in the contest. The animals will have no sense of having been ‘abused’ in any way at all and to imagine so is to project our misunderstandings on to these wonderful animals.
Sean by your own admission you condone the fact that it is acceptable for a field of horses to race in atrocious conditions and have 80% of them pulled up.The reason they are pulled up is because they are exhausted due to the severity of the exceptional conditions they have encountered,thankfully their respective jockeys all accepted that this years Eider was just too much for them and foremost considered the horses wellbeing.The idea of racing horses is to allow each to actually finish the race to the best of their ability,Comply or die for one was certainly never going to get the chance to run his race in those conditions and thankfully lives to fight another day,the first 2 home couldn"t have jumped another fence and lived to tell the tale on the day irrespective of how well they have come out of it.
Condone? I’m not condoning, others are condemning based on nothing more than their ‘feeling’ that something was wrong.
Where is the evidence that any horse or jockey at Newcastle was exposed to any greater risk than would otherwise have been the case due to the conditions?
What evidence is there? Your suggestion that the horses who completed could have died is true of any horse that sets foot on any racecourse any day. It’s meaningless in this context. Both horses are fine.
High numbers of runners not completing is entirely consistent with the race type, distance and conditions. Perhaps we should lower Everest since so many climbers find it impossible to reach the summit should we? Perhaps we should have asked Steve Redgrave and his colleagues to row slower so as not to break the hearts and wills of their opponents?
I totally agree with Pinza and seanboyce, just a small point though sean, you stated on the Sunday forum the Eider was a "valuable" race, it’s worth less than half what it used to be.
I wouldn’t underestimate what the BHA will allow Jamie Stier to do though, after all he’s changed the way the stalls are numbered as in his words "it will help attract overseas runners to Royal Ascot".
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