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Wonderful servant during his 13 years. Do you not think it would be nice for him to now spend a happy retirement instead of running in tuppenny ha’penny handicaps at Ripon against animals he would have devoured in his heyday.
One of my favs over his time in the game btw.
This has been covered before – Bradley is adamant Tat is one miserable git when not racing, hence he carries on keeping him involved. He tried to retire him once, apparently the old boy (Tatling not Milton!) almost needed Prozac.
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The horse just loves racing and that’s what keeps him happy, the only thing that will stop this horse racing is a serious injury.
Do you think if The Tatling unfortunatly died due to a fatal injury on the track, you’d have to say he died doing what he loved!? would be better than passing away in a field imo.
Fantastic horse – deserves to keep racing as thats what he wants to do according to the person that knows him best!
Sure i take on board your views, i just think its better to go out at the top and be remembered for the great wins rather than trying his hardest to win these tuppenny ha’penny races towards the end of his career……..he is finding it a bit harder these days after all.
I know where your coming from mate, but i guess if the horse loves it and the trainer is happy to keep sending him out it doesnt really matter that much how successful he is now.
Look at other sports with the likes of Steve Davis and Sandy Lyle living off former glories but still participating for the fun of it and just occasionally having a brief moment back in the spotlight.
I think its good for all actually as many people might be tempted to go to the track just to see a famous horse even if it is in amongst a card of mainly useless types!
This has been covered before – Bradley is adamant Tat is one miserable git when not racing, hence he carries on keeping him involved. He tried to retire him once, apparently the old boy (Tatling not Milton!) almost needed Prozac.
Quite so – with The Tatling it’s going to be a case of "he’ll let us know when", and at the moment he’s giving no indication of telling connections he has actually had enough.
Clearly you’d hope he gets to that stage before he’s deteriorated to the point where he’s running in classified events off a mark of 30 or something like that, but as a gnarly old sprinter I’m not sure what other options there are for retraining or redeploying him outwith sprinting (regardless of whether or not that’s before he’s decided he had had enough of racing). You’d not necessarily think of him as obvious hunting, eventing or team chasing material, for example.
gc
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.
…i just think its better to go out at the top
But that’s already too late, he would have had to be retired some three or four years ago to ‘go out at the top’.
Let us not forget this horse won back-to-back races less than 12 months ago, has had many places since, and still has an official rating of 70. Believe me, this a a lot better than most horses 10 years his younger.
Even at the age of 13 The Tatling is still a competitve animal. Good luck to him.
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