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Another top class horse bites the dust in the states by breaking both front legs.
Dirt racing eh, dont ya just love it….
Thanks for the tips guys – Theres obviously a lot more to the site than first meets the eye! I will go steady at first.
Cheers
Are the two Intercasino-sponsored handicaps which started the card today registered as the Great Metropolitan and City & Suburban of blessed memory?
And presumably the 3yo Conditions Stakes was formerly either the Blue Riband Trial or Warren Stakes.
The ditching of traditional race names is very irritating
And they have the nerve to call them HERITAGE handicaps too!!
Imagine in 50 years time, they’ll be calling it the ‘Fly Virgin to Uranus’ Heritage Handicap
quote from john jdonaghue:
Yes I am Irish, and of course I am happy about less fatalities, anywhere. However, my point is that there are many dangers in NH and we just have to accept them. Has anybody any statistics on what fence actually ARE the most dangerous. As Ten plus has pointed out that there has only been one fatality at Ludlow, who is the subject of this thread.
I love my jump racing as much as anyone on here John, but the fact remains that, to avoid playing into the hands of the Sedgefield pickets and their chums, we have to move with the times. This means looking at all aspects of fences/racecourses, to reduce the amount of risk wherever possible, while still maintaining the character of the sport.
I dont know if you remember, but back in the 80’s the RSPCA were constantly going on about getting the National banned. But since the modificatons in a number of key areas, they have totally changed their tune – it is only the lunatic animal right fringe who now protest about it.
(By the way, the Sedgefield protest was shown on Look North – what a motley bunch they were! Aload of student goths who obviously didnt have a clue about the sport. Unsurprisingly, they got pretty short shrift from the locals!!)
quote from johnjdonague:
So guaranteed no more fatalities at the Chair or Beechers then Beeswing. How about the 3rd last at Cheltenham, which seems to catch a number of horses out, and is a trappy obstacle. Granite Jack also came to grief at this fence last year, and how Don’t Push it survived at the festival this year I dont’t know. Should this fence be removed?
There have certainly been far less fatalities at Bechers since it was modified – surely you cant be unhappy about that, John?
I think you are refering to the 2nd last on the Old Course at Cheltenham? Unless youve been on a desert island, you should be aware that this was modified slightly prior to the festival, and as far as I could see, there were few problems with it during the meeting.
Anyway, can you answer my question about the lack of Irish water jumps? (I’m assuming from your name your from over there, but pardon me if I’m mistaken
)quote from johnjdonaghue:
How about Bechers or the Chair in Aintree equally as dangerous, I don’t here any anybody asking for these fences to be modified or banned? Would anyone go so far?
It is well known that both Bechers and The Chair have been extensively modified since the 80’s, which has made both obstacles a fairer test.
The point seems to be that water jumps are trappy obstacles which catch horses out unexpectedly, and whilst few incidents occur at them, the incidents which do happen tend to be serious career/life threatening back or leg injuries.
I for one wouldnt mind seeing them phased out. Was this what happened in Ireland, or have they never existed there? There must be some explanation for this?
LOL at Doyley
Carlisle,
are you saying that you regularly make 100% profit in racing in the long term?
I find that difficult to believe!Care to share your secret?? – is it purely by taking advantage of ‘gullible losers’ on the betting exchanges, or is there more to it than that?
If your planning on getting a pub meal in Sedgefield village, go to the Dun Cow. Very nice scran – its where George Dubya Bush went for a meal with Blair
Sadly they didnt put arsenic in the food that day
Flash, disqualifying the first past the post would make no sense, can you imagine explaining to Miko backers or the like "Sorry lads, your horse was first past the post but the jockey hit too many times". It just wouldn’t wash. Punters would stop betting on racing in their droves.
Why shoudnt it wash? I dont see much difference between a horse getting disqualified for interference (by a jockey being reckless), and a horse being disqualified for excessive whipping (again, by a jockey being reckless). Punters have accepted the former, so why not the latter??
Until horses are actually disqualified for this, then jockeys will continue to abuse them, and potential followers of racing will turn off in disgust.
I would have been pretty unhappy with Ruby if I had backed Denman today – set far too slow a pace, and was open to attack from a horse with speed.
Having said that, I can understand why he set the pace he did – obviously didnt want to give him too hard a race. He’s a good horse, but I cant see him beating KS unless he gets both soft/heavy ground and a guaranteed fast pace, and even then I would make KS just favourite in a match race. 7/4 Denman for the GC is a crazy price.
Jim McGrath – "as they head down towards THE JUDGE"
Presumably theres also a barrister, defendant and twelve man jury hanging around the winning post too
A little bit of foresight wouldn’t go amiss.
I am well aware of the dangers that horses and jockeys face (both on flat and NH), but you have to be able to recognise when there is a level of risk which goes above the level of acceptability – in my mind, AOB went beyond this point.
quote:
Can you imagine? God forbid he fell and hurt himself. You’d have people decrying this awful jumping game, wondering why horses were being put at risk every day as they’re made to jump over obstacles whilst running at speed on ground ranging from bottomless to bone-breakingly fast.
Or maybe not.
Gareth, why do you think the top chasers are not raced on bone-breakingly fast ground? Why do you think that Paul Nichols has decided not to run Denman at either Wetherby or Carlisle this weekend?
Could it be because he is a trainer who is not stupid enough to run his top horses on ground which he thinks is unsuitable for them, and which could endanger their well-being??
Lets just face facts – AOB took a big gamble with GW which didnt pay off. I just hope that he learns from this mistake, and that Ballydoyle, if they are to keep up this obsession of theirs with winning the BC Classic, at least try it with a more suitable horse in safer conditions in the future.
quote:
While Coolmore is of course a commercial operation, anybody who suggests that the welfare of the horse was not put first is talking utter bollocks IMO.. just one of those unfortunate incidents..
Then I have gonads coming out of my mouth right now. This was a commercial decision first – a welfare decision second (at best).
What does the time of the race have anything to do with how dangerous the ground is? Obviously the track rode fairly fast, because the horses hooves were going straight through onto the hard surface beneath.
TC, you may think it ‘strange’ that there were no other casualties on Saturday, but do you not also think it is rather strange that the ONE horse who was fatally injured was also the one horse who was totally not used to the stresses and strains a sloppy dirt track puts on a horse’s legs?? (And dont say that it was the same situation for the other horses – at least they have experience of racing on dirt tracks on a number of occasions).
)
I find that difficult to believe!
oh dear…