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Two thigs come to my mind first:
1.) Obviously the faster ground leaves no room for mistakes at a higher speed combined with the fact that there is no such thing as cushion when the horse falls on ground firmer than soft or heavy.
2.) The bone structure of the horses isn’t as solid as 20-30 years ago. Just watch the races from the late 80s and early 90s. There were fatalities at that time as well, but horses looked more massive and stronger than nowadays.Right now we also have the tendency to send lot of smaller horses over fences than in the past. WHY?
Because the fences at some tracks have been made easier to jump and there is also a lot more racing where to send your horse to.
For example Right On Ruby:
No way this horse is a chaser and no way one can tell me he has experience over fences. He has ZERO experience over fences, because those 2 and 3 runner races at Plumpton and Doncaster don’t count at all. He lines up in the Arkle and is beaten after just jumping the second.
There are many examples of horses running in the wrong disipline.So many things that happen during a race are not taken into consideration. You will never see a stewards enquiry if horse A comes across horse B at the 2nd and 9th fence, for example. So why bothering that much if it happens in the closing stages when you have tired horses running up the hill with no one intentionally impeding other horses?
I think it was the correct decision, since it was a battle of three tired horses going up the hill after 3m2f. At this stage of the race they are a lot more difficult to steer than in the opening stages so that should be taken into consideration.@ Black Gold re Oskar Whisky
He isn’t lost, but I was just talking about novices running in very small fields on softish ground and then taking on 20+ horses on very fast ground. The chance of making mistakes or not gettig that far is quite big. That is teh reasonwhy I’ve mentioned him.
And there aren’t many novice chases for horses like him either. I remember Nicky Henderson talking about the problems he faced of finding the right races for Oscar Whisky at the end of November and through December.The increased pace due to the faster ground makes things worse.
Look at Oscar Whisky: Another one with no proper opposition over fences in his previous starts. Didn’t even get to jump the first fence at the Festival.It only ran in small fields and faced a total of 12 horses in its 4 previous races. Today, all of a sudden there were 22 opponents in the same race. You make mistakes, because you aren`t used to the furious pace and you don`t get to see the fences properly. This is exactly why he fell. Very sad indeed.
Just too many lows this week.
We were so incredible fortunate not to have had double digits in fatalities. And still nobody comes up with a proper explanation.
Rest in Peace Raya Star and good luck to the fortunate survivors and all the other horses in trainingR.I.P. Akdam
We were extremel lucky to have YOU as the only fatality today. I have rarely witnessed such ugly falls at a Cheltenham Festival. It´s great that some many horses got away with their lives, but this isn`t a enjoyable sport any longer. Cheltenham Racecourse made some very intelligent modofications over the past years, but the decision not water this year is a very poor and cruel one. I don`t givea s**T if I win or not not. The pocket counts here the least. It`s the animals and jockeys that have to get home in one piece.
If you allow horses over two miles to smash the track records by 3-4 seconds then you must be dealing with some mental problems of your own. The fact the champion hurdle winner was about 3-4 seconds faster than Istabraq is some cause for concern. The best proof for that was the fatal fall of Our Connor in the same race.
What is the point in having ground as fast as lightning and bone crunching falls?
The "sport" is starting to sell itself very bad at the moment. I never thought that I would hate watching the Cheltenham Festival, but that`s the case right now.A foot infection according to the RP site. And was treated for about a month. Really sad….
Watching another horse being killed while running through heavy mud leaves a lot of questions to be answered.
However I´m not the one to answer them. So sad and also unacceptable since a meeting can be called off.The 7th race of the card run in the worst possible conditions and contested by very unexperienced horses!!!
Do we need that???@ thisthatandtother:
I share exactly the same opinion. Jumping hurdles and fences are two totally different games. If you aren`t a natural jumper then you shouldn`t be in the game. And to make things even worse, horses should be running on suitable ground. That is what you call TURF and not MUD.
Connections just seem to get it wrong too often.Why are stalls that high that horse can bang their heads against them?
And why does Southwell racecourse still exist?
Already the uncharacteristic high number of NH fatalities should have had the place closed down for ever.Good post VtC,
however Moloney is not necessarly one of he big names in the NH game. However he seems to be extremely consistent over fences and has a good hand for long distances. Could easily make a good trainer one day.
At least you could hide a horse behind the screens (Monsieur Cadeau).
Too bad it didn’t happen properly and the horse was still in the picture when the runners went past him. I also don’t understand why the horse was moved from the far rail to the middle of the track. Well, the racegoers in the stand got a pretty good view of this unfortunate incident.
Beamazed was a very poor jumper of fences (just watch his form). I still don’t know why he had his reapperance run over 3m4f at this track with those tough fences to jump. But maybe the trainer and the owners knew more.
RIP to both of them and it is very annoying to see that they were still alive after another circuit was completed.@ vikingflagship
This is exactly what I was thinking.
However bear in mind that it was just a schooling accident and he surely wasn’t running at full speed. So it happened probably at a moderate pace and I’m sure he must have had some pain. The atmosphere of a race gets the adrenalin flowing and horses often don’t realise how bad the injury was. During a schooling session they are just popped over a few fences and are not having a hard race. So the pain surely is a lot bigger andtherefore the sufferance.
It really isn’t normal if a animal breaks its shoulder and a leg. Probably the light conditions were very poor since it happened after racing. The concluding race is being run in almost half-dark conditions during the winter months and this took place even after that. I really have to ask myself whether tis is fair to the animals or not. My conclusion: not at all during the winter period.
I also wonder why horses HAVE to break their shoulder. This can ONLY occur when the horses misses out the fence completely and it runs against it. Or at least against the core of the fence which is rather unforgiving, especially in IRELAND.
But these are just my thoughts and no matter how often we will discuss these matters, NOTHING will change. Unless someone could prove me wrong.
