Syncronized dies in the national

[Tyrone Biggums]

I am still interested in reading any info you have that contradicts the 'bullshit' as you put it.

For the record i don't think that racing should be banned but I think the practices of many race meetings, owners, stables and trainers need to be looked at carefully. Dismissing so many objections based on what appears to be decent studies without rebuttel or contrary evidence seems to me to be folly in today's climate.

Out of interest, why do you think they should be looked at carefully?

You've admitted that you don't follow the sport so how is it that you think the practices of a wide range of people and businesses need to be looked at? Just interested as to why all of a sudden race clubs, owners, trainers/stables need to be scrutinised.

Are they decent studies though?

Anything remotely to do with the RSPCA i'd take with a pinch of salt as they are the ultimate hypocritical spin doctors and disgustingly a law unto themselves.

They are also good at padding stats. Thus if they have anything to do with providing information on them look the other way.

RSPCA hypocrisy | The RiotACT

 

[BadFish]

Out of interest, why do you think they should be looked at carefully?

You've admitted that you don't follow the sport so how is it that you think the practices of a wide range of people and businesses need to be looked at? Just interested as to why all of a sudden race clubs, owners, trainers/stables need to be scrutinised.

Are they decent studies though?

Anything remotely to do with the RSPCA i'd take with a pinch of salt as they are the ultimate hypocritical spin doctors and disgustingly a law unto themselves.

They are also good at padding stats. Thus if they have anything to do with providing information on them look the other way.

RSPCA hypocrisy | The RiotACT

Well, given that I am not prepared to discount my experience of and anecdotal evidence of horses bred for racing and the fact I am not prepared to write of the information I have provided and read this morning as 'bullshit' and I am yet to see any evidence that this information is 'bullshit'. I would have thought it was fairly obvious that in the horse racing industry there is much practice of cruelty and mistreatment of horses. Couple with this the alarming number of horses that die in the most famous horse race in the UK and the increasing negative press and a turn in public opinion I would say that the racing industry needs to make some changes to continue. Such as banning jumps racing as I believe all states in Australia have done except Victoria and South Australia?

As a world we are becoming less accepting of cruelty to animals for our own amusement, see fox hunting, bull fighting etc etc.

This pdf is very interesting 'bullshit'

http://questequinewelfare.org/attachments/category/68/Jumps%20Racing%20HSI.pdf

 

[Foster House]

Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons. I've just looked up year on year horse fatalities at the national and noticed there has been an increase since the fences were reduced in size.

I often wondered whether this would make the race more dangerous because of the faster pace.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The conditions were not good, very fast ground, dry, a field of top quality horses and stiff fences. Synchronised was spooked before the race. Sickening to see the 2 canvasses as the horses went around the second time. I also think some people love the fatalities, some numpties and chavs in the pub I watched it in certainly seemed to enjoy that element of the race. Just felt very sad today and rethinking my support of this race at the moment.

 

[beorhthelm]

The RSPCA are a joke.

They put down more healthy animals than any other organisation in the nation.

Hypocrisy rules supreme with them.

the "C" in RSPCA stands for Cruelty, theres nothing hypocritical about putting an animal down that is ill, injured or has no home.

Do you understand the statistics you're reading though?

To understand them you'd have to understand the amount of races held and the size of the fields.

Without that understanding those statistics are meaninglessness.

If I collated those statistics to 48 races times an avg of 6 starters per race that would mean only 2 horses died per season. There are no jumps races held at Picnic/non TAB meetings

If I applied the same mathematical theory to flat races avg 10 horses per race, 19500 races per year divided by 2100 horses and you've got nearly 100 dead horses there. Those are only the meetings covered by the TAB. Picnic/non TAB meetings are not included in race start statistics which adds even further to the death rate.

As I said, perspective.

you need better maths skills, if you reckon there's 50 meets a week with 10 runners av, thats 26000 starts, divided by 2150 is 12. on your number of 19500 "races" presumably starts, thats 9. not hundreds.

 

[HawkTheSeagull]

Why should Horse Riding be stopped anyway ? Yes Horses get injured and can unfortunately die, but thats the risk of the sport. If you want to ban it because some Horses may die, you may as well also ban all Motorsport, Cricket, Rugby, Football - basically every sport, because there will always be that risk.

 

[drew]

Any use of a horse potentially can lead to their death. From pulling carts to local pony clubs for kids to equestrian events, to polo to running around in a paddock.

More horses die from accidents in their own paddocks than die from jumps racing.

I follow horse racing here. You'd be surprised at how many horses are put down from injuries sustained while not racing. here's a few examples. Even an equestrian one.

Echo Of Light put down after paddock accident | the-racehorse.com

Martino Alonso put down following paddock accident | the-racehorse.com

Horse Breeding - Rhythm Put Down After Paddock Accident

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2010/01/134.shtml

http://www.perthturftalk.com/news.php?id=2439

The mathematics is simple if you understand how many horse races occur each day,week,month,year.

Which it seems you don't if you don't follow the sport.

Do you realise that the total amount of jumps races is 48 for the whole year? The total amount of flat races held per week is at an avg of around 50.

There's more flat races in one week than a whole season of jumps racing.

Nothing like perspective.

Talk about misleading info. Firstly, the examples you give all seem to relate to horses in training and therefore they are being kept for an economic reason. Can you quote some figures that relate to all types of horses whether they are racing horses, hunters or purely used for hacking. Of course a horse that picks up an injury in the paddock that stops it running is going to be destroyed as it has no use to the owner/trainer etc so it is misleading just to quote those examples.

As for you comment about there being 48 jump races, that sounds very odd. Usually there are 6 races at a meeting and on that basis there would only be 8 meetings a season!!!

 

[Lord Bracknell]

There are a few comments on this thread about horse psychology. Do they like racing? If they weren't driven to do it would they bother? Can I throw my two penn'orth into the argument? I know that what I have to say isn't about thoroughbred racehorses, but it's based on experience of owning a shetland pony and racing it (harnessed to a cart).

I am convinced that horses thoroughly enjoy the competitiveness of a good race. Our pony (which we had back in the 1980s) was a fairly lazy, docile creature when he was in his field (which he shared with a couple of other ponies and a few sheep). When we harnessed him up for a drive around the country lanes, he came to life - and he would happily take us wherever we wanted. But when he went racing, against other shetlands pulling carts, he really got up for it. The hardest thing was to hold him back. His competitiveness was astonishing. I don't know what it was - maybe the buzz around the track, the presence of other racers, the excitement of the spectators, who knows? But he could race. And he wanted to race. And win.

As I say, thoroughbreds may be different and they only race because someone makes them do it. But that argument doesn't convince me.

 

[Mtoto]

The conditions were not good, very fast ground, dry, a field of top quality horses and stiff fences. Synchronised was spooked before the race. Sickening to see the 2 canvasses as the horses went around the second time. I also think some people love the fatalities, some numpties and chavs in the pub I watched it in certainly seemed to enjoy that element of the race. Just felt very sad today and rethinking my support of this race at the moment.

I walked the course at 11.00 and I can assure you it was not fast ground. It was good, good-to-soft, with plenty of give and a good cover of grass. There will never be a true "fast ground" National again, and I'd expect that Mr Frisk's record time will stand forever.
The screens were up at the 21st because Noel Fehily was being treated for a broken leg. His horse was fine.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who "loves" the fatalities, though I'd guess that there are plenty among the 8m or so who either don't give it any thought, or don't give a toss if they do. It's the only race most of them watch all year, after all, and 10 minutes afterwards they're more interested in the footie results.

 

[BadFish]

There are a few comments on this thread about horse psychology. Do they like racing? If they weren't driven to do it would they bother? Can I throw my two penn'orth into the argument? I know that what I have to say isn't about thoroughbred racehorses, but it's based on experience of owning a shetland pony and racing it (harnessed to a cart).

I am convinced that horses thoroughly enjoy the competitiveness of a good race. Our pony (which we had back in the 1980s) was a fairly lazy, docile creature when he was in his field (which he shared with a couple of other ponies and a few sheep). When we harnessed him up for a drive around the country lanes, he came to life - and he would happily take us wherever we wanted. But when he went racing, against other shetlands pulling carts, he really got up for it. The hardest thing was to hold him back. His competitiveness was astonishing. I don't know what it was - maybe the buzz around the track, the presence of other racers, the excitement of the spectators, who knows? But he could race. And he wanted to race. And win.

As I say, thoroughbreds may be different and they only race because someone makes them do it. But that argument doesn't convince me.

I agree that horses like to race, they are pack animals after all.

One of the links i posted earlier put over a good description of why they are not designed to jump and as we are talking about jumps racing on this thread then perhaps that is more relevant.

I would also suggest the wanting to race and being pushed too hard and treated badly while being trained for racing are two very different things.

 

[countryman]

or from personal experience: my mum bought two horses from a racing stable (they didn't make the grade). Both showed signs of being mistreated, both nervous and both had nervous ticks (wind sucking, horrifically shying away at the sight of a whip). One had to be put down as it threw my mum (a very experienced horsey person having kept horses since she was a teenager) a number of times.

Wind sucking is not a sign of being mistreated. It is something that a horse can start doing if they get bored and it can become a habit. For example, someone I know had a racehorse with a bit of a leg and it started doing it when it was on box rest. And when you say Your mum's ex racehorse kept throwing her off, did she send it to someone who knew about re-training racehorses. They can react differently to other horses. One example is that you cannot pull as hard on their reins as you can on say a cob because they have a softer mouth.
I know several race trainers and they really care about their horses. They are true animal lovers or they would not devote their lives to horses. They do things like scope a horses before it runs to make sure it doesn't bleed.
People need to realise that race horses love to run. If they didn't, you would not see loose horses continuing to run round and jump the fences after their jockeys have fallen off. When my brother had an ex-racehorse which he bought to send pointing, if he saw a jump he would fly into it because he loved jumping.

 

[BadFish]

Wind sucking is not a sign of being mistreated. It is something that a horse can start doing if they get bored and it can become a habit. For example, someone I know had a racehorse with a bit of a leg and it started doing it when it was on box rest. And when you say Your mum's ex racehorse kept throwing her off, did she send it to someone who knew about re-training racehorses. They can react differently to other horses. One example is that you cannot pull as hard on their reins as you can on say a cob because they have a softer mouth.
I know several race trainers and they really care about their horses. They are true animal lovers or they would not devote their lives to horses. They do things like scope a horses before it runs to make sure it doesn't bleed.
People need to realise that race horses love to run. If they didn't, you would not see loose horses continuing to run round and jump the fences after their jockeys have fallen off. When my brother had an ex-racehorse which he bought to send pointing, if he saw a jump he would fly into it because he loved jumping.

Windsucking is as you say something which horses do when bored. For instance when they are kept in stables for too long, this is apprently done while training racehorses because some people do not let them roam in a paddock between training.

To be honest i can't remember the ins and outs of the two horses but my parents did talk to a racehorse trainer friend of my dad's and a horse psychologist. They decided that the most likely thing was that both horses had been mistreated at their stables and sold on.

Not for a second would i suggest that all studs and trainers mistreat their horses but there does seem to be an awful lot of evidence out there that some do.

 

[piersa]

people love a bandwagon to jump on. I bet a lot of people commenting on this queued up for petrol recently too.

 

[Mtoto]

I've just researched that makes 22 horse deaths in the Grand National since 2000. Failing to see much difference with Bull Fighting personally.

Where did you research that? I make it 11 since 2000, including Synchronised and According To Pete yesterday, and also Graphic Approach, who was put down about a week later.
Yearly totals:
2000 none
2001 none
2002 two
2003 one
2004 none
2005 none
2006 one
2007 one
2008 one
2009 one
2010 none
2011 two
2002 two

Pretty sure there's been a maximum field every year, so that means 520 starters. Death rate is 2 per cent or, alternatively, survival rate is 98pc. What's the survival rate in bull fighting? I think it's pretty much the same as the survival rate in beef farming. Do you see the difference now?

Overall in GB last year, there were 181 racecourse deaths from a total of 94,776 starts, which is 0.19pc. There's no doubt that the National is the riskiest race of the year, it's just a question of whether that higher risk is acceptable, in one race out of 10,000 each year, in view of the pleasure and excitement it brings to millions.

My view would be yes, but only just. If yours is no, fine, don't bet on it, but don't accuse others of hypocrisy if they take the opposite view, at least for as long as you're still munching your burgers. Also, don't think for a moment that people in racing don't care about horses being killed, because I can promise you that it is the one thing everyone involved with it hates about the sport. There are, though, many benefits which outweigh the - very occasional - misery of fatal injuries, one of which is simply being involved with beautiful animals which were born and bred to race.

 

[Falkor]

RSPCA on it now Beecher Brooke looks gone now, and size looks set to be cut :/ it's sad but do they really have to shoot a horse as it broke it's leg, clearly can't race again but is termination really the answer I think that's what needs to be looked at

 

[countryman]

RSPCA on it now Beecher Brooke looks gone now, and size looks set to be cut :/ it's sad but do they really have to shoot a horse as it broke it's leg, clearly can't race again but is termination really the answer I think that's what needs to be looked at

It is a tough decision. There is a low chance a broken leg will heel because there is a lot of weight on it and you can't get a horse to lay down for months.

 

[Mtoto]

You can tell humans to take care while a broken bone heals, you can't do that with horses. Depends on the precise nature of the injury, but as a general rule, putting a horse's leg in plaster and forcing it to stay still would be increasing its suffering, not reducing it.

 

[Tooting Gull]

Mtoto, I know you know your racing, and you put forward a very impassioned case for the defence of this race. I love jump racing myself, I was at Plumpton on Monday, go to Cheltenham as you know, although I wouldn't claim by any means to be an expert.

The one issue I have with the National is that 'racing people' are too close to it, and can't see the way the trend is going. It used to be the case that the National was a great thing you could all watch and enjoy as a family. Nowadays, many adults and kids alike (and this may be down to awareness, rather than stats) actually either don't want to watch because they fear fatalities, or watch with held breath hoping no horse dies. That is not the way this race was designed to be watched and enjoyed.

Again yesterday, the high-profile fatalities overshadowed the victory. I genuinely believe that this acceptance of risk, however small, is not shared by the wider public and more changes have to be made, starting with cutting it to 30 runners. There will be howls from the racing establishment, not exactly the most progressive of people I'm sure you'd agree, but if they don't do it the government may do it for them. And if that happens, it may affect other races.

 

[drew]

You can tell humans to take care while a broken bone heals, you can't do that with horses. Depends on the precise nature of the injury, but as a general rule, putting a horse's leg in plaster and forcing it to stay still would be increasing its suffering, not reducing it.

He was a gelding. With a broken leg and no race career he was economically useless to his owners, despite what he had earnt them in winnings, approx £500k.

 

[DerbyGull]

Why?? The all the fences that were dangerous in the past have been reduced in size, it's unfortunate for any horse to meet its end, they can die being involved in any race, synchronized should not have run in the grand national after winning a tough gold cup race. I feel for the owners of both horses that died according to Pete was the other. Horses are bred for racing and jumping they love it. Like every sport it can have unfortunate circumstances.

You feel for the owners? The same owners who knowingly send their horse out to run in a race that could potentially kill something they love. Would they send their children out to somewhere they knew they might die? They love money and status more than they love that horse.