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cant remember whom it was,but the poster who said the only way your gone stop the tragedies is to stop NH racing...and i 100%agree,and its inevitable that 1 day that will be the case ...
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A bit of sense there Cobrac
Fox hunting was a great sport Hare coursing gone Pressure on greyhound racing No matter how those sports fought back they lost out because animals were subjected to cruelty Which is why the BHA and the IHRB need to cop on and get their acts together , even if it means just extendin the life of the sport. This sport will go the same way allthe time HORSES are dying . |
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Dont agree that the only way you are going to stop the tragedies is to stop horse racing
That goes against every safety risk analysis that has ever been written. The process is evolutionary but the speed of the evolution is the problem. The BHA and the IHRB are not up to speed ....thats the problem. |
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We've been progressively banning sports that involve animals for 400 years - racing is bound to go the same way eventually, and likley NH racing first.
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irishone, in an earlier post you mention a higher rate of injury in 2.5 mile chases. The only different fences jumped are the first three so are the injuries occurring there? If not then the fences are the same in all chases on the final circuit. It is possible that the pace of 2.5 mile chases is too fast or they are very competitive. I can only find the 2.5 novice, the Ryanair, the mares chase and the Plate handicap in the whole meeting and all are on the New Course. Three fell in 2.5 chases, Conflated and Galopin des Champs on Thursday and Maid O'Malley on Friday all at the second last or last fences and none were injured as far as I know.
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Yes the information was gleaned from the report published by the BHA back in 2018 . If you google Cheltenham Festival Report and click on the BHA report you can download it. Its an excellent study on one side of the argument. To get a balanced view the antis produced a report of a comparison between cheltenham and hexham as well as cheltenham facts and figures . https://www.animalaid.org.uk/the-issues/our-campaigns/horse-racing/the-cheltenham-festival/cheltenham-festival-figures/ . Both reports are heavily biased but somewhere in between is the answer to the problem .
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The problem with comparing Cheltenham with Hexham is that better horses go faster. It's likle enquring into injuries to premier league footballers by watching league 1. I'm much in favour of doing what can be done to reduce horse injuries in racing, but we won;t find the right answers by asking the wrong questions and looking at the wrong evidence.
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Exactly.
I think a new approach is needed. I would be looking at compulsory scans of all entries so that we can rule out this belief that trainers know "when a horse is right". Lot of horses are run even though the ground is against them or they know the horse aint quite ready. Medical assessments prior to racing MAY be something for the future. |
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I think honcho is right about the fences , their make up at Cheltenham is severe in comparison to the plastic ones used in Ireland.
I also think the hurdle panels should be one long hurdle rather than panels. You can hit a panel in the middle and itbdoesnt appear to be as hard as hitting the two supporting poles at either end of the panels. So there is inconsistency across any of the flights of hurdles. |
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Good point about the hurdles. French hurdles are also continuous. Given that most GB horses now come from France or Ireland, there may be a safety advantage in copying from one of those countries.
Traditional steeplechase fences do vary from course to course, both in terms of height and stiffness (how much birch they contain and, presumably, how solid that birch is). The fences at Cheltenham are pretty stiff/unforgiving compared with many courses (though from a sporting point of view one can argue that's appropriate for championship races). Taking the example to the extreme, eventing fences can be much higher than steeplechase fences, but they only have a couple of layers of birch (so it's more like a screen than an obstacle). The Aintree fences were rebuilt a few years ago with plastic cores, and that seems to have had a significant effect on reducing injuries. The whole matter of how steeplechase fences are put together is something that could be looked at. |
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There was a study done in 2017 by the BHA
Showed a 15% fall in the number of fallers at padded fences as opposed to birch fence panels ..... .....and they still use the birch panels at Cheltenham How much longer have we got with this incompetence at the helm of national hunt racing ? |
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introduced increased padding on hurdles in 2001, newly custom-designed “One Fit” padded hurdles are now in place at ten racecourses since being rolled out in 2014, with more to follow. These hurdles are statistically proven to reduce faller and injury rates and are being rolled out to further courses in due course in a phased approach.
2017 faller rate over padded hurdles: 1.80% Average faller rate over birch hurdles: 2.12%. = 15% reduction in faller rate over padded hurdles |
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Willie Mullins, asked about the proposed watering for Aintree:-
"“I always thought a rule of thumb was not to worry about having it over-watered, safety is the main thing to me and a little too much is better than a little too less.” |
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Yes, I couldn't help but smile at that. He derives no racing advantage at all from races being run on soft ground.
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life is easier if you have 4 or 5 potential runners in each race and can declare the ones best suited to the conditions. if you only train one or two good horses you have to hope the ground is suitable.
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In my experience the most moaning about going comes from ante-post punters not backyard trainers, who generally just take their lumps and get on with it. It may be that Henderson only ran Shishkin because he knew the upheaval and outrage which would surely have followed withdrawal. One way or another it is still the safety/welfare of the horse which should be first in priority?
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I think that if the BHA/IHB made a rule that, for saftey reasons, all major festivals would be run on soft or slower ground for safety reasons, that would be OK. I.e., if the ground is naturally slow or dofter that's fine, otherwise it will be watered to soft.
Everyone would know the score and they could plan for it in how they buy and train horses (and how they bet AP). There might be issues with more/different injuries because horses get more tired, but that's another issue. The problem at the moment arises because the ground is seemingly manipulated on the whim of a CoC, major trainers try to put pressure on the CoC, etc., and someone will always be dissatisfied. |
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But you will still have the issue regarding the appalling going descriptions. On the Tuesday the official going was good to soft where the times were telling us it was far quicker than that.
Even after all that rain that fell in Wednesday, Allaho recorded at time that says the ground was good on the Thursday. |
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Excellent point.
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They cant start the festival without soft in the going description.
Times are like ratings ....basically guesses. |