Dubawi Diamond 4.30 Wolves death - so unnecessary

Didn't see the race thankfully, but many people have commented on his whip action before, if you feel that strongly about it write to the BHA with your comments, never know they might have a word if it is that bad.

Having reviewed it again you are quite correct in your assessment, that smack cost it it's life.

Denathorn and anyone else who saw it, sadly we see horses die all too often with no blame attached, but this is a case that cannot be just left unsaid. It was painful to watch once and I had no choice but to check it a few times and I was left in little doubt that the horse would have finished that race alive and well without that brutal 'thump' on his rear flank that set off the chain reaction that caused the fatal problem. I have been involved in racing for many years, and seen some instances of stupid brutality towards horses from a few individuals in the saddle, but imho Morris is to blame here, however unintentional it might have been on his part.

I backed the horse but couldn't in all honesty say that the jockey was to blame for this.

Very sad sight. The whip was certainly used above shoulder height but the horse as far as I could see just went wrong. I agree that Morris can be a whip happy little bleeder and most of the time falls foul of the rules without any ban. On this occasion, and it is just my own view, the horse succumbed to a tragic accident.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=25MQM8XaYwU

The visual impression is that strike of the whip has caused it, but you'd have to think there was already an issue there for a fatal injury like that to occur. The strike was the first one and it wasn't as forceful as Morris can sometimes unleash. I also noticed that before the strike the horse had hung to its right off the bend.


I think Morris does get off lightly though with his whip action, for example, when he won on Dutch Art Dealer at Wolver last backend, his mount drifted to its left under typical pressure from Morris, causing Kingscote on Deauville Prince to stop riding in the closing stages and probably costing his mount 3rd place, however the stewards took no action.

Not long after, Morris won on Rock Of Leon at Wolver, again under pressure his mounted drifted to its left causing significant interference to Yorkshireman, who went down by 2 necks, but they only gave Morris 2 days.

But as for today, that looked a freak accident and despite the visual impression, I couldn't describe Morris's single strike of the whip as being 'out of order', for want of a better expression.

its only a horse that died,if it was the jockey most of the tree huggers on here wouldnt give a fackin toss,they eat horses in france by the way

The whips are so light and padded these
days the horses are not hurt.
Years ago blood was drawn with the old
whips hitting the horses in the wrong places.

Heaven forfend that people who like horseracing should care about horses.

Not often I agree with Francome about his belief that the whip should be removed from racing completely as I do think there are times when it can be a positive in terms of correcting a wayward sort, but if I see another incident like today, it will be one too many. George, with the best will in the world, you could not describe that incident as a freak accident, as Life-Lucky says 'quite a coincidence'. Direct result of the totally unexpected crack the horse received I would say, but everyone is entitled to an opinion even gatt...

I'm interested to hear who you think are PAID posters on here, you should be at homefortea with the fairies if you think people are paid to discuss horse racing related stuff on here. The 'it' was a 'he' by the way and although his life expectancy probably wasn't anything like yours, he deserved better than the cards that were dealt to him today

Whilst Morris's action is against the rules, I cannot see how it effected the poor horse, just unfortunately a freak accident .

The old adage 'fools speak because they have to say something' could have been written for homefortea.

Well played on your complete misinterpretation of the thread, which was started because the OP thinks (and not unreasonably having reviewed the incident) that the use of the whip caused the death of a horse, not just because a horse has died.

tezza may be an animal rights activist for all I know, out to stir up trouble, but it happens to be fact that the instant the whip is used the injury occurred and the visual impression is that they are related.

I disagree with tezza's version of events because the one strike with the whip is nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing to constitute a riding offence.

To describe the hit as 'brutal' is a gross exaggeration. As for being knocked off balance, well the horse was bumped when the horse on his right cannoned into him and that was prior to the hit with the whip.

As for:

actually knocked the horse off balance and surprise surprise the colt seemed to react badly to this and appeared to lose his balance totally and his back end with it as he swerved in shock

Can't agree with that because the injury happened instantly at the point of contact with the whip.

But as per my above post, the horse had hung to its right coming off the bend, perhaps suggesting there was an issue already on the left front leg, and hard to believe the use of the whip in this instance, such as it was, could cause such a serious injury. Otherwise as onlooker points out, you'd been having these fatal episodes day in day out when the whip is used.

The tracks running consistently faster now so its very consistent as,but no quicker than it was at various points 2 years ago for example Alfred Hutchinson clocked up 1m46.07 in January 2013 nothing as yet this season has got within 1/2 second of that time over 1m1/2f and that includes pearl nations win when they went really quick.
There have been some very quick times as well though the 6f race in December won in 1m11.84 by pretend which is quickest recorded time there,there was an exceptionally quick time by ready on Saturday only rated 75 in 1m47.01 which with proximity of other runners suggests at times it could get even quicker..

I'm sure the centralised BHA panel will check this one out, especially if they read this thread (ignoring the fools' comments of course as mentioned), which I intend to make sure they do. Take your point George re the bumping that occurred, and we will never know if Morris hadn't given him that crack exactly what would have happened, but he did and the colt reacted very badly to it I believe which may well have caused the injury as he tried, at probably 30+mph, to actually evade the hit/or even pre-empt the next one. I'm assured that even people connected closely to Morris know he needs to clean/tidy his act up, which is preventing him from riding for the very top owners/trainers. That's no great shock to me, but I haven't noticed a change in his action over the years at all, in fact he's applauded daily for his very active and no prisoners taken style.

By the way, rest assured I'm certainly no animal rights activist, nothing could be further from the truth - I have loved horse racing for over 50 years. But like most sane people I hate to see animals suffer, especially if there is a chance it could be avoided, which is potentially the case here. I had the dubious pleasure once of seeing a top so-called 'hard-man' jockey, also funnily enough connected with the great Sir M P, lay into a horse before the start of a race at Brighton giving her backhanders across the head repeatedly after she had simply leant forward to pick at grass at the start of a race which clearly caught him by surprise and almost unshipped him. I was there with a Jockey Club inspector, who just happened to conveniently turn a blind eye to this when I asked him whether he had watched the incident and the structure of the starting stalls supposedly stopped the authorities from seeing the full incident on camera afterwards and acting upon it, much to my disappointment.

My personal point of view is that there is no blame on the jockey and it was just a tragic accident.

Although the action of the jockey raising and lowering the whip looks extreme he actually tails it off and by the time he hits the horse its more of a flick of the wrist then the full swing connecting.

I also would agree though that the horse would have finished the race without the use of the whip. It looked like when the whip struck the horse caused it become awkwardly balanced. The weight was on  its rear right leg when it got hit, this caused it to misstep and unfortunately breakdown.

looked at the race several times for any clues to why the horse broke down the way it did .
Watched a terrible incident in the US Mon night.
Horse broke well and was ridden to be competative ,was soon 4-5 clear ,ridden into the bend and once off the bend the horse broke down on the same leg as DD in horrible fashion flipping over and landing heavily bringing another down in the process .Both this and the one at Wolverhampton were similar and got me thinking .

Watched the wolverhampton incident over a few times as initially i thought the horse had been struck into by either the winner ,who jinked in a bit and had a strange round and out  action on its off hind ,also looked to see if horse on the outside ,who was quite close and had checked DD slightly ,had struck into the DD.
Its hard to see depth properly as the camera is well back and frame speed slow  but it appeared to me no other horse struck into  DD The only conclusion i came to was the horse broke down for no apparent reason unless it struck into itself .It was crowded and being asked to hold its position and was maybe just losing that battle .What i did notice was the near fore went out in a round motion just before it went out of stride and came down .
The damage was done and its fate was sealed ,whether that injury was high in the shoulder ,the knee joint itself or lower or whether the damage was muscle/tendon/bone is unlcear and would be interesting to hear from anyone who could maybe explain .Hope i dont sound morbid or overly interested in this fatality its just if people understood how and why these sort of injuries happen they would not be blaming the jockey imo .

At no point did i think the Jockey was to blame or done anything wrong did not even have a second look from that aspect ,his job is to win a race imo .If anything horse was very slightly checked from outside on the bend but you see a hell of a lot worse and the truth here is the horse had a weakness and it was tested to the max and failed unfortunately proving to be fatal.It could have been worse the jockey could have been killed or injured .

Guys he did not cause the injury ,horse devolped a problem and that is that .

RIP Dubawi Diamond .

Hopefully we can get some feedback from the autopsy and find out what the prob was .Racing round a turn puts extra pressure on certain structures ,the frame,shoulders joints tendons and the feet ,something failed .
On a sidenote if you want Jockeys to start easing the moment a horse feels like it is coming under pressure we wont have a Race as we know it .If the horse is fit and well and there to win the jockeys job is to ask it the question ....to blame him is bad craic .

Thoughts go out  to all connected with the horse

tezza - if you are not an Animal Rights plant perhaps you could explain why you devote 7 of your 81 posts in 13 years to this topic?