Cheltenham Thread

Envoi Allen was terribly sad but I do think it was just tragic luck. A friend had a very successful event horse that had a busy life competing to a high level and hunting over winter, she decided to step him down and let him have a quieter life in his mid teens, she retired him from competition and he enjoyed doing some low-level stuff instead. That summer she took him to a local fun-ride, they took it steady and he was absolutely fit as a fiddle and pulling the whole way round, then as she was walking him off towards the lorry park he had a massive heart attack and dropped dead underneath her. A horse that had pushed himself to his absolute limits for his whole career and never had a sick or sorry day and was probably fitter than every other horse out that day, it was just one of those absolutely tragic and unforeseen things.
 
Chianti said:
Just imagine that horse racing didn't exist and someone came up with the idea for it to be established in 2026. What would the pitch be to get the funding to put it in place? How about this?

We're going to start a thing called racing. We'll breed lots of these horses that can run very fast. We'll call them thoroughbreds. We'll have to breed lots of them because only a small percentage will actually have the speed, physique and temperament to be able to cope with the life they'll have to lead. We've no idea what will happen to the ones that we don't want. Hopefully people will buy them to do other things with and if not there's always the meat money angle. The ones we pick will have to start to be broken in from about 12 - 18 months old. Now, I know that sounds young and at that age their skeletons still aren't properly formed but these horses will be expensive to buy to we need to see some return asap. Other horses will still be chilling in the field at that age and learning how to have their feet picked out and wear a headcollar but ours have to be different because they'll have this job to do.

We aim to start them racing at two years - again that seems quite young but they are very expensive to keep and money doesn't grow on trees. There's all this nonsense now about 'friends, forage and freedom' when it comes to horses but we won't have to worry about that. Because of what they've got to do they'll spend most of their time in a stable and if over 80% of them get ulcers then it's nothing to do with how we treat them. Admittedly there will be some stressful aspects of their lives - travel, intense training, lack of pasture access, inappropriate diet, but when push comes to shove we can say they'll live like kings. When they run they'll enjoy it especially if there are huge fences in the way and the rider has a whip to encourage them if they're not really going fast enough.

Now I have to be honest - there is a slight chance that some of them may actually die when they are doing the racing. We've done an estimate and it's only about 3-4 a week so we don't think it will affect the bottom line too much. And of course if one of them does die then we'll all be very sad and thoughts and prayers will be with everyone associated with the poor creature. We're also putting some sort of board in place which will look carefully at what happens if too many die at once but you don't have to worry as they won't really do anything to change the actual racing. Anyway life has to go on and the good thing about the system we're putting in place is that there will be plenty more runners in the pipe line to replace the one's that don't go home one day.

We're still working on what to do when they either get so badly injured that they can't race, but don't need putting down, or they just get too old to carry on. Bit tricky this. We're hoping that the owners of the very famous ones - who'll have done very nicely out of them- will give them a home somewhere. Of course we can't force them to do that. There might be a chance a few could get retrained and then rehomed out of racing. That's obviously a fairly limited market as they're not exactly child's first pony material. The decent mares - who've won lots- can go and have lots of babies - feeding the machine you might say. The rest, well, once there out of racing they're not really our concern so you don't have to worry too much about it. You certainly won't be expected to put you hand in your pocket to make sure they're all happy somewhere. We're hoping market forces will probably take care of the one's that weren't that successful on the track.

So - any takers? We think it's a winner all round. Public will love something else to bet on. Bookies will love taking the bets. Govt will love taking the tax off the bookies. Everyone's a winner.

Would it get get the support it needs to be put in place? Everyone seems to win expect the horses.
Click to expand...
Well done, tha'ts just brilliant ! It's so true !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top