Grand National meeting.

Gamebird said:
However it is worth viewing the ban in context - the 8 day ban was for using the whip once above the permitted level of 7 times.
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Ah, I was waiting for someone to bring up the context šŸ™„. Just a teensy rule violation, then.

Excessive use of the whip on a horse that darn near collapsed after the finish.
 
For what itā€™s worth if I had a say in the future of the Grand National I would just stop the whole circus. Itā€™s not worth the annual farce that itā€™s become with the authorities falling over themselves to try and make it safe and the Daily Mail readers having their annual up in arms fuss about it.
The course would be sold off for housing, the race would slide into history and the rest of racing could continue without all the hysteria.
If it continues then I predict exactly the same situation next year including a very long thread on here !
 
bonny said:
For what itā€™s worth if I had a say in the future of the Grand National I would just stop the whole circus. Itā€™s not worth the annual farce that itā€™s become with the authorities falling over themselves to try and make it safe and the Daily Mail readers having their annual up in arms fuss about it.
The course would be sold off for housing, the race would slide into history and the rest of racing could continue without all the hysteria.
If it continues then I predict exactly the same situation next year including a very long thread on here !
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I do enjoy racing.

But I have to agree with you.
 
The National has always been a big part of my life. My mum grew up in Aintree and we still own my Nanā€™s house thatā€™s in the road behind the course. My childhood was spent driving up and down Melling Road, watching them build the fences in the weeks leading up the race. Iā€™ve watched the place grow, watched the new stands go up and the buildings.
My whole family have always put a bet on it and followed it. The National has always felt like ā€˜oursā€™. I drove down Melling Road not long ago to go to the house and still felt that same feeling I did as a childā€¦
But after each race, Iā€™m finding my ability to support it really waning.
 
Gallop_Away said:
I was simply making the point that by domesticating and keeping horses, puts them at risk, even by management or circumstances.
However other than doing our best to minimise the risk, I'm not sure what the answer is? If horses stopped being bred for riding and equine sports, they would likely not be bred at all. Some might argue that's better. I will admit that I personally would be very sad to no longer have the privilege of riding these beautiful intelligent animals.
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Living at all puts animals at risk. I don't think horses well-managed at grass are more at risk than a feral horse or pony simply by virtue of being domesticated - possibly the opposite.

And as for riding, well, I don't now, and I miss it too but have made the decision not to do it anymore. I was quite a reasonable rider - light, balanced and with some feel - but not interested in jumping or competing, so I hope I wasn't a huge burden to the horses I rode. *I* enjoyed the feel it gave me - but that says nothing about the horse's experience. My friend who's been in welfare for years, quite high up in a large charity before she went freelance, is still riding but angst-ridden about it. She continues because *she* enjoys it. And light, self-aware riders just hacking about is probably not a huge burden for the horse, providing they're fit and sound - yet when studies are done a large proportion of horses considered sound are found not to be. But most horse sport even at a low level puts demands and burdens on horses that I find unreasonable.
 
Iā€™m not sure that we should be saying it is to a horses detriment to be ridden. Many horses love getting out and about. The only sport Iā€™ve taken really seriously was hunting and honestly my best horse would have gone by herself. She wanted to be with the hounds, loved going on point and loaded herself in the morning if she got loose.
She showed no signs that she wanted to be in a field all the time.
 
Fred66 said:
We either accept the fact that domesticated animals do have an unnatural life that includes both the positives and negatives of that existence or we stop domesticating them.

Obviously no one wants to see any animal pushed to its limits for entertainment and lessons need to be learnt. However the level of abuse that the jockey has had is not acceptable, he made the decision to pull up too late but at fence 29 he was in contention and by fence 30 his horse had nothing left. If we changed the rules to allow for an external third party to instruct them to pull up then the probability is that it would not have come any sooner and you would then then take away the jockeys ability to make the call.
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I donā€™t have a problem taking the decision away from the jockeys especially in this case with a long race in warm conditions . All jockeys could have their own earpieces and even with outside noise they should be able to hear an instruction . Something different needs to be done , maybe take the whip away completely then horses may slow up if not being walloped and forced to go faster than their body can cope with
 
Clodagh said:
Iā€™m not sure that we should be saying it is to a horses detriment to be ridden. Many horses love getting out and about. The only sport Iā€™ve taken really seriously was hunting and honestly my best horse would have gone by herself. She wanted to be with the hounds, loved going on point and loaded herself in the morning if she got loose.
She showed no signs that she wanted to be in a field all the time.
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I guess thatā€™s very difficult to prove though, isnā€™t it? Iā€™m not saying this in your case, but humans are very good at putting human feelings and emotions onto horses.

Pretty much every rider you ask is going to say that their horse loves their job and being ridden. The reality is that we donā€™t actually know that, we can only go by what we think/feel and how we interpret their behaviour (and letā€™s face it, humans interpret horse behaviour poorly in a lot of cases!)
 
Clodagh said:
Iā€™m not sure that we should be saying it is to a horses detriment to be ridden. Many horses love getting out and about. The only sport Iā€™ve taken really seriously was hunting and honestly my best horse would have gone by herself. She wanted to be with the hounds, loved going on point and loaded herself in the morning if she got loose.
She showed no signs that she wanted to be in a field all the time.
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There are definitely horses that do well in the 'system' but it's obviously to the detriment of loads of individual horses to be ridden (several being discussed here, for instance). A dressage horse I knew years ago used to load himself and worked like a metronome but he was terrifying to handle in some aspects and looking back something was probably badly wrong with him. If Sue Dyson's studies can be replicated that suggests that about half of leisure horses are unsound. Some of them might still appear to 'love' their jobs, but it's likely that it's their jobs that have damaged them. Loads have saddles that don't fit, or riders ditto. Even with a lifetime in horses my then trainer was happy to say that if we did what was in horses' best interests we wouldn't be riding them. Not sure how she managed the cognitive dissonance tbh.
 
Burnttoast said:
Living at all puts animals at risk. I don't think horses well-managed at grass are more at risk than a feral horse or pony simply by virtue of being domesticated - possibly the opposite.

And as for riding, well, I don't now, and I miss it too but have made the decision not to do it anymore. I was quite a reasonable rider - light, balanced and with some feel - but not interested in jumping or competing, so I hope I wasn't a huge burden to the horses I rode. *I* enjoyed the feel it gave me - but that says nothing about the horse's experience. My friend who's been in welfare for years, quite high up in a large charity before she went freelance, is still riding but angst-ridden about it. She continues because *she* enjoys it. And light, self-aware riders just hacking about is probably not a huge burden for the horse, providing they're fit and sound - yet when studies are done a large proportion of horses considered sound are found not to be. But most horse sport even at a low level puts demands and burdens on horses that I find unreasonable.
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If that is where you choose to draw the line then that is understandable. Each to their own and we must all make our own judgement as to what we feel is acceptable in terms of risk for our horses.
 
Clodagh said:
Iā€™m not sure that we should be saying it is to a horses detriment to be ridden. Many horses love getting out and about. The only sport Iā€™ve taken really seriously was hunting and honestly my best horse would have gone by herself. She wanted to be with the hounds, loved going on point and loaded herself in the morning if she got loose.
She showed no signs that she wanted to be in a field all the time.
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I wouldn't say it's to their detriment, more risks involved. Riding does have some benefits for the horse and I would definitely argue that some horses definitely enjoy their job.
 
Gallop_Away said:
If that is where you choose to draw the line then that is understandable. Each to their own and we must all make our own judgement as to what we feel is acceptable in terms of risk for our horses.
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That's true to a point but where sport is concerned there's also the matter of SLO (I'm not very comfortable about the equestrian bodies' approach to this but that's another thing) and also legislation which has/will assume some importance in making the judgement for people about what's acceptable.
 
I don't think the average horse can be said to be suffering for our enjoyment. It might prefer to be in the field grazing rather than being ridden, but it's not actually harming (most of) them. Did those horses suffer on Saturday? Absolutely they did, running to the point of collapse is suffering and it's the same as dressage horses competing lame or with blue tongues and treated cruelly in training. They too are suffering for sport.
 
splashgirl45 said:
I donā€™t have a problem taking the decision away from the jockeys especially in this case with a long race in warm conditions . All jockeys could have their own earpieces and even with outside noise they should be able to hear an instruction . Something different needs to be done , maybe take the whip away completely then horses may slow up if not being walloped and forced to go faster than their body can cope with
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The point is if the choice is taken from them then the expectation is that they should continue unless they are pulled up. As the decision making process in racing would likely be slower than the jockeys then it is probable that this would be detrimental to horse welfare
 
Fred66 said:
The point is if the choice is taken from them then the expectation is that they should continue unless they are pulled up. As the decision making process in racing would likely be slower than the jockeys then it is probable that this would be detrimental to horse welfare
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I had thought of that but how else are we to stop excessive pushing of a tired horse. If they are still to have whips for safety , keeping horse straight etc, why canā€™t they say no whips to be used after the last jump and disqualify any jockeys that do, at the moment they can use the whip to often but still keep the race which is very hard in the second placed jockey who has abided by the rules, being denied the income from higher placing would soon focus their minds
 
splashgirl45 said:
I had thought of that but how else are we to stop excessive pushing of a tired horse. If they are still to have whips for safety , keeping horse straight etc, why canā€™t they say no whips to be used after the last jump and disqualify any jockeys that do, at the moment they can use the whip to often but still keep the race which is very hard in the second placed jockey who has abided by the rules, being denied the income from higher placing would soon focus their minds
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Horses should be trained to run straight, jockeys should ride well enough to keep them straight
 
splashgirl45 said:
I had thought of that but how else are we to stop excessive pushing of a tired horse. If they are still to have whips for safety , keeping horse straight etc, why canā€™t they say no whips to be used after the last jump and disqualify any jockeys that do, at the moment they can use the whip to often but still keep the race which is very hard in the second placed jockey who has abided by the rules, being denied the income from higher placing would soon focus their minds
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I'd fully support them only being able to use the whip for safety such as keeping straight if drastically swerving for example. If the whip is used, the stewards should analyse to check if it was indeed used for safety

The finishes have looked better since the new whip rules (that there was a LOT of kick back over at the time) but surely getting rid of the whip bar for safety, would be an easy win to showing they care about welfare. Pretty sure some races are hands and heels only. I know it's repeatedly said its padded etc, but it's something that isn't needed, yet isn't visually great, so just remove it other than for safety
 
ester said:
I've always thought it looks very much like the wrong message to keep a win and receive a ban at the same time. It very makes it look like it's ok so long as the win is big enough to be worth it.
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The rules are that if it is used 4 or more times above the limit then they are disqualified. They also look at timing, force, placement to assess punishment.
 
What about saying that a jockey on a horse that has dropped more than x number of lengths behind the leaders, isn't going to be subject to the non-triers rule? Should stop the also-rans being hassled along when they have no chance.
 
meleeka said:
I don't think the average horse can be said to be suffering for our enjoyment. It might prefer to be in the field grazing rather than being ridden, but it's not actually harming (most of) them. Did those horses suffer on Saturday? Absolutely they did, running to the point of collapse is suffering and it's the same as dressage horses competing lame or with blue tongues and treated cruelly in training. They too are suffering for sport.
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I suppose it depends how you define suffering. There's a sweet but scrawny little cob that's slightly lame that's ridden past my field every now and then, and I've passed it on the road a few times. Its saddle doesn't fit and the rider is usually off to one side. I don't think she has any awareness of these things. Someone I knew well rode a horse that was a physical screw-up from the start but she continued trying to school the lack of forwardness out of him for several years. Any number of trainers said how lazy or rude or hopeless he was, but none suggested a vet. The first well-regarded hospital she eventually took him to said she needed to learn to ride. The second one actually scanned things and he was put down the week after. He'd been regularly working till that point. Someone on the same yard shared a visit from one of the best-regarded local saddle fitters. She was told her saddle didn't fit at all and was probably the cause of her young horse dragging the reins out of her hands regularly. She then put the saddle on the horse and went for a hack. I mean, I could go on, but I suspect I'm already being quite annoying.
 
Fred66 said:
The rules are that if it is used 4 or more times above the limit then they are disqualified. They also look at timing, force, placement to assess punishment.
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yeah but that's quite a lot. I just ponder if it would concentrate minds a bit more when what things look like matter atm.
 
I don't see how anyone can defend a race that repeatedly kills horses. It happens every year and it's disgusting, cruel and it's time the race was either stopped or changed drastically.

en.m.wikipedia.org

List of equine fatalities in the Grand National - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

How can anyone look at that list and think it's okay to keep doing this? It's barbaric.
 
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