hmmm. Hope you did enjoy the Grand National..

Why are people so critical of the Daily Mail in this instance?
They have not manipulated those photos; the photos depict what happened during the National and unfortunately it is ugly. But surely it is important to see the ugly sides of a sport too often refracted through rose-tinted spectacles?

As for the idiot refrain 'the horses love their job'... Mod dumhed kaemper selv guderne forgaeves.
 
Mondy said:
Why are people so critical of the Daily Mail in this instance?
They have not manipulated those photos; the photos depict what happened during the National and unfortunately it is ugly. But surely it is important to see the ugly sides of a sport too often refracted through rose-tinted spectacles?

As for the idiot refrain 'the horses love their job'... Mod dumhed kaemper selv guderne forgaeves.
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Oh now c'mon!!! No swearing on the forum please, even if it is in Welsh!!! :D:D:D:D:D

The idiot who said that probably asked the horse himself and got an answer straight from the horses mouth fnarr fnaarr.

Last time I asked a horse if he loved his job, he said, yes I love having your fat ass on my back, kicking me in my stomach and jabbing me in the mouth with a snaffle. So, I carried on.

Straight up.
 
tallyho! said:
Oh now c'mon!!! No swearing on the forum please, even if it is in Welsh!!! :D:D:D:D:D

The idiot who said that probably asked the horse himself and got an answer straight from the horses mouth fnarr fnaarr.

Last time I asked a horse if he loved his job, he said, yes I love having your fat ass on my back, kicking me in my stomach and jabbing me in the mouth with a snaffle. So, I carried on.

Straight up.
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Its Danish...
 
Ban all horse sports, wrap them in cotton wool, don't ride them or ride bitless and keep as field ornaments - oh no! That is even far too dangerous - they should be kept in 24/7!

Yawn -

Do you think we might have broken some kind of record on "the most seperate posts about the same subject"???
 
mcnaughty said:
Ban all horse sports, wrap them in cotton wool, don't ride them or ride bitless and keep as field ornaments - oh no! That is even far too dangerous - they should be kept in 24/7!

Yawn -

Do you think we might have broken some kind of record on "the most seperate posts about the same subject"???
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you wrote what i was thinking ;)
 
mcnaughty said:
Ban all horse sports, wrap them in cotton wool, don't ride them or ride bitless and keep as field ornaments - oh no! That is even far too dangerous - they should be kept in 24/7!
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Not a bad idea but the keeping in 24/7 idea is practiced here to a fine art.

Just don't have any horses :D
 
People who think racing should be banned never have an answer to this question:

If racing was, as you so desire, banned tomorrow - what would you do with the thousands of TB's, from foals right up to broodmares and stallions?

and..

If racing was, as you desire, banned tomorrow - what would you do with the hundreds of thousands of people employed in the industry?

Nobody complains when horses die eventing or team chasing - y'know the FIRST thing that everyone comes out with? "Oh no, at least it died doing what it loved." How come the same does not apply to racing?

What a lot of hoo-haa simply because it is in the public eye. When you see the words 'There was a sad footnote to todays team chase when Naggy died..' no one mentions it. Because this is in the public eye it is getting torn apart. 2 other horses died yesterday at different courses but no one is saying anything about them either. Sad that they died - but have a look at the headline on the Racing Post website. They aren't harking on about the horses, they are focusing on the jockey who is seriously ill.
 
Dunlin said:
Just a little bit of statistics here:

In 164 years of the Grand National running, 81 horses have died. 20 of them since 2000.
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I am not that into NH,but it seems rather odd that a quarter of horse deaths have happened in the last 10/11 years.
Was something changed in 2000?

To put the number of deaths into perspective some more,since it began 6560 horses have run(if we assume an average of 40 a year) with "only" 81 deaths- thats pretty good odds.......
 
That would be a short term problem teagreen.... once they have been sluaghtered/rescued/rehomed/gelded there would be no more.

Those employed would find a real job that benefited mankind in some useful way.

It will just fade into history books and our children's children will say "OMG did they really do that in those days Granpa?"

The horseworld is like the Land Rover - antiquity that wants to move on but can't because it's afraid to change. It's uncomfortable, inefficient, slow and boring.
 
tallyho! said:
That would be a short term problem teagreen.... once they have been sluaghtered/rescued/rehomed/gelded there would be no more.

Those employed would find a real job that benefited mankind in some useful way.

It will just fade into history books and our children's children will say "OMG did they really do that in those days Granpa?"

The horseworld is like the Land Rover - antiquity that wants to move on but can't because it's afraid to change. It's uncomfortable, inefficient, slow and boring.
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So it would be ok to slaughter a few thousands healthy TB's, from foals to broodmares? How many do you think could be rehomed? There aren't enough homes to go around at the moment. No WAY would it be a short term problem - thousands of TB's would be 'rehomed' to unsuitable homes, and in a few years you'd have a large scale welfare problem when these fine TB's ended up tethered on council estates, or rotting in fields because no one could do anything with them. So you geld the stallions. Then what? No homes for them either. Can you imagine the Daily Mail headline then, as hundreds of horseboxes bring in thousands of healthy horses to be shot because racing is banned and they no longer have a job..

As for the people - no one can find jobs just now. Remember that a lot of people in the racing industry are very good at what they do, but have very few formal qualifications. There are no jobs for them. We have a high enough unemployment rate at the moment, there is no way all those people would find a job.

It'd never happen anyway. Racing generates too much for the economy. But it also gives thousands of TB's a useful job.
 
tallyho! said:
The horseworld is like the Land Rover - antiquity that wants to move on but can't because it's afraid to change. It's uncomfortable, inefficient, slow and boring.
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I don't agree (thank god!) it is only peoples attitudes that can't move on, we don't need to change anything, I think the race is fast & exciting - the horses, trainers and jockeys are dedicated and brilliant :)

I can't wait for next years race :)
 
teagreen said:
Nobody complains when horses die eventing or team chasing - y'know the FIRST thing that everyone comes out with? "Oh no, at least it died doing what it loved." How come the same does not apply to racing?
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Absolutely agree with this. Springalong died doing what he loved, but the two who died yesterday were 'whipped nto each fence', 'raced to death' etc etc(I may be paraphrasing here, so forgive me that).
Hypocrisy rules, m'dears.:rolleyes:

I sincerely hope that Peter Toole makes a full, and quick recovery from the fall he suffered.
 
sleepingdragon10 said:
Absolutely agree with this. Springalong died doing what he loved, but the two who died yesterday were 'whipped nto each fence', 'raced to death' etc etc(I may be paraphrasing here, so forgive me that).
Hypocrisy rules, m'dears.:rolleyes:

I sincerely hope that Peter Toole makes a full, and quick recovery from the fall he suffered.
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Exactly.

I have been eventing and seen horses looking like they love what they are doing. But how do you know? You don't - you assume they do. They are bred to do it, they are trained to do it from a young age, in most cases it is all they have ever known. It is exactly the same with racehorses. Contrary to popular belief, racehorses are not pulled kicking and screaming from their lorries on race day and chased out onto the course, they bound down the ramp and pull your arms out when going down to the start. If you asked a racehorse to race around the track on it's own, it would do it. It is what they are trained to do, it is all they know - same as eventers.

Those of you who event - think of when you take your horse eventing. He is excited and fresh and can't wait (you think) to go out and go cross country. If he dropped down dead, or turned a somersault and broke his neck, you'd come back on here and say "He died doing what he loved, he just adored galloping across the country eating up the fences." The EXACT same thing can be said about racehorses. We do not know if they love it because they cannot speak, but we guage from their enthusiasm and desire to race that they do.

There are horses who show no desire to race. Last year, King Johns castle was stood in the middle of the pack of 39 runners and he wouldn't budge. He didn't want to do it that day. The rest did.

Any jockey will tell you that you can't make a horse do what it doesn't want to do.
 
Not sure whether this is totally true, perhaps someone can confirm (cannot always trust Wikipedia!) but it says the largest field was 66 runners in 1929!
 
teagreen said:
Exactly.

I have been eventing and seen horses looking like they love what they are doing. But how do you know? You don't - you assume they do. They are bred to do it, they are trained to do it from a young age, in most cases it is all they have ever known. It is exactly the same with racehorses. Contrary to popular belief, racehorses are not pulled kicking and screaming from their lorries on race day and chased out onto the course, they bound down the ramp and pull your arms out when going down to the start. If you asked a racehorse to race around the track on it's own, it would do it. It is what they are trained to do, it is all they know - same as eventers.

Those of you who event - think of when you take your horse eventing. He is excited and fresh and can't wait (you think) to go out and go cross country. If he dropped down dead, or turned a somersault and broke his neck, you'd come back on here and say "He died doing what he loved, he just adored galloping across the country eating up the fences." The EXACT same thing can be said about racehorses. We do not know if they love it because they cannot speak, but we guage from their enthusiasm and desire to race that they do.

There are horses who show no desire to race. Last year, King Johns castle was stood in the middle of the pack of 39 runners and he wouldn't budge. He didn't want to do it that day. The rest did.

Any jockey will tell you that you can't make a horse do what it doesn't want to do.
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thank you that is very true
also with the point of the event horses being more 'loved' than the race horses, i will agree that the jockeys / owners can sometimes be very detached with there horses, a few owners where i worked couldnt tell the front end of the horse from the back!. But there are more people involved than just them! what about the groom that mucks out, grooms, feeds, gets plaited up to race ect every day, do you not thint that they are attached to these animals? most grooms love there job and the horses in there care and i can almost gaurantee that the grooms involved in thoses two horses would have been devistated.
 
OOh my really didn't we have this thread last year.

I agree though what about the horse that breaks his neck hoonying. Or gets leg trapped in gate because owner wasn't looking.

What Bout pony with laminitus who suffers year in year out until a bolt is the only way to go. What about the hunt horse who breaks a pedal bone but no all mist people care about is the fox.

What about the rockclimber, the sailor or kayaker?

What about the show pony who fell off the ramp and was PTS at the show. Maybe we should ban transporting horses.

All we can do is learn why these things happen I am sure it goes through every trainers head, every jockys head that their sport has consequences. And with the money involved I am sure none take lighthearted.
 
To be honest, no matter how many people wish to see cruel sports like racing banned, its never gonna happen. We are just too deep in this **** to ever reach the surface.

Because of peoples desire for wealth, money, entertainment, ego, most people are never gonna agree to put animals before these things. Maybe if mankind had acted differently from the start, realising the value of all creatures, and believing in more important things than money like life itself, health, happiness, freedom, living in harmony with the earth and others on it, we may not be in this situation where so many animals have to die at the hand of man.

But unfortunatly, its too late. Humans instead wanted wealth, economy, and power over all, including the animal kingdom. We are always gonna live in this world now, animals will always be our slaves, to use or eat, and there is no way back now.

As individuals, we can all do our part to help animals and humans, by what we choose to eat and wear, were to shop, what charities to help, and maybe some day we will be able to try to reverse this plague that we have created on earth. So its up to us, to stand for what we believe in, and try our best to help.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
US anthropologist & popularizer of anthropology (1901 - 1978)

I love this quote, because its very true, if we stand by what we believe in, we can make a difference.
 
Who wants to place a bet on next year, whether the Daily Mail will take a stand based on this and not publish anything about the Grand National in advance, or will they continue to publish the runners, tips and big the race up as they always do? News sells and the news in advance of the race is the build up and the betting and then afterwards it is the tragedies. The pictures are not nice but they are a fraction of a second captured in time, the vets were with them seconds after.
 
letrec_fan said:
Not sure whether this is totally true, perhaps someone can confirm (cannot always trust Wikipedia!) but it says the largest field was 66 runners in 1929!
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According to the Grand National Guide the above is correct. The smallest field was in 1883 with only 10 runners.

I wasn't on this forum in 2001 (was it going then?) but if it was, I am wondering if there were as many topics on here about the Grand National that year as it really was one to remember and to be honest had more clout for criticism than any other National that I remember watching.

Only 2 horses of a field of 40 technically finished the race. Every other horse fell, some were remounted and did finish but only 2 (Red Marauder the winner and Smarty in 2nd) completed the course without mishap. There were no deaths or major injuries to horses or jockeys but the finishers are absolutely shattered.

Video here (starts at Fence 4):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBUjadDoSY

My point being... no horses or jockeys died or were seriously injured. There isn't really "news" in that. There is however news in "2 horses die horrible deaths in worlds most cruel and dangerous race" <<< thats my attempt to sound like the Daily Mail.

Although conditions were fast yesterday the conditions in 2001 were dreadful and as I say, had more clout for criticism over it being run in conditions like that than yesterday, but with no "horror stories" to report people won't remember it.

I hope that makes sense!
 
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Toffee44 said:
Actually i have an answer.....ban riding and driving and keeping horses all together that way we are not bring cruel, taking freedom away and our horses will be free..........
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Although this will never happen for many reasons, why wouldnt this be a good idea. We all want our own freedom, maybe others, such as horses, would like it too.
 
Jennyharvey said:
Although this will never happen for many reasons, why wouldnt this be a good idea. We all want our own freedom, maybe others, such as horses, would like it too.
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This is a lovely idea. However, if we are to give racehorses their 'freedom' then we must also turn all the showjumpers, dressage horses, happy hackers, riding school horses, polo ponies etc etc etc out and let them be free too. Which is a ridiculous idea. We have domesticated horses, how do you suppose they become 'free'?
 
teagreen said:
How wonderful of the Daily Mail to make the picture of the poor horse dying the massive picture on their front page. Disgusting - shows no respect, they wouldn't do that if it was a picture of a person dying. Then again, it's the Daily Mail, maybe they would...
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I'm always interested in why showing the events as they happen is having 'no respect'? No respect for who? The horses, the jockeys, the owners or those that don't want to see the action up close and personal? :(
 
This is more balanced and informative and less dramitic daily mail article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ra...-millions-2-horses-die.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Ornais died instantly - you can see on the BBC reply that he landed on his head and was stiff legged and twitching instantly. Dooney's gate (number 6) ran straight into the front of Beechers and flipped over it - it wouldn't matter how big the fence was, a P2P horse at a local event wouldn't survive a fall like that. The above report states that the jockey is unhurt.
 
teagreen said:
This is a lovely idea. However, if we are to give racehorses their 'freedom' then we must also turn all the showjumpers, dressage horses, happy hackers, riding school horses, polo ponies etc etc etc out and let them be free too. Which is a ridiculous idea. We have domesticated horses, how do you suppose they become 'free'?[/QUOTE

I know it will never happen, we simply cant have wild horses roaming free all over britain. But why is it a ridiculous idea? We live in a world where its ok to exploit animals and other people, i understand that, but i also believe that there is no need to do it.

There is no such thing as freesom anymore, for people or animals, it just doesnt exist. We are just in this **** to deep now, there is no going back. Maybe a few hundred years ago, we might have been able to say, 'hey, maybe we shouldnt take away these animals freedom, and use them for our own use, maybe they would be happier beng free'.

But there is no way back now. We live in a society were we think its ok to use others, and take what we need from them. thats not gonna change. we wont ever be free, and neither will our animals.
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QR
Shysmum, I did in fact enjoy the national. I thought it was a great race, very sad that two horses died but sometimes horses do die in sports, they still don't know how one died, so could have been from a heart attack for all we know.
The sad fact is I would rather a horse died than a rider.

I know that you do not like it because of animal welfare issues, but tbh there are a lot worse things going on in the horse world compared to racing. Most racehorse's and especially the national horses will have lived like kings, everything being catered and the horse very well treated. Maybe I am niave, but I think horses being neglected/starved/abused is far far worse than a horse dying in a race doing what it loves.

Oh yes, a horse will certainly tell you if they do or do not enjoy what they are doing. They are a lot stronger than us, and have quite simple ways of telling us no by either getting rid of us, or refusing point blank to do it.
 
So sad. Those photos are just dreadful. I'm pretty ashamed we allow this race in our country.

With regard to if a horse "likes" to be ridden. I believe my horse is happy to be ridden as I've never ever had to beat him or even smack him to jump and do his job. They whip those racehorses a lot, and they use very very young horses who we all know are very innocent at that age.
 
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