Mrs B
Well-Known Member
Wish there was a 'like' button ...
Many Clouds has collapsed and died ..
- Thread starter Alec Swan
- Start date
Wish there was a 'like' button ...
ycbm
Overwhelmed
Surely the racecourse visitors and TV watchers and gamblers whose money pays for racing to be staged at all have a right to know that their money is being spent ethically? It doesn't seem unreasonable to me given the horse's well known issues. It feels to me like they have a right to know, though I agree that I don't and probably nor do most of HHO.
Tiddlypom
Carries on creakily
That's unfair. After MC's very public distress after his 2015 GN win, (where I and many 1000s of other tv viewers were shouting at our screens to fgs stop the ridiculous post race mike on a stick interview to tend to the evidently distressed horse), to his sad demise after another hard race, I think that the BHA needed to make a statement to reassure the wider public.
Like it or not, a prominent well loved racehorse becomes public property, and many follow his/her career and welfare with good intentions. To clam up after a sad event like this fuels suspicion.
As it is, the statement was well considered, and has certainly reassured me somewhat that his earlier problems and his death were most probably not linked.
popsdosh
Well-Known Member
I have no issue with people wanting to know ,but what bugs me sometimes is the conclusions that are immediately drawn that it was all due to his previous history.I said that night it did not look like it was and I had that from somebody who should know but this was still quite a degree of disbelief to put it in a nut shell. To get the answers that were required takes time and cannot be immediate. I believe every horse that has a fatal accident on the racecourse is PMed as routine so that the results feed back into the ongoing work. I am not sure a lot of general riders understand how much of the medical step forwards with their horses has been due to research funded through racing as they strive to make the sport safer for all horses. Its like all things like this I wish that everybody could just not over react but give the truth a chance to come out.
popsdosh
Well-Known Member
Surely they know now ,I never had any doubt you would be told. It cant be there and then otherwise it would just be guess work at lot of the time. I really think many had the view it would be covered up,why I dont know.
Alec Swan
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popsdosh, whilst applauding your generosity, I'd also refer you to your well received and previous post 87. And then as Tiddlypom has said, when horses are followed with a fan-base, the public have a certain right to be kept informed. The owners and trainers are extant, in the main, for public approval with their charges often held in great affection.
Do we remember the furore over the untimely loss of Kauto Star? Were the public, in the main entitled to be appalled at the treatment which he received? I think that they were. Nothing that happens to these well known and idolised horses is beyond public scrutiny, as I feel that most owners and trainers will accept.
Alec.
popsdosh
Well-Known Member
I accept that Alec
maybe post 94 may have put it better. It just cant be immediate surely it is right to take the time needed to be certain. What OS did on saturday took some guts and I dont think anybody could say he was not open.If you look on the RP website there is an interview with Ed Chamberlain praising OS for doing what he did in such circumstances . I really did not see anybody clamming up as it was described by TP and just to keep the record straight it is no criticism of what was in that post.
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Alec Swan
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Crugeran Celt
Well-Known Member
You are right I know absolutely nothing about racing and as I said we will never know if he was left at home that day he may still have died of a heart attack just sad that such a great horse who had displayed health issues in the past wasn't retired sooner.
Casey76
Well-Known Member
BEVA report that the cause of death was pulmonary haemorrhage https://www.beva.org.uk/Home/News-Archive/entryid/869
Maesfen
Extremely Old Nag!
How right and it's the same about anyone that dies who was in the public eye. The only people entitled to know are the immediate family, possibly their authorities if it happened 'at work' but nobody else so all those demanding to know should get on their bikes IMHO; you wouldn't ask for the details of a PM for a person and I can't see any difference with a horse, even one in the public eye.
ycbm
Overwhelmed
I've said it already, so apologies if I'm boring anyone.
I think that the difference is that the horse had no choice in the 'work' that he is engaged in, and the gamblers, TV viewers and racecourse attendees finance the sport that he is working in and are entitled to know that their money is being spent ethically.
Maesfen
Extremely Old Nag!
I suppose with age I've become more sensitive regards feelings about death; that the details should be kept for close family only not open for public scrutiny, doesn't matter who they are or what their stage was.
Elf On A Shelf
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Did you ever see Battle Group or Mad Moose race - or not in their cases! Can't make half a tonne of adrenaline fueled muscle do anything it doesn't want to do!
If you watch the end of the race Many Clouds gets headed and going nearly half a length down but he fought back to get back up on the line because he <i>wanted</i> to. If he didn't he could have just moseyed on home watching Thistlecrack's tail.
Yes we train them to be competative, we train them to have a will to win but if the horse doesnt want to know you can't make him. That's the difference between a good racehorse and a bad racehorse. Same with humans - You could have all the talent in the world at sprinting, or the high jump, or gymnastics but if you don't want to do it then you simply don't or you put in a half arsed effort.
popsdosh
Well-Known Member
Well done ! Well put!!!!
Tiddlypom
Carries on creakily
No one could doubt Many Cloud's desire to race and win. The question was, seeing as he would never give up, was he physically fit enough to continue to be asked to bottom himself in the winning?
lar
Well-Known Member
Yes this - this is what I saw too. And what EKW just said.
I watched MC's previous race where he won and I watched this race "live" on the TV and this is also what I saw. I didn't see a horse beaten past it's point of endurance. I saw a horse "loving" his job (if that's not too anthropromorphic a statement), who was jumping from fence to fence with his ears pricked, who was an experienced racehorse and showed the young upstart that it's about more than being fast and jumping extravagantly, that sometimes it's about sticking your head down and WANTING to finish first. And he did not pull up looking exhausted. In the final shot before they cut away he had his ears pricked and looked comfortable.
That was why it was such a shock when they said he was down.
popsdosh
Well-Known Member
Of course he was!! Point me to any signs of distress prior to him collapsing some time after crossing the line. These things happen even to the best
Maesfen
Extremely Old Nag!
There was a lovely pic of him on FB having just finished with LA's arms around him. He has his ears pricked and looks totally happy, no clue to what happened seconds later even if you now look for signs of collapse. Shame I can't find the pic now else I'd link it.
Tiddlypom
Carries on creakily
I'm agreeing with you. I saw a brief glimpse of him walking around post race on the news, and he seemed in great order.
However, on first hearing of his death, it was only natural for folk to jump to the conclusion that his earlier very public problems had finally got the better of him. This is why releasing details of his health, treatment and monitoring since then helped to allay fears about the ethics of keeping him on in training, though some people on here seem to think that it is nothing to do with the public.
bonny
Well-Known Member
I think it's got a lot to do with the public, he was racing in public in a televisied race and was a well known horse with a well known problem. People care about racing and about the horses involved and the image of racing with the general population is very important if it's going to thrive in the future. Everything should be open to the public and to hold back information would be detrimental.
ycbm
Overwhelmed
This.
EKW and others. I did not mean that the horse did not want to race. Of course you cannot make a horse race if it doesn't want to. I meant that it could not take the decision to risk racing, that decision was made for it by humans. So I think that the public who pay for it to be able to race through gate receipts, gambling and TV subscriptions have a right to know that decision wss made ethically, especially in the case of a horse with known issues.
popsdosh
Well-Known Member
Just to state the obvious the owner pays for the horse to race nobody else.Without the money the sport would not exist but arguably the owners put more in than anybody to the whole racing economy.
To much is being made of known issues he had post race ataxia on two occasions both times easily rectified its not that unusual. One of those was at the end of the Grand national which is significantly further than saturdays race and several horses that day had to be treated because I seem to remember it was for the time of year extremely hot.