The 3.15 at Newcastle?

Seriously , Yup you are right , so why ride differently. Its because a jockey relys on getting rides. If you ride in an english race and ride the safe course and nobody else supports you . If you win you are a hero but how often do you win, loose and you wernt trying, dont book him ever again. To add to this all is the fact that a horse gets an easy ride within a pack , front running is a hard game and takes a lot out of a chaser,suits some but as we saw , its a long time to be in front over 4 miles . I only saw this race by pure chance, early start pick up horse from gloucester and bring back to Epsom, return home and crash out in front of telly. Missed the first half but watched in amazement. Showjumping a chase fence and trotting off is not the worst thing in the world. Beating that horse into the fence tired and it falling would be. It was a tough race for tough horses. Respect.
 
I have just been catching up with yesterdays racing and this race in particular didn't make for very easy viewing I'll admit but I do feel that praise is due to the jockeys who listened to their mounts. For example, the jockey on Comply or Die who knew the horse was unlikely to stand up if made to jump the fence and let him refuse it despite being in third place which would have carried decent prize money.

I'm not sure what the answers are to this but if I owned a racehorse I would want a jockey that would listen to my horse.
 
I watched the race and as a avid Comply or Die fan it was saddening to see what is a great horse grind to a halt 2 from home.
I do hope the injured horse from the race was ok.

I love racing - im not a bunny hugger, but yesterdays race was uncomfortable to watch.
 
I watched the race and as a avid Comply or Die fan it was saddening to see what is a great horse grind to a halt 2 from home.
I do hope the injured horse from the race was ok.

I love racing - im not a bunny hugger, but yesterdays race was uncomfortable to watch.

I totally agree especially with the last comment. I have also watched racing from Ireland when they have sloshed through standing water but the difference is the type of soil. Some heavy ground is like galloping through soup but this was deep glue. I feel they did hunt round. In fact that is all they did as it never turned into a race as everything was exhausted before it got to that stage. I haven't seen irish ground have that effect. The jockeys should be commended for keeping their horses balanced and together as best they could and not resorting to the whip. I felt they were not comfortable with the situation they were put in and when professionals within the sport find it distasteful then, to me, it says something.
 
I dont know if anyone has seen todays racing Post but believe there was an article written by Alistair Downe which has said much of what we have all said on here.

All Im basing this on is the replies on the Racing Post site which are really slating him for this article and sayng he is betraying his NH roots. If this article is indeed true for someone of his stature to critize this is quite amazing. He is a widely respected journelist and I hope his views are taking up by the powers to be t ensure this dosnt happen again.
 
12 started - 3 finished. To be fair most of the others either pulled up or refused. But it was totally horrid to watch and will give the anti racing gang fuel. Horses were completely out on their feet and a couple nearly fell over whilst trying to keep going. I haven't heard of any injuries, but you must wonder how many of them will come back and try again after that.

ets The third horse finished so far back that the commentary team thought it had pulled up too.


Theres been no deaths of british racetracks since 12th Feb so obviously March is a lucky month so far.

http://horsedeathwatch.com/
 
I think you will find that there has been 8 fatalities since the 12th Feb.

When I copied and pasted the link I looked on the website and the last one recorded was the 12th Feb. They have obviously updated it since my posting. Thank you.
 
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