Equine Retirements, Long Term Injuries and Departures

moe said:
How do small stables get over the loss of their stable star (or any horse)? I understand that when you have a yard full of horses you just have to get on with things because the other horses need looking after but how do they get over it emotionally? I still think about Many Clouds lad and wonder how he is. I hope it helps that they know so many of us are grieving too. Feeling very sad tonight.....
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When Persian Punch died, I wrote to 'Dickie' who had looked after him the whole time he had been the yard, and he'd always say hello and have a chat, and pass on the odd tip ( one we ignored was 50-1, and yes it won and we didn't have the heart to tell him we hadn't backed it) and he wrote back and said the whole yard was devastated and couldn't believe he had gone. He said he went and sat in the box for ages and just couldn't believe he wasn't there any more. Took him and them a long time to get over it. He wasn't the only one. I didn't want to go near a racecourse for ages after seeing that. Not only that they are not there any more but witnessing it as well I think must be horrific for them.
 
We were in Ireland for Punchestown when Persian Punch died. So thankfully I didn’t see the race. It was such a shock when I heard the news. I’ve never got over One Man’s death. It could just have happened today: it’s etched in my memory. I don’t quite know what it is about horses. I can still hear my ponies whinny and she died years and years ago. I’m really struggling with the recent fatalities.
 
moe said:
We were in Ireland for Punchestown when Persian Punch died. So thankfully I didn’t see the race. It was such a shock when I heard the news. I’ve never got over One Man’s death. It could just have happened today: it’s etched in my memory. I don’t quite know what it is about horses. I can still hear my ponies whinny and she died years and years ago. I’m really struggling with the recent fatalities.
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I think One Man was the death that hit me hardest as well moe. I was actually running a betting shop at the time in a rough old part of West London (Southall area) and actually had a tear my eye, but had to put up with some of the locals abuse!
 
I met Mr Hales many years later and told him that I cried for a week when One Man died. He replied ‘m’dear, I cried for 2 years’. I was watching the race upstairs in bed after a busy morning at work. My daughter was playing the piano downstairs. The minute it happened I turned the tv off because I thought that would make it go away and not be happening. The sky literally went from blue to grey. I video’s all of the racing back then but have never watched that tape or any of his races since other than if one pops up on tv and even then I turn away.
 
It has actually been quite distressing to read this thread. Please answer this question honestly: does the joy you derive from watching horse racing - and experiencing the thrill of an occasional “big win” - outweigh the unbearable pain of losing an animal you may have only seen on tv. A supplementary question might be “Should it?”

I have no axe to grind at all, but I’m fascinated by this whole discourse. I’m genuinely torn, and have never settled upon a clear path. I have stopped eating meat because I love my cat too much (he’s not even ours really!), and I physically shudder when I see a horse suffer a bad fall in a race. When a favourite of ours passes - a Kauto, a Red Rum, a Dessie - we/ I can get genuinely tearful. Seeing that happen in the flesh, in front of you, must be so traumatic. How and why do we still go back for more? I’ll unashamedly say it’s because I love the thrill of gambling (nothing silly), but I also have an overwhelming respect for the whole industry and the people who populate it. But why do we think it’s still a good idea that these animals only live to provide entertainment for us? Indeed, they are bred for that very purpose.

I am still massively conflicted.
 
I watched the racing with my dad when I was a child. I always kept an interest in racing but it was only in my thirties that my interest soared and that was from seeing Desert Orchid on the news at Christmas. Joined his fan club and that was it. Started going to race meetings, reading up on the history of racing. All the names from my childhood came flooding back. Rondetto, Out and About, Frenchman’s Cove etc etc. I started going to the races on my own and felt that it was where I belonged. I’ve often said if I was a stick of seaside rock and you cut me open running through me would be the words horse racing. When my marriage broke up I used to watch videos of Ch4 racing in the evening. During lockdown I’ve had WHill racing radio on. I sometimes would love to walk away from racing and I often can’t defend it these days. But I love everything about it apart from the injuries. And injuries happen all the time outside of racing. I guess it’s mainly down to an absolute adoration of horses and their bravery.
 
Reckon I saw Frenchman's Cove win at Donny, Moe. Memory fades, but it was a hot race, possibly the Great Yorkshire.
 
Len, ultimately my view is that to ban jumps racing, or to ban flat racing, would do more harm to both humans involved in the industry and racehorses, than it would good.

Perhaps this is ignorance on my behalf. I dont know.

I think owners and trainers have a particular responsibility to look after their horses once their past it and once they retire.

I know mistakes and negligence will always take place, but ultimately, (and ultimately is the operative word here) , I don't want to see a 13 year old chaser, who's been running in 4 miles + races for the best part of 8 years on a racetrack anymore.

I don't seek to offend, but some people are pushing their luck with horses, especially jumps horses.

One of Venetia Williams died last season, running in a veterans chase, when I'm sorry, but that horse should have blatantly been retired.

I'll ask the same about Lami Serge, should he have been retired?

How long are jumps horses supposed to run for?

I'd like to see all of them stop racing after their 11 year old season, as asking jumps horses to carry on racing any longer for the vast majority of them is taking liberty's. Its asking for trouble.

They're not machines.
 
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Interesting that you stopped eating meat because you love your cat too much - yet your cat physically cannot not eat meat. ( not having a go at all, I just find that intriguing !)

Back to the racing - i don’t think I’ve ever been so devastated by losing one ( that I’m not involved with on a day to day basis) that it’s affected me too much. I was incredibly sad when I got the newsflash on my phone that Many Clouds had died - but that was as much the sadness that he’d run so brilliantly and I knew how much everyone at the yard adored him.
If anything I’m glad they get injured on the track where Adrenalin is pumping and the very best veterinary care is with them within seconds - my sadness is more aimed to the just as loved family ponies who colic badly or break a leg in the field and don’t get found until the morning ( for example) maybe that’s as much the years of veterinary work making me a bit hardened to it, but I’ve never really been one for grief for people or animals I don’t know ( case in point was my headteacher at middle school - he died half way through the year and I couldn’t understand at all why everyone was so upset by it - we didn’t know him, so I really didn’t understand all the crying and upset.
I was very sad when Midnight Madness died at Warwick - he was the horse that started it all for me, and for Damien when we lost him at Worcester - he was such a troubled soul and we’d spent years working with him to keep him how he was, but that truly was the best outcome for him - but Happy dying at Newton Abbot broke me. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t worked at the yard for a few months having been laid off - he was my soulmate, he died without me and I still feel like I let him down badly by not being allowed the time off work to go and watch the race.

As for the age of horses -
I’m all for the older ones keeping going if they enjoy what they are doing, but they should be subject to discretion I think. I’ve got a lot of time for Australian racing as you guys all know- and they have a rule that as soon as a horse turns 12 you can’t run it any more, it can only be a good rule.


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It’s a difficult one. Firstly, if there was no racing then very few of the thousands of racehorses would have seen life at all. Do they enjoy their lives? Hard to say, they seem to and they are certainly well looked after in the main. Yes, they get injured - sometimes fatally so - in the course of their activities, but that applies as much to human activity as well as to animals in the wild (who might also get predated).

I do hate seeing them mistreated, though.
 
I’m replying without reading all the other replies first so as not to be influenced, but the way I reconcile is:

1. they’re bred for it so wouldn’t be alive without racing
2. are treated like kings (largely)
3. are loved and cared for by the stable staff
4. most importantly for me, especially for NH horses, clearly enjoy what they do. I can’t believe you could make a 500kg chaser plough through the mud over 3m’s at Towcester unless they really want to...
 
I don't bet so a big win is never in the equation but having watched my mare run, and her older son my feelings watching are a horrible mixture of hoping they come back in one piece, and at the same time run a decent race. Although I had 'known ' my mare from when she was a foal, I couldn't buy her until she was 6 but felt that she had always been mine. The first time she ran in my colours was the worst although she had run the season before and I was still nervous watching her. I remember very clearly feeling utterly sick as they walked round at the start, and the thought suddenly hit me that she might not come back, and being absolutely terrified, but if you had said to me at that moment , say so and she can be pulled I would have said no, let her run. She was bred to do it , and she really enjoyed it. She did. How I would have felt if she had broken down on the course and I would have to make that run to get to her I would never want to have to do it. I stayed with her when she was put down, (not as a result of racing, she slipped in a paddock on wet grass basically) my vet told me to walk away before the end, but I couldn't leave her. I don't actually know how I did it to be honest, it's nearly 4 years ago and I still cry over her. She could have maybe done another job, but if start banning some sports where do you stop? Having been to a couple of eventing meets, I think those fences are far more dangerous than found on any racecourse.
Watching the big son is torturous - I get in a real state and he's not mine any more. How I will be watching the Muppet if /when he gets there I am partly dreading as when they said he was 1/2 weeks away from a bumper I was having palpitations just thinking about it. It's a total contradiction of emotions, the total elation when they go past that post and pull up in one piece is one of the greatest feelings though.
When people say it's cruel etc, it's a better life than a lot of them have, and they do have immediate medical help which a lot of poor animals never get.
 
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Thank you to all of you for your considered responses. I’m still conflicted, and will probably have to live with that. I’m not usually one for double standards, but I can accept this one, I think. I know horses lead pampered lives, and that they wouldn’t have a life without racing. But if humans hadn’t invented a horse racing industry, they wouldn’t exist at all. They are bred for the sole intention of providing entertainment for humans.

I’d definitely support a maximum age limit in NH racing; and I can probably see a ban on NH racing within the next 20 years.
 
I think you have to balance it out. When I was working in racing, I looked after my horses to the very best of my ability, they wanted for absolutely nothing and I made sure they were as ready as I could to ask them to do their job. I knew, every time I drove them to the races, that there was a possibility that they wouldn’t come home again afterwards - but I had no control over what happened to them from the minute I let go of them to go down to the start. Accidents happen in every walk of life and racing is a dangerous sport - that’s part of what makes it so exciting. None of us send horses out to get injured or killed, we want them to do what they are bred for - and show themselves off to be the best they can. all we can do is prepare them as best we can, control what we are able to and hope that luck is on our side. More often than not it is don’t forget, the % of deaths is very very small. Always sad for connections, sometimes horrible to watch if you see it happen, but still only a very small chance of it happening.


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reet hard said:
Reckon I saw Frenchman's Cove win at Donny, Moe. Memory fades, but it was a hot race, possibly the Great Yorkshire.
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He won the Whitbread pre Arkle Days....Could you be cofusing him with a rival of his King's Nephew? he was the Great Yorkshire Chase winner you may be thinking of?? The next year the brilliant Buonna Notte lost his life and was a very unlucky loser to Flying Wild a month earlier

The race has never been seen since..unless sommeone has it but most say he'd have beaten Arkle getting 20lbs out of sight that day had he not walk throgh the last

King's Nephew and Frenchman's Cove I am sure clashed several times
 
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I think that reet might be talking about Frenchman's Creek. 3rd in the 2002 Great Yorkshire and winner of the 3 mile handicap at the Festival a few weeks later.
 
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No, definitely Frenchman's Cove.From my poor memory, I reckon Stan Mellor rode in the race and 'King Of Diamonds' or some such featured.?
Fist
Recall Fying Wild beating Nuona Notte, but never at Donny?
 
Having been part owner of several animals that have been lost in action or at home, each loss has made me feel sad for a while, but I tend to get over it. I share my view with Perpetual, above, 1-4.
Can't imagine I'd drop out because of a fatality, human or equine. I've come upon a few fatal motorway crashes involving humans and I still manage to drive my car everyday. I hpe this doesn't sound cruel to those more sensitive than I, but I'd rather reserve my animal sorrow capital to spend on hunted white rhino's or panda bears.
 
I don't contribute much to this thread for these very reasons.

It's a sport and they're bred for it. They would not exist but for the sport.

They become loved by their owners, the support staff and even their trainers and, if they win races or run often, by punters.

When something goes wrong the sorrow to each individual is usually in direct proportion to their 'love' for the horse.

Horses are listed on here that I've never heard of. I'm not going to come on and say how awful this is when it isn't part of my world. I know it's part of the world of those connected to the animal and I understand their grief and can empathise with them and feel sympathy for them but the chances are I'll have forgotten all about it within a few hours.

My dog died just over five years ago. I miss him every day because he was my wee buddy. Once I fully retired we were pretty much inseparable. When people get as close to their horses as that then I full understand their grief. But I don't expect them to feel bad about my wee dog. They had nothing to do with him.

Ruby Walsh once tried to put it into perspective. I thought he did it very accurately, if a tad bluntly. He said something along the lines of, "They're not human beings. They're animals."

It reminded me of a little coloured graphic in an RE book we used at Primary School. It was basically a pyramid of life forms with plant life at the bottom and human life at the top (might even have been divine life at the very top) but animals had their place just below human life.

I know some people's life philosophies will put all of them on one level and I respect their right to hold those philosophies.

I would hate to be a TV presenter, having to pretend to be choking with grief when a horse dies and gushing all sorts of platitudes to grieving connections.

But I also wonder if that sends out the wrong message to the wider audience and feeds notions of the sport being cruel.
 
The “cruelty” of the sport to my mind lies in an equine life ending [sometimes in painful circumstances], because humans have decided to breed that horse as a means to service their entertainment. It is the human who takes ultimate responsiblity for that cruelty.
 
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