Flat or Jumps?

EC1

EC1

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we have a fair bit of leg pulling on the forum about this..so don't anyone new think there is any real animosity if you just dibbed in and caught a few comments

as i've said before..i love both..visually..NH is unbeatable..but for looking at form and feeling satisified i actually have some sort of a handle on the game..money wise..flat rules in that area.

over the twigs i worry about the falling aspect..re winning money..about 5% of the time your horse won't finish..so you lose..thats why i don't bother quite so much over twigs.... it hurts getting no run and thus i favour the flat...yes they do go down there..but not like the jumps

my earliest experience of watching racing was about 1973 ...I certainly remember watching Red Rum win the national..then watching the festivals from then onwards..so on breeding :)the NH has always had a special place in my heart..so even though its £ for the flat..my heart is with the NH scene. I watched loads of flat stuff then but there was always something special about the jumps.
 
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Same for me , in 1973 dad took me racing it was over the sticks at haydock and a horse called Tiny Clanger won a pound for me at 10/1 ! After kids and working abroad and what have you I now find more time on my hands so it's back to racing - jumps with your horse coming on 2 fences out never fails to make the neck hair stand up with a breath held each obstacle.

However the reality is 3 flat winners today and none over NH despite equal bets between nby/donny & chelts/kelso

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I enjoy both but much prefer the jumps. Although I do bet (small stakes) my primary interest in racing is in the horses and I tend to follow particular horses that then become favourites. As the jumpers tend to stay around for much longer it is inevitable that I end up with many more favourites in the NH code than on the flat - I do have a lot of favourite sprinters though!.

Also as EC1 said (and many others mentioned on the Moscow Flyer thread) NH is visually more impressive and IMO more exciting (although the flip side of that is the greater danger of injury :( ). I love this time of year when all the jumpers are coming out again and you have all the excitement of wondering who will go novice chasing/stay hurdling etc. and trying to figure out which races at Cheltenham they will be aimed at.

It's also good to have the whole season to look forward to - and planning my (probably hopeless!) TTF stables :)
 
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Used to enjoy both equally but the deaths over the jumps have put me off.

I end up feeling guilty about getting enjoyment out of a sport that causes so many deaths.

As a flight animal running fast comes naturally and I'm sure a horse will jump to escape what it sees as a threat but repeatedly jumping with all its weight coming down on those quite small front legs/hooves must have a cumulative effect.
 
The NH game has that about it Col...but horses break down on the flat too..but i know what you mean

in that vein of feeling guilty about the jumps...the one that stood out from the last 20 years for me was when Sychronized wouldn't go to the start in the national..it was uncanny...it was like he knew..and he did
 
You almost see a time within a generation where NH is banned. It can be an unedifying spectacle to the outsider. If we're allowed to race horses, it's far safer - more edifying - to see horses run on a course where jumping isn't part of the spectacle.

I definitely prefer the jumps, though.
 
I'd agree with you Len as we are becoming a very pussified society but TV is on it's last legs and soon outsiders just won't have access to the sport.
 
Years ago I used to prefer the flat, had never been jump racing until a mare bearing our family name came on the scene and I had to go and see her. Since then much prefer the jumps.I find most of the flat pretty boring to watch, preferring the longer distance races. Don't like the falls/injuries to beast nor man over the jumps, and owning a jumps mare watching the races was horrible and yet one of the best experiences of my life, and my mare loved it. Really enjoyed it. Not a superstar but really willing and tried every inch she was asked. She is still like that in retirement. As good as gold and seems to have so far passed at least that on to her two offspring. The jumps horses stay around longer and you can become more attached to them. Superstars like Sea The Stars and Frankel make the flat very special, my first loves were Nijinksy, Mill Reef and the Brigadier, but anything slogging round Towcester on a day in February when the ground is almost unraceable having seen my mare do it, has made me love the jumps and these animals and men/women riding them, have my total admiration.
 
Brutally-honest answer from Col, and reflects - I'm sure - the ethical conundrum which faces even ardent Jumps fans.

I have tried to rationalise this myself on many occassions; usually deciding that it's the job they are bred to do, that they wouldn't otherwise have a life, that for the vast part, they are loved and cared for to an extent far beyond that afforded any other herd animals, and that the alternative for most of them, is a death which is equally (if not moreso) grim, and certainly more assured.

I also think it's quite a narrow view to take. Should show-jumpers also be banned? Dressage? Hunts? Greyhounds? Slaughterhouses? Zoos??

Any human activity involving animals is likely going to lead to some kind of 'torment'; whether it be physical or mental. I'm aware that some racehorses die for my 'entertainment', and whilst it doesn't sit particularly well with me, I think I've learned to live with it.....in much the same way as I've learned to live with the fact that I wear leather shoes, and eat chicken-and-bacon sarnies. That's not intended to trivialise the death of racehorses, but to give context to how I have personally rationalised my continued enjoyment of the sport.

It's unpleasant when horses are lost on-course (and off it too), but over the years I have learned to get over that fact very quickly. I think you have to have that approach, to follow the Jumps, to be honest. I can't see how you could continue watching the sport, if you weren't able to - as seems to be the case with Colin.

In Colin's case, he has worked very closely with thoroughbreds, whereas the nearest I get is chastising them at the Cheltenham horse-walk, for being too slow/indolent. I think that makes a big difference, and likely affords me that more detached view.


Grasshopper's view on Flat racing has been explored in detail in previous Annuals, and there is nothing further to add.
 
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Racing is my main sport by a long way for a long time -the first thing I did this morning was watch a recording of the Cox Plate.I like a good punt but can watch top class racing without having a bet.My punting is mainly on betfair so good liquidity is what I like to see.
Best thing about jumping is horses coming back year after year and getting an understanding of what they are all about -worst thing is the number of uncompetitive races.
Best thing about flat racing is the international element at the highest level-worst thing is too much of it at times.
I love the narrative in both codes and honestly couldn't say which one I prefer.
 
Although I do prefer the jumps, I accept that the horses on the flat are of a far higher class: flat racing is of a far higher "standard", if you like. The best jumps horses I have ever seen wouldn't get near a 100 rating on the flat.
 
Len Madeiros said:
Although I do prefer the jumps, I accept that the horses on the flat are of a far higher class: flat racing is of a far higher "standard", if you like. The best jumps horses I have ever seen wouldn't get near a 100 rating on the flat.
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Frankel would barely be rated 100 over Jumps. Patent non-stayer.
 
Have preferred flat racing for a number of years now, mainly because I love the classier types and there are a lot more about, and a lot more races for them, in the warmer months.
Thought I'd become inured to the carnage that is NH racing, but the unedifying spectacle of the first decent race of the jump season proper today - a 30k chase, where half the field was left littered all over Prestbury - sticks more in the craw than ever used to be the case. It's not just the horses, either, as the majority of seasoned NH jockeys carry more injuries through to later life than is healthy or justifiable for any athlete, and it's a high price both pay, for our entertainment.
To claim jump racing as a 'purist' branch of the sport really does add insult to injury.
 
Flat is always going to be attractive for those looking for speedy types of events. Not for me, anymore. I was however first introduced to horse racing in a sprint race set in France(I believe a G1) and seeing how fast their legs moved was sensational and even more so than watching a F1 race. I slowly began to expand my interest on horse racing and discovered the WARRIORS over jumps. They are a race of special horses, those that can jump and like to do it at high speed. I mean anyone who tells me horses are forced to take those risks should watch daily racing when at least a horse refuses to race. Accidents happen but in my country 20-50 people die daily from car crashes, should we not watch or enjoy car events because accidents happen? And what about the behind the scenes of flat racing, how many horses not good enough get sent to slaughterhouses, in Japan they don't have the option of going over jumps, A/w, over staying trips over 3 different code, or pursuing other careers or finding a owner, they are shipped directly in there. Are you telling me that at least thousands of racehorses that are monthly killed in countries like Japan, Hong-Kong, Italy, etc. offset a a dozen warriors over jumps that monthly die in accidents? Ignorance is bliss. I'd rather have my death recorded on TV where thousands fans can watch me in glory, than die at home secretly killed by my wife :-)

Frankel is my 2nd favourite flat horse but he wouldn't give even a class 3 hurdler a race in a 2 mile race. My favourite The Tatling wouldn't give even a class 4 2-mile hurdler a race on flat over 1 mile. I wouldn't give a Gold Cup winner a chance in a Champion Hurdle. 3 different sports and different distances performed by the same athletes causing confusing with the use of term class. The top sprinter in Australia wouldn't figure in any European G1s over a mile and further. Who is classiest? They all are if they are best in their division.

Jump racing has soul, whereas Flat is an empty wine bottle that you've drank in despair and you try to forget it as fast as possible. A jump race you go back and watch it ten hundred times and you can't still get enough. The critics of jumps say it isn't competitive, well thats due to those in charge of the race calendar, horses are kept apart because trainers of the favourites actually talk via phone(or skype those young blocks) and decide which goes where. It isn't the horses fault that the system is made up for so many alternatives. From 2000 the number of G1s in jump racing, especially in Ireland has sky-rocketed. Why would the trainers want to take each other on prior to the big established races?
 
reet hard said:
It's not just the horses, either, as the majority of seasoned NH jockeys carry more injuries through to later life than is healthy or justifiable for any athlete, and it's a high price both pay, for our entertainment.
To claim jump racing as a 'purist' branch of the sport really does add insult to injury.
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To be fair, with Jumps jockeys, it's a conscious choice to participate, and I don't think the fact that they get injured is really a consideration, when it comes to the sport's overall merit or how it should be perceived. For example, I wouldn't run-down football as a sport, just because a disproportionate number of ex-players suffer from mental-health or addiction problems, as those are cultural issues, rather than anything to do with the sport itself.

Does anyone really claim that Jumps is the 'purist' branch of the sport? There is perhaps a case to be made that there is more of a 'grass-roots' feel to the Jumping game - though I concede this is potentially bogus, as I suspect the class system is just as much in evidence at Cheltenham, as it is as some of the major Flat meetings.
 
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Len's argument is way off, Alderbrook won the Prix Dollar in 1994 and was rated 117. Yes he's an outlier because not may Group winners on the flat are given a go over hurdles, but if more were you would get the occasional one who adapted to the obstacles and would take very high order in the pantheon.


Myself I love both codes but would say I'm 60/40 Jumps in preference. The last couple of years there have been two really great cards on the flat - Arc day in 2015 and Champions Day a week or so back. I was excited for both days but that excitement came nowhere close to those days leading up to the festival in March.

Betting wise I do expect to make more on the flat but only because there are just more opportunities throughout the season in the sort of races I get involved in.
 
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Royal Gait is another outlier. But that's all they are: the exceptions. I was thinking more of fencers than hurdlers, tbh. Sorry, I should have been clearer.
 
Steeplechasers and Flat horses are bred to do two entirely different things, Len. You're not comparing apples with apples, imo.
 
Exactly. Flat horses may be faster, like Alan Wells was faster than Seb Coe, but we all know who the classier runner was.
 
Fair point, Grassy. I think an earlier point about three entirely separate disciplines applies here, but I still think that flat horses are "classier", just because they run faster.
 
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