Jumping's 10-Day Break

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michael_o

At the Start
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Feb 15, 2008
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Just when all the "winter" horses are back in from grass and are being prepared for their first outing -- many ready to run -- NH Racing is taking a 10-day break. Of course jockeys and stable staff need a holiday, but the time to do it is surely in June or July. I don't know how this crazy situation arose in the first place, but I do know that most NH trainers are annoyed and exasperated by it.

Are the BHA prepared to do anything about it? Not bleedin' likely...
 
It is a crazy time to have the break. Having it in July would make far more sense.

I'd imagine that McCoy will be in Listowel next week, so it will suit him.
 
Good news if that's the case Ardross. I shall await the publication of the new fixture list with interest.
 
Summer jumping is for yards that don't mind risking killing off a few horses. Yes, it's 'jumping'. No, it's not National Hunt. All these shrieks about too much racing, and it's too much to ask that 'jumps racing' (wazzat?) doesn't even take ten bloody days out. Three months would be appropriate to maintaining a facade of 'National Hunt'. Less than that is inhumane, given the going and the results we see every summer, of horses breaking their necks, backs, and legs, not to mention the more severe injuries to their riders, caused by the harder impact.
 
krizon said:
............given the going and the results we see every summer, of horses breaking their necks, backs, and legs, not to mention the more severe injuries to their riders, caused by the harder impact.
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Similar comments can be applied to the winter game.

I personally think it's disingenuous to single-out summer jumping because it puts horses in 'greater peril' than winter jumping. All jumping puts horses in peril -regardless of ground conditions. Does it actually matter if it's degrees of more versus less? And it's the exact same with jockeys.

In my view, there are only two valid positions in this argument - those For jumps racing and those Against jump racing (whatever it's guise).

I am self-evidently in the 'For' camp, and it's because I've come to terms with the fact that - simply put -horses will die for my entertainment.

Now....I part-own (and it's a very small part) a slow, somnambulent second-season novice chaser. In winning a small Hexham novice hurdle the season before last, he gave me one of my happiest moments in the 20 years I've been following racing. Much as I hope that he returns safe-and-sound from every race, I know that I would very quickly overcome matters were he unfortunate enough to lose his life on the track.

Such an attitude probably makes me a townie wanker who doesn't give a shit about animals, yet nothing could be further from the truth (in fact, I'll be getting the fillets on parade almost as soon as I've finished this post).

But at least I'm an honest townie wanker.

If you like the Jumps, you're essentially in the camp which thinks it's fair enough that horses peg it for our amusement. It doesn't matter where in the calendar a particular Jumps race falls, and it doesn't matter how many virtual condolence threads you contribute to.

We are all the same.
 
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Brutally honest, Grassy. An uncomfortable mirror to look into.

I'm sure though, that the emotions raised by racing and horses in many forumites here are a somewhat more complicated mix.

In many cases it will probably stem from knowing a horse "personally" if you get my drift (without anthropomorphising the relationship between equine and human).

A break is needed, not only for the horses, but for the staff who tend them and the jockeys who ride them - although they have a bit more of a choice in the matter - unless they are chasing a championship/target to the detriment of their own well-being.

This was recognised by the Irish racing authorities before the British, when their head Medical Officer stated that he would endeavour to procure at least 2 blank weeks for jump racing in Ireland.
 
Grassy, that really is - I don't think I've ever said this to anyone on here before, but I mean it in a warm and caring kinda way - a steaming heap of cobblers.

I'm well aware of the death toll which mainly English jumps racing inflicts on its competitors - it's usually around 250 a year out of some 300+ fatalities all told in the UK and whatever we can glean from Ireland.

By all means feel it's normal for 250 animals die so you can enjoy the greater spectacle. By that logic, we could say that in order to make certain goods, it was quite acceptable that small children were crushed to death by machinery in the Industrial Revolution, just as long as the majority survived and people enjoyed the products.

I don't dislike steeplechasing and hurdling per se, since I see quite a bit from France, c/o ATR, and know that there I'm not going to regularly see horses breaking assorted parts of their anatomy in order for me to be entertained.

But if you think that death is an inevitable, normal part of entertainment, and racing is nothing if that, then perhaps the video nasty influence really has gone too far. There is no excuse for jumps racing to carry a very high and significant percentage of all racehorse deaths annually. There is a great deal that's wrong with the way we do things here (the UK) which incur these "inevitable" deaths and there's far more we could do to prevent most of them - but because we love our boring traditions, we won't. Nobody has the balls to suggest making a change for the better - shame on us.

To try and make jumps racing a matter of black/white, anti/pro is infantile and fails to even begin to engage with the wider picture. If it does get closed down because of animal welfare pressure, I will miss its grandeur and displays of courage at the best of its times, but I won't miss seeing confused horses trying to hobble towards me with 'three and a swinger', or sobbing lasses trailing empty bridles back to their horseboxes, over and over again.
 
I expected nothing less from you, Krizon.

Try borrowing Redhead's brain for a couple of days - she 'gets' the point I was trying to make, and counters it with logic of her own, rather than bilge.
 
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I'd would favour a break but September is a strange place to have it.

From the end of May to mid July, there are probably only two decent jumps races in Britain, the Summer National and a chase at Perth. Move them and take six or eight weeks off.
 
Colin, yes, I think we could better that, now you say so. How about 'monstrously steaming heap of cobblers'?
 
trudij said:
Id love to know how much of a break people think the stable staff are going to get with this 10 days.....
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Not much, Trudi, but some relief for the travelling staff, surely?

Like chroniclandlord, I can't see why they don't end the season at the beginning of May and give everyone at least a month off. Certainly the stable staff will be working anyway, but would in any horse-related job, but with less pressure of preparing for the races for a week or two.
 
Nothing will change, horses will still be worked, days wont be easier for staff, just cause no racing for ten days nothing will change, horses still need to be fit for when it restarts.
 
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