I think I'd always put heart attacks down to galloping anywhere, in all honesty, IS - they're going to happen under race or training conditions. What I consider the true fatals at jumps courses are where the jumps themselves cause the fatal injuries. A leg going on the flat of the course could be due to an earlier heavy clout, of course, or by stepping into an unfilled divot hole, but those directly caused due to clouting fences are what vex me most. You can't help being BD, either, so although it's probably indirectly caused by faulty jumping by another, I wouldn't say that was the BD horse's liability.
Do you know, roughly, how many jumps races take place in France each season and how many horses take part? At some point, I'd like to do a like-for-more-or-less-like comparison and see whether their jumps racing polishes off around 300 a season. I'll be impossible to convince that their multi-obstacled courses aren't more engaging for horses - I put a lot of our falls down to a loss of the horse's interest (i.e. concentration) due to boredom. You've only to note those going sour, dogging it, or becoming totally unreliable after a few years to know they've had enough and would far rather be doing anything else. I suspect that not enough are taken out to go hunting during the winters now, simply because they're expected to keep to a training regimen and be entered in races. Time was, most if not all chasers spent some weekends following the hounds, engaging their brains, not going for another race on the weekends.
Do you know, roughly, how many jumps races take place in France each season and how many horses take part? At some point, I'd like to do a like-for-more-or-less-like comparison and see whether their jumps racing polishes off around 300 a season. I'll be impossible to convince that their multi-obstacled courses aren't more engaging for horses - I put a lot of our falls down to a loss of the horse's interest (i.e. concentration) due to boredom. You've only to note those going sour, dogging it, or becoming totally unreliable after a few years to know they've had enough and would far rather be doing anything else. I suspect that not enough are taken out to go hunting during the winters now, simply because they're expected to keep to a training regimen and be entered in races. Time was, most if not all chasers spent some weekends following the hounds, engaging their brains, not going for another race on the weekends.
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