To hate the Grand National

[Lucyinthepie]

Well, I do anyway. To quote a discussion on another forum, here's why:
"A total of 35 horses have died at the Grand National since 1999. That means an average of 2.5 horses per year/race. This does not compare to any other equine event held in this country."
There is no other sinlge competetive equine event in the whole of the UK where the horses entered have such a statistically high chance of meeting their death, on the same day every year.
The stats for the whole of racing are bad enough, and there are arguably some callous practises in the industry, where the animals are largely treated as disposable commodities. But, leaving that aside for now - this race - not worth it.

(Don't tell me the owners love their horses, maybe some do, but in my experience working as a groom on a racing yard for a year, the majority think they have some great investment. If the horse is lame they are more worried about when it will race again than the welfare of the horse. They'd be lucky to be able to pick their horse out if it was in a field with 10 others and not wearing their colours).

It's a good deflection though isn't it? When someone tries to highlight something that has outraged many, start bringing up examples of other ill treatment, or point out that another sport is also dangerous. That may all be true, but it doesn't alter the situation that the discussion is about one iota.

i think the photos are so graphic that people are realising how awful the national can be. :(

Bad things might happen to horses - but that doesn't negate that bad things do happen during this big race.

It was my eldest dd who started the chant - "please let my horse finish alive", and that said it all really.

If the Grand National was banned would the entrants be born? What is worse to be born and die or to never exist? The only reason we have race horses is the race.

Jajas 2 male lines are dying out. The Byerely Turk and Godolphin lines. Eclipse-Nearco-Northern Dancer rules virtually all... That means most modern day racehorses now descend from the Darley Arabian line. The Byerley Turk line is still hanging on and produced some recent 2000 Guineas winners thanks to Tourbillion - Intentionally - Ahonoora but unfortunatley a lot the good sires from that line died young. Godolphin hangs on in the states through Man O'War -Bertrando, but it can only be a matter of time.

OK, being practical, what I would suggest to try and reduce fatalities?

• Limit the field to 30 runners max
• Water the ground more so it is softer and slows them down
• Improve the standard of horses by introducing minimum qualifications (the Grand National in the past used to attract top quality horses)
• I wouldn't be in favour of reducing the height of the fences as height makes horses back off more and jump more carefully, and reducing the height hasn't reduced fatalities
• I'm not in favour of banning the race. 4 miles, although a longer distance race, is not an unreasonable distance for a horse to race over if fit and paced well. We need longer distance races to support the variety of the TB and to preserve the breed for even greater inbreeding towards the fast maturing short distance specialists inbred to Northern Dancer - Danzig etc..

I think all those suggestions are sensible. Arguably the faster ground and large fields do increase the likelihood of fatalities.

I have just counted how many livery yards I have been at - 12. Not one had only a square of mud for turnout, most of those have had plenty to rotate, only one had an issue with grazing, but still, a square of mud is exaggerating.

Grumpy - I am not currently a vegan but I have been previously, and I am very careful to limit the amount of animal products we buy, and they are only organic due to better welfare standards. Anyway, I am not a GN hater as such, well okay, maybe I am, but I don't hate racing...I am just very adverse to the GN. As a horsey person I could not contemplate risking a horse's life for the 'glory' of having won the GN. This risks are far too high. This is a different issue to factory farming, which I am still adverse to, but the two are not comparable - cows, sheep etc, are not trained with to be enthusiastic about slaughter!

Thinking about more practical ways to make the race safer, I think I am with those on here who have suggested a smaller field. Many horrific accidents happen as fallers crash into each other :(

the start always seems such a shambles too, unfair

I agree southeastastra - It sets up the tone of the whole thing as chaotic, although this is how NH races start, again, it is the size of the field that makes it is diabolical.

Btw, I agree with all that nijinsky said about possible improvements, I also do think the idea of a race that pushes the best to the limits is a fair one, but when horses regularly die, something is very wrong with that (possibly also related to Nijinsky's point about standards of entrants).

Lucyinthepie and Manatee you are just lucky in where you live then. There are plenty of livery yards which have no turnout in winter, and others which offer very restricted turnout. Short of unreasonably stating that only those who live in large country homes with their own varied grazing or access thereto should have horses, its a bit of an unsolvable problem. And then of course where would all the mass produced, slightly second rate warmbloods from the Continent that are exported to the UK go to live an easier life with their spavins and other hock problems?

Reduce the field still further to 25 and attract more quality horses? It used to be relatively common for Cheltenham Gold Cup winners to run in the National in the past. Not now.

However, I'm all in favour of promoting better animal welfare and raising public awareness, not just in racing but in farming as mentioned above too. We can all do our bit too by driving more carefully in the countryside.

My dp has run the Aintree Course and never, ever stops boring on about it. Sometimes, when we are having the deed, he talks me through each jump.

YANBU at all.

It's barbaric.

I own a horse and am an experienced rider, and I often hear people try to justify the GN by saying that you can't make a horse do something it doesn't want to, and this is true. However if it was simply 'natural' for the horse to race in such extreme conditions, why the need for whips? Simple. The whips are needed to 'force' the horse to push it beyond its limits.

I don't even ride with a whip, but then I love and respect my horse, as it isn't a money-making machine for me like it is for racehorse owners and trainers.

The yards I have been at have been in Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Cornwall and Devon, obviously I notice other local livery yards too, although grazing is usually an issue in winter to some extent, I wouldn't criticise livery yards generally for having poor grazing, for bitching yep, for poor grazing, it's not the norm in my experience.

I wonder what has changed for the GN to not attract the top quality horses, it seems pretty insane really that anyone would consider putting their horse into the GN to win unless they are well proven top racers, on the other hand I just had a horrible thought that it may be due to not risking the lives of the top quality horses...

Well, it was really horrible and sad yesterday when 2 horses died BUT the stat the OP quoted is wrong - 35 horses have died during the GN meet - which lasts 3-4 days I think - since 1999, not all of them in the GN. The GN deaths just get more publicity than deaths in other races because of its popularity. Also, if you didn't have racing in this country then the horses wouldn't be bred and therefore wouldn't live....... horses are herd animals and want to run with their herds, hence when a jockey falls off, the loose horse continues with his mates in the race.

Horrible seing the screens up and the dead horse covered up though - have never seen that in the GN before. Hideous.

And yes, very unusual Ballybriggs not doing victory walk with jockey - dehydrated because too hot - BUT was only about 20 degrees yesterday and horses are raced in much hotter temps globally... they must suffer much more. I hope Ballybriggs is OK now.

He looked fine munching his carrots and being fussed in his stable on TV about half an hour ago.

"Horrible seing the screens up and the dead horse covered up though - have never seen that in the GN before. Hideous."

I agree. Absolutely horrible. Its the fast, hard ground that made it so dangerous yesterday. And believe me, their connections (trainer, owner, stable staff), will be utterly devastated.

"I wonder what has changed for the GN to not attract the top quality horses, it seems pretty insane really that anyone would consider putting their horse into the GN to win unless they are well proven top racers, on the other hand I just had a horrible thought that it may be due to not risking the lives of the top quality horses..."

Its generally recognised that people don't want to risk top quality horses in the National, as the risk of injury is increased by the size of the field and the more moderate horses running. I'm not saying that the horses running are bad, but not as good, relatively speaking, as perhaps 30 years ago.

Hatterbox I wouldn't be adverse to the banning of whips. The trouble is, it wouldn't affect the good horses, but theres a lot of more moderate horses racing and a lot of people betting to be satisfied.

Jajas traditional national Hunt type horses generally prefer softer ground. They are bred for stamina and more strongly built than typical flat racers or even hurdlers.

I do think its important that we preserve racehorses whose strength is stamina and longevity who are capable of racing over 4 miles though.

Why is the National field so large? Betting.

Firstly, dam those uppity "Proles" for demanding housing provision. 65 to a bed in a tied cottage was good enough in Great Uncle Fitzchinless's day, and it should be good enough now.

Secondly, my brain is reeling with realisation that there are people who actually think that inbreeding is a good thing. I mean WTF?

In breeding does not produce "racers", if what is meant by the term, is an animal who wants to race. Inbreeding over generations has simply produced fast horses by focusing on the exageration of physical charactaristics which lend themselves to speed. Namely, elongated limbs, light bones, streamlined body shape, large heart and lungs.

(It also pruduces along the way, all the health problems associated with the expression of those exaggerated charactaristics, many of which I mentioned in an earlier post, not to mention the poor disease resistance and lack of hybrid vigor demonstated by by all inbred species, and the high incidence of birth defects exhibited in all populations (including human ones) with a restricted gene pool. And yet purported "horse lovers" and "horse experts" think that inbreeding is a good thing!!)

So, back breeding achieves a change in bodyshape and physiology, to produce a faster animal. What is does not do, is produce some sort of change in the psychological and behavioural traits of that animal into the behavioral traits of a different species, namely, the human species.

Racing, winning, betting, recreational competitive sport, do not exist in the animal world, they are wholly human constructs. Wild animals are too busy trying to stay alive and if they are lucky , achieve a spot of procreation along the way. sport doesnt figure.

Several million years of evolution has produced the modern horse, as a herd dwelling, grazing, herbivore. They do not race, it has no meaning for them in terms of survival. As a prey species, they have excellent vision, fleetness of foot and a hair trigger flight reflex. Human intervention hasnt changed that. A few hundred years of human meddling might have produced physical extremes, from Shetlands, to Clydesdales, to TBs with their exaggerated adaptions for speed.

However, they are all still horses, no matter their body shape, and horses left to their own devices, show no inclination to gallop flat out for miles and hurl themselves at obstacles. They only do so for one reason, that reason being to escape from a perceived predator. Infact any inclination to do so would be a positive evolutionary disadvantage, as such behavior would lead them to the same same sorry fate as the poor sods in yesterdays race, and hence their removal from the gene pool. So such behavior would be actively bred out of the population.

If horse breeders, in changing the appearance of an animal, have also changed its entire biology from that of a prey species, to that of a predator species (man), to produce a so called "racer", who loves to race and understands winning, and not just a fast horse, then they have achieved what the finest medical scientists and molecular geneticists have never been able to do( and dont expect to be able to do for decades.)

Unlikely.

What we actually have are poor sods being exploited and maimed in the name of a fast buck and a public appetite to experience danger vicariously in bloody spectacles like the Grand National.

Well, I suspect they are going to reach the stage where they will have to back breed montysma1. They are to a certain extent anyway, you can see that German lines with their preservation of more heavily topped horses with strong stamina and the success of Japanese and Australian bred horses. But the trouble is, most of the these lines have actually died out and they won't be able to back breed.

Its market driven though, isn't it? The real money in horse racing is in flat racing, fast maturing 2 and 3 year olds, with commercial sires over sprint and mile distances who can prove themselves after a few seasons at stud. Not the Grand National or NH racing at all, where the returns may take 8 or 9 years to come and breeding is a less commercial business altogether because of that.

That said, at least TBs are bred for performance and a relatively natural performance at that (compared to show horses or dressage horses). They aren't being asked to parade, overweight, round a show ring. You have to wonder how many show hunters for example, could actually hunt (or even hack out)? And at least they are not that sheer affront to nature, the "minature Shetland or the Falabella" with their deformed under-sized limbs (funnily enough pictures of these unfortunate freaks are often favourites of the Daily Mail, usually pictured cutely next to a Shire, so that even the most unaware can see the size difference).

Just to clarify the winner is fine. He did finish very tired and the jockey felt him wobble at the elbow. As he pulled the horse up Jason Maguire, the jockey, signalled for the stable staff to assist. They worked on the horse to cool him off assisted by other jockeys. (Davy Russell, fellow jockey was pictured lobbing buckets of water over Ballabriggs to help in the cooling off process) Jason had to go and weigh in (rules of racing, weigh in or you lose the race). Horse was in good hands and they got him cooled off and rehydrated. This morning horse is tired and has a couple of minor scrapes but willl now go for his summer break. Horse's welfare came first - he was not asked to go into the saddling enclosure but taken away for immediate attention.

fraid not just "in the know" as it were. Honestly. He is fine. Tired but fine. Don't want to get into should it be banned or not debate just wanted to provide an update and show that people in racing do care. Jockey wasn't being heartless rushing off, he had to go and weigh in and horse was in really good hands.

I do think by the way that some alterations are needed. The fence sizes should not be reduced as to do that encourages speed and speed is the last thing you need, you want to slow the race down. Some of those horses were running at two and a half mile pace yesterday not four mile pace. The simplest thing is to reduce field size to say max 30. I think one of the fatalities was because the horse got squeezed due to lack of room. Not 100% sure on that by the way have to wait for confirmation. Clear starting issues as well - generally quite chaotic start that needs addressing too.