BS: Grand National

Subject: Grand National
From: GUEST,Equestrian
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 08:12 AM

Any tips? Some horse afficianados are saying here
Self-Inflicted National Injury

March 31, 2014 by Brian O'Connor

There's irony in how years of effort to make the Grand National safer has resulted in racing's great shop-window being potentially more lethal than ever before. Everyone knows that speed is the great danger in steeplechasing. Even the ropiest jumper will manage to clamber over an obstacle if given enough time. But Aintree's great self-inflicted injury is that no such luxury will be available on Saturday.



It's a very different Grand National now to what most of us were weaned on. And in many ways that's a good thing. It's a positive that there is now a maximum field of runners, just as it is a positive that the class of horse in the race has improved. And the worst examples of drops at the back of fences were unfair. But here's the thing – those removed factors were vital to the original Aintree attraction.



Central to the Grand National is the lottery element, the sense that no matter what price a horse was, it had a chance because you never knew what might happen: cue film of Foinavon etc. And that lottery element revolved around fallers. There's no nice way of saying that, except to just say it. If the National is about anything in terms of perception by the general public, it is about fallers. And when horses fall, they hurt themselves, sometimes fatally.



So in recent decades the spotlight has centred on the fences and their severity, with the result that last year the old wooden stakes at the heart of the fences were mostly removed in favour of a more pliable plastic core. And sure enough horses survived mistakes that in the past they wouldn't. And the overall outcome was damn near perfect with no fatalities, no high-profile incidents, and a 66-1 winner that maintained the National's lottery image without any negative headlines.



But on the back of 2013 could come some sobering realities, the most important of which is another apparent irony in that the longest race on the calendar is increasingly now all about speed.



And over jumps it is speed that kills. It might seem contradictory, and it is certainly a hard-sell to the general public, but a valid argument can be made whereby making the fences stiffer actually makes the race safer. But what we have now is a better standard of horse able to go quicker for longer over fences that, rightly or wrongly, are perceived to be less of a threat, thus encouraging jockeys to go even quicker again.



In many ways it's a perfect storm of valid and well-meaning intentions blowing back in everyone's faces. It is certainly one which appears to leave no one very happy. Traditionalists already dismiss the National as only a pale imitation of what it once was. But what happens when horses are killed in the race despite the sport having turned itself inside out in its attempts to make the National more acceptable to a squeamish public that only focuses in once a year?



And the word to use is 'when.' To avoid that inevitability is to be dishonest, especially when so much that is catastrophic can happen to any horse in any race, never mind the National. And racing has to be able to justify itself to those same once-a-year viewers when that happens.



Many of the changes to the National down the years were positive. But diluting the jumping challenge from the fences is a wrong move. It is counter-productive because it goes against the grain of racing professionals who instinctively know it is speed that is the great enemy over fences, not the fences themselves. But that instinct has been ignored in favour of fiddling that panders to a cosmetic press-release culture. Racing should trust itself more on this. If it can justify the race, then it can justify the challenge, and for the good of everyone, particularly the horses and jockeys, that challenge should be primarily a jumping one.
is there any sense in this pint of view?

Subject: RE: Grand National
From: GUEST,grump
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 08:14 AM

could this be moved to the bs section, by a kind mud elfin.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 12:45 PM

The Grand National, like all racing involving animals, is cruel and inhumane. Horses are pushed to their physical limits and beyond merely for financial gain. They have no choice in the matter and can suffer injury and death during these races. They may be treated superbly well in their stabling, diet etc, but it's still indefensible to use creatures in this way. Dogs and horses are put down when no longer profitable, or end their days lame, in pain and suffering chronic health problems. It's a primitive form of 'entertainment' reminiscent of Roman gladiators. Maybe civilisation will conquer one day and these events will no longer attract interest. I for one will never watch the Grand National on TV and would never gamble on horse- or dog-races. I contribute instead to charities which aim to promote ex racehorses' and dogs' welfare.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 05:52 AM

One day horse racing will be banned as cruel.
One day hunting with horses will be banned.
One day putting over-fed children on under-fed ponies will be banned.
One day all use of horses as beasts of burden (whether pulling loads or carrying people) will be banned.

On that day only zoos will have a reason to breed/keep horses.

Then the do-gooders will say that the zoos do not give the animals enough room to exercise & that keeping horses in zoos should be banned.

So ends thousands of years of horses in Britain!

Okay, maybe I exaggerate :)

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 01:23 PM

I'm sure horses the world over feel jolly lucky that, despite spending their lives in toil, subjugation and at the mercy of human usage, they are nonetheless allowed to exist and not face extinction-by-freedom. Pheasants too are thrilled to know they can roam the fields of Britain, even if they must face the beaters and the guns every Autumn. And battery hens wake each 'day' full of delight that, in spite of being crammed ten at a time in tiny prisons, never seeing the sky or walking on the earth, they are at least sure of an existence which would otherwise be denied them. Aren't they all lucky?

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 01:43 PM

Substitute "people" for the names of animals.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Apr 14 - 02:45 PM

Exactly Rapparee.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,'s computer
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 02:01 PM

Not used to this laptop...

You guys are kidding, right? People make lousy steeplechasers.

I wish I could watch the races live but live across the pond.

Horses, especially racehorses, love racing. If they don't, they don't win. Like other athletes.

And jump jockeys are mad, as they know the risks and still love the job. And the horses, in the abstract if not always in the concrete.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 02:51 PM

Horses win because they are whipped by their riders as they gallantly try to gallop ever faster. If they don't win enough times, they're rejected, sold off and may end up going for slaughter. They don't 'love it', they are afraid and nervous, and run fast in fright. They get muscle strains, injured tendons, go lame and get fed painkillers and other permitted drugs by equine vets to keep them going a little longer. In the dreadful Grand National, there's nothing 'grand' about injured horses dying or having to be destroyed. I'd call it tragic. Heaven knows how many this year. The race was run today but I can't face looking it up. The jockeys may indeed love their work, but if not, they're at liberty to pack it up. The horses are not. And all this so people of limited intelligence can gamble some money.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 03:58 PM

Any possibility horses is the plural of fashionista?

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 04:08 PM

Interestingly, the training that horses are put through is the equivalent of a warm-up session for top runners.
You can't train a horse very hard.
It's like the old saying about horses and water.
If you want to watch a really fantastic - human - race, check out the annual Ironman Triathlon on Kona, Hawaii( there's lots of footage on Youtube of races going back to the 1980s).

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 06:00 PM

I know quite a bit about horses. I rode from the age of ten until my late twenties, and wasn't too bad at it. I didn't feel so strongly then about horses' subjugation, and I happily made the ponies jump obstacles and gallop etc without much considering whether it was a kind thing to do. You can actually train a horse hard - they are nervous and fearful creatures by nature and can be forced to give their utmost. Human athletes always pursue their sport by choice. Horses don't. Look up some of the statistics and facts about horses' deaths and terrible injuries at Aintree, Cheltenham etc over the past five years. Heartbreaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 08:23 PM

I get incredibly pissed off with people who want to ban stuff. I hate fox-hunting but I wouldn't ban it. I don't like watching boxing but I wouldn't ban it. Horses sometimes get killed in races but I wouldn't ban racing. But people who breed race-horses don't breed them in the expectation that they'll get killed. Making racing as safe as possible is the answer. Bullfighting I would avoid like the plague but I wouldn't ban it. I wouldn't ban stuff because stuff like this is what makes us imperfect human beings. I saw kids in the East End become ten times better kids because they found a sense of purpose in their boxing clubs that they didn't find anywhere else. We've always done stuff like this and that doesn't make it right but you can oppose it, if you don't like it, without banning it. That's the way it should be. I'd much rather lie down in front of the local hunt, or frighten the dogs, that have parliament pass a silly and unworkable law to ban hunting. If you don't like something that someone else likes, get militant about it. Call them names. Put up a good argument against. But don't whinge to the mods - oops, the government - to ban it. There are far better ways of changing people's minds, if you really want to do it. Last phrase crucial. It defines the serious people as opposed to the serial whingers.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 08:24 PM

than have parliament

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Apr 14 - 08:29 PM

I'd also add that I've seen people who get all self-righteously uppity about horse-racing and fox-hunting and bullfighting who also never check where their meat, chicken or eggs come from. They fail to make the comparision, in other words, between sporadic, occasional abuse and Belsen. And I'm not defending either, by the way. Just sayin'.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 03:11 AM

Well I'm all for banning anything which is cruel and inhumane. Otherwise, those who are completely heartless and determined to continue their practices will never be 'persuaded' to stop, especially where large sums of money are involved. It takes legislation to protect defenceless animals. Appealing to these folks' better feelings is useless. I do indeed consider where all my food comes from, how it's sourced etc. By the way, to my eternal shame, when I was eighteen (eons ago) I watched a bullfight in Barcelona. I was young, interested in Spanish culture and traditions and wanted to see what bullfighting involved. It was utterly sickening and barbaric. If you've never seen one, you can't possibly know how appallingly cruel it is. 'Self-righteously uppity' doesn't describe my feelings about these sort of things. 'Ferociously angry' might be more accurate. Have you absolutely NO imagination? Can't you put yourself in the place of the animals involved, foxes, horses, hares, bulls, whatever? They feel fear and pain as we do. It should all be banned. End of.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 03:40 AM

No fatal accidents this year, Perhaps what they have done with the fences is good perhaps they should reduce the runners to 30 as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,silas
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 03:45 AM

I'm 100% with Eliza here.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Megan L
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 04:06 AM

Things to be banned because they are cruel should include marriage and having children and school teachers each of those cause untold damage to people every day.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 09:51 AM

I wholeheartedly agree with you Megan.

But might I add parents to the list?

After all, as Philip Larkin famously said:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

Ban them all!

PS Eliza, since when do dogs hate fell running or find it cruel???

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: sciencegeek
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 10:04 AM

"Well I'm all for banning anything which is cruel and inhumane."

Then start with poverty, homelessness & discrimination, then go onto war... when that's settled, then go on to the little stuff.

In our state the idiots passed a law that any dog outside had to have a dog house... while people are living on the streets, in cars or boxes. Nice priorities there...

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 11:23 AM

I support a small charity here in Norfolk which tries to help 'retired' racing greyhounds. They would be put down (killed) because their usefulness as runners is over. They have serious problems with their joints and are timid and tired, but these charity people get them treatment by a vet and then find homes for them. They only need a quiet life as they can't walk far, but are loving and grateful for a bit of affection.
Obviously I'm aware of human misery, poverty, homelessness etc. I've seen plenty of that in W Africa, and some of you probably know I help an entire family as best I can with day-to-day needs. My husband's father and uncle have had cataract operations and can now see, whereas they'd have been blind for the rest of their lives. I have never said that animals are MORE important than humans, but surely one's compassion isn't limited by species? And humans can speak out. Dumb animals cannot. In a humble way I try to speak for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 12:19 PM

Spot-on as usual, Eliza.

"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other ... And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals ..."~Barack Obama

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated" ~Gandhi (1869-1948)

"To educate our people, and especially our children, to humane attitudes and actions toward living things is to preserve and strengthen our national heritage and the moral values we champion in the world". ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Good enough for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 01:05 PM

What wonderful quotes, Backwoodsman! I've copied them into my book of notable and thought-provoking sayings. Thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 02:19 PM

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its humans are treated"

~Ed (mid 20th century - who can say?)

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 02:42 PM

I think what these types of quotations are trying to say is one can judge the maturity of a nation by the way it treats the most vulnerable within it. That can be its poor, its minority groups, its mentally ill, its elderly and, yes, its animals and its wildlife. There seems to be unease here about being concerned about creatures, as if that precludes any compassion for human suffering and need. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 08:02 PM

Every cake you buy, every biscuit you buy, every lump of cheap cheese you buy, every sausage you buy (with a very few honourable exceptions), they contain milk or meat or animal fat that has been obtained by the very cheapest possible means. In other words, what you and I would call inhumanely. Your bacon almost certainly came from a pig that seldom saw daylight (if it did, you'll know about it, because you'll have paid double for the bacon). The sweetcorn you eat, or any product of maize, was almost certainly obtained by devastating the environment that the plant was grown in, either by lousy ploughing or by crap soil management that leads to the threat of floods or by chemical sprays that kill everything in sight except the bloody corn. It's next to impossible to grow corn "economically" any other way. Almost every so-called free-range egg or chicken that you buy was the product of an animal that lived in overcrowded conditions, that needed vast doses of antibiotics and that couldn't be arsed to go outside through the few popholes provided for them (in order to merit the designation "free range"). So leave out the bullshit about sporadic cruelty to bulls and foxes. Not that I defend such things, but attacking those things whilst chomping on your (non-fairtrade) chocolate Hobnob is either ignorant, sanctimonious or both.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 08:06 PM

And I love chocolate Hobnobs.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: sciencegeek
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 08:26 PM

In a humble way I try to speak for them.

There is nothing humble about spouting off about ban this and ban that. And every ban comes with a price. Usually one that never occurred to those wanting the ban.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 08:29 PM

"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other ... And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals ..."~Barack Obama
ha ha , this from the man who is funded by Monsanto,It is a leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed and of the herbicide glyphosate, which it markets under the Roundup brand.[8]

Founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny, by the 1940s Monsanto was a major producer of plastics, including polystyrene and synthetic fibers. Notable achievements by Monsanto and its scientists as a chemical company included breakthrough research on catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation and being the first company to mass-produce light emitting diodes (LEDs). The company also formerly manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, and recombinant bovine somatotropin (a.k.a. bovine growth hormone).

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 08:05 AM

Whatever Obama's background, the innate truth of his statement is undeniable. The fact that he may not live up to it in terms of his backers does not detract from that truth one iota.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 09:56 AM

I couldn't make my usual stint outside the Aintree entrance last Saturday, to demonstrate against the cruelty of the Grand National. Even so I'm relieved to hear that this year's race went off without the carnage which is normally associated with this "sport".

Doubtless there will be deaths and injuries in the future, and doubtless nutters like me will be campaigning against the whole rotten shemangle for many years to come. But we'll get there in the end.

And yes, I agree with the Obama statement above. We will never become civilised until we learn to treat animals in a civilsed manner.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 10:01 AM

There are actually more fatalities at Cheltenham than Aintree because of the nature of the course.

One of the problems with the National is that owners want a horse in it for prestige, even if the runner is way below the official handicap minimum, and it is often these that cause the pile-ups.

The sport is a bit of a forelock-tugging anachronism; I used to follow it about 20 years ago but would have no regrets if it went and was relegated to paintings on pub walls.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 11:22 AM

You're not a nutter, Fred. And I'm sure we will get there in the end. Thank you for demonstrating outside the course over the years. I'm too old to do much now, but I try to speak out if I can.
Steve, you paint a depressingly overwhelming picture of wholesale abuse, and seem to have lost hope of any of these issues being addressed. But one can only do a little at a time. I don't feel I 'spout off about ban this and ban that'. Keeping silent is to tacitly consent to what goes on.
I'm lucky enough to live in rural Norfolk, and source my eggs and meat from local farmers, whose farming methods are humane and observable. I also source my bread from organic and local bakeries (and what a difference in flavour these foods have from supermarket gunk!) We grow a lot of our vegetables ourselves. So I do make an effort to 'live kindly on the Earth'. I'm quite surprised actually at the intensity of some of the posts here. But, as always on Mudcat, I accept there are many views on a subject. I'm glad however that the word 'f***wit' has been removed by a Moderator. That wasn't called for.

Subject: RE: BS: Grand National
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 12:59 PM

Obamas' statement is disturbing, because he says what he says and then gets financial support from a company that will destroy insects, animals, and possibly in the end, humans, just think about the chain of events associated with the genetic engineering of plants, he is a hypocritical disappointing politician.
This years Grand National was fatality free, if this was because the fences were made easier, that is good, does anyone disagree?