2013 National

Re: 2013 National

Mark Hedberg — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:12:58 GMT

[quote user="Gerry Henry"]

Of course its 'unsafe', all National Hunt racing is unsafe, by its very nature it has to be.

[/quote]

The troubling bit, though - why 'of course'? One of the 5 freedoms is freedom from pain, injury, and disease. Another is the freedom to express normal behavior, but I totally concede that hardly any animal in a modern urban environment can do this, so it's not a fair comparison at all. Freedom from fear and distress? Noise, crowds, shouting, tannoys, 40 other horses...

...if something is unsafe, should it be done? (by the same token, I admit that it's probably safer racing on a racecourse rather than cross-country.) I'm not looking for a fight; there are simply aspects of these races I find troubling, and so I find I can't support them.

Re: 2013 National

Gerry Henry — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:49:44 GMT

Of course its 'unsafe', all National Hunt racing is unsafe, by its very nature it has to be.

Re: 2013 National

Mark Hedberg — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:39:36 GMT

What a wonderful advert this makes for the Grand National - "hooray, no horses died this time!" (/sarcasm)

(My apologies if this seems a bit harsh, i'm just not a fan and i think this is a particularly unsafe race. )

Re: 2013 National

Gerry Henry — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:33:25 GMT

Missed race as in hospital with eldest who'd had a heavy fall at the last at Morpeth. Lying on the spinal board cursing because she was going to miss the National on wide screen TV in the beer tent. National Hunt jockeys are all seriously deranged, I think the horses have more sense.