Joined: Jan 19 2005 Posts: 3925 Location: Warrington
Agree with most of the comments on this thread - opportunism from the media and animal rights activists. It's just bad luck that two years running, horses have died in the race, when you can go 5/10 years without incident.
A footballer died at the weekend, and Muamba almost did a few weeks back. Is football therefore a dangerous sport under 'serious threat'.
As someone alluded to above, most of those slamming the race are people without even the slightest essence of knowledge of the sport. Those who do know the sport well will resonate completely with Paul Nicholls comments.
And Ginger McCain would be turning in his grave at the nonsense being said since Saturday. As he said last year - 'You don't make things better by making it easier. Its speed that does the damage."
Joined: Aug 21 2008 Posts: 1269 Location: Depends how far this wireless internet reaches
WarwickUniWolf wrote:Agree with most of the comments on this thread - opportunism from the media and animal rights activists. It's just bad luck that two years running, horses have died in the race, when you can go 5/10 years without incident.
A footballer died at the weekend, and Muamba almost did a few weeks back. Is football therefore a dangerous sport under 'serious threat'.
As someone alluded to above, most of those slamming the race are people without even the slightest essence of knowledge of the sport. Those who do know the sport well will resonate completely with Paul Nicholls comments.
And Ginger McCain would be turning in his grave at the nonsense being said since Saturday. As he said last year - 'You don't make things better by making it easier. Its speed that does the damage."
I agree with most of the stuff you are saying. however on the footballing front, they both collapsed due to seperate reasons than the nature of how football is played. They never got a ball kicked at them and collapsed, they collapsed resulting from heart failure.
However the nature of horse riding, they are jumping fences which some struggle to get over. combine this with 40 horses trying to get over the same fence at a time, it ceates a high risk sport.
Im not one to say ban the national, i love the national. It brings the country together for one day for a sport that most wont watch for the remaining 364 days of the year. I just wish there were implications in place to stop as many fatalities.
Fewer horses in the race etc... I wouldnt shorten the fences imo, this would allow the horses to gain more pace on arrival of the fence making the landing alot trickier.
Back the bid - not back it until the going gets tough. WTID
WarwickUniWolf wrote:And Ginger McCain would be turning in his grave at the nonsense being said since Saturday. As he said last year - 'You don't make things better by making it easier. Its speed that does the damage."
I agree with that, the speed some of them went off at on Saturday was unbelievable. Approaching those fences at Champion Chase speed is never going to be without casualties.
Joined: Jan 19 2005 Posts: 3925 Location: Warrington
Many are calling for the field to be reduced - I don't particularly see what good this would do. Horses will still be 2/3 deep when trying to get on the inside, and if reduced to 25 as someone suggested in the media, then the Grand National will be no bigger than a regular steeplechase.
andym's comment is spot on. The speed on Saturday was ferocious, not helped IMO by the false starts and if there's anyone to place some blame upon then it is the jockeys. Many seemed spooked by the delay and seemed desperate to hit the front on the first fence.
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