Monday, December 23, 2019

Getting ready for Christmas

In common with nearly all other Britons, we're 'getting ready for Christmas'.  And, funnily enough, I am nearly 'ready for Christmas'.  I've bought half of my presents (ie one) and am starting to feel as if we're nearly there.  Which, of course, we are, as it's now the evening of the 23rd of December.  When we get to Christmas, we'll then have ten and a half months of not being asked if we're 'ready for Christmas'.  And, of course, we'll be getting ready for Boxing Day, which is equally exciting, assuming that racing goes ahead, principally at Kempton.  It won't be going ahead at Huntingdon as they've been inundated; but I think that the weather is going to be less desperately wet than it's been, so hopefully the courses which are currently raceable (ie all that hold Boxing Day fixtures, bar Huntingdon) will still be raceable on Thursday.

Then we'll be getting ready for Friday, ie getting ready to take Hidden Pearl to Wolverhampton.  Mind you, those preparations might be in vain as she may be eliminated.  Thirteen get in and she's number 20 of 25, so it's going to be touch and go, at best.  Still, if she doesn't run then, she can run in the first week of January in a more or less identical race (14 furlongs, 46-65 handicap) at Chelmsford.  Normally we'd know on Wednesday if we're running on Friday; but as Wednesday is Christmas, Weatherbys won't be operating on that day so declarations won't be taken until Thursday.  So we'll have to wait until then to know if we get a run.  I am aware that some people reportedly prefer 24-hour declarations, but I don't know why: 48-hour declarations make life so much easier for trainers.

It's great that Boxing Day declarations have already been taken so the runners will be in tomorrow's (ie 24th December's) papers.  I'm looking forward to it already.  On the subject of jumps racing, we had my bugbear - ie a jumper suffering an unnecessary injury because of not wearing boots - at Ascot on Friday when Angels Breath badly damaged his front tendon with his hind hoof while landing over a jump.  Personally, having been, to borrow a phrase from The Fox's Prophecy, "taught wisdom by disaster", I ideally never run a horse in a jumps race without front boots, but I can understand why some trainers prefer not to do so as, while doing so decreases the chance of the horse suffering a fatal or career-ending injury, it also increases the chance of the horse not winning, simply because the boots add weight to the leg.

Obviously, on soft or heavy ground, they can add significantly more weight as the boots collect mud as the race goes on.  So I can understand why trainers particularly prefer not to use them on heavy ground - although the same afternoon I did watch a Venetia Williams-trained horse wearing boots, as all hers do, win in bottomless ground by a street at Uttoxeter.  However, in an age when more and more things are bound by regulation, I am surprised that it is permissible to run a horse in hind plates when he isn't wearing front boots.  (Obviously, if a horse does strike into his front leg with the toe of the hind foot, the damage is far less severe if he is unshod behind).

My preference would be for it to be compulsory to run jumpers in front boots because then the trainers who opt for a safety-first policy are not disadvantaged and there is no disincentive (in the form of your horse carrying less weight on his legs) towards leaving the boots off; but if we are allowed to run horses without boots on their front legs in jumps races (and I do appreciate that some people subscribe to the school of thought that a horse is more likely to strain a tendon when wearing boots because the legs are less ventilated, although for me - and presumably Venetia Williams - and all other old-school people this is perceived as less of a risk) then not insisting that such horses race barefoot behind is just barmy.

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