Third chapter of the year, and tomorrow we'll have our second runner of 2018. Konigin was the first when finishing third at Chelmsford 11 days ago, and Solitary Sister (pictured here walking across the Severals the other day behind Dervish) will be the second at Kempton tomorrow evening. She would be very competitive if she chooses, but she's quirky, so I won't count my chickens. She was very straightforward the first time we ran her (at Chelmsford before Christmas) so that was encouraging, and normal progress would see here thereabouts. As always, I'll hope for the best but expect nothing.
I haven't written a chapter for nine days, but there's not been much to say. The main topics in racing, most obviously the staff 'crisis', have been 'done to death' and I've no intention of adding to the overkill. Even the non-story of Paul and Clare Rooney deciding not to have runners at Cheltenham was given far more attention than it merited. We all have courses which we try to eschew because we have been unlucky with injuries there in the past. I have at least two. Cheltenham isn't one of them, but it would be if I'd been unlucky there.
Talking of Mr and Mrs Rooney, it was so sad to read that their lovely horse Willoughby Court had to be put down. The story reinforced how very lucky we are that Delatite is still with us. Reading about Willoughby Court's travails, it would appear that his problem was exactly the same as what happened (completely inexplicably, as there was no mark on his skin anywhere, as with Willoughby Court) to Delatite in October 2017, a couple of weeks after he had won a bumper at Sedgefield. The credit for the fact that he is both still alive and still seemingly (crossing fingers) a racing prospect rests entirely with the vets at NEH, particularly with the surgeon Fran James. He has had a very long spell and returned to the stable yesterday. I took this photograph of him today. His nickname is 'Del', but it could now be Lazarus.
The one topic which, although it has received plenty of attention, deserves more is the BHA's inexplicable decision to insist that jumpers wear hind plates or shoes when they race. Funnily enough, I was thinking about this in recent months, and had more or less decided that when I next run a horse in a jumps race on soft or heavy ground and I think that the horse has a chance of winning, I would run the horse without hind shoes. Arguably the biggest danger facing jumpers is landing awkwardly over a jump and having the hind foot slam into the back of the front tendon, slicing into the tendon. This usually results in an injury which is life-ending or career-ending.
Plenty of trainers, myself included, run jumpers in front boots so that they have a shield protecting their tendon if this happens. The last horse I ran in a jumps race without front boots had to be put down after the race because of this (Ngauruhoe at Wetherby on 1st June 2006) and that made me vow never to run a jumper without front boots again. Since then I have had one who was only slightly injured, but who would have been killed if he had not been wearing boots. It disappoints me that so many trainers run horses without boots, but I can understand why they don't because they are optional so if one elects to use one, one is not merely decreasing the chance of the horse being fatally injured: one is also decreasing the chance of the horse winning as he is carrying extra weight on his legs.
On good or fast ground it isn't really an issue as the extra weight is very little, only a few ounces. However, the last time I ran a horse in a jumps race on proper soft ground, I was stunned by how heavy the boots were when I took them off afterwards, simply because of the amount of mud which was attached to them, inside and out. The horse in question wouldn't have won anyway, but it would have been hard to swallow if she had been beaten only a few lengths. In the few years since then, I've been intermittently musing what to do the next time I run a jumper on soft or heavy ground and I think that we have a winning chance.
Anyway, I had come to the conclusion that I would leave both the boots and the hind shoes off. If one is leaving the boots off, leaving the hind shoes off too would be pretty much compulsory to my mind, as the combination of no boots plus hind shoes/plates is potentially too lethal for my liking. (Obviously being bare-foot behind doesn't mean a horse won't strike into himself, but it does mean that the consequent cut would be likely to be significantly less severe). The ideal ruling would be that boots are compulsory, because then one wouldn't be putting oneself at a disadvantage by using them. But in the absence of their being compulsory, taking away the option of running the horse bare-foot behind is being unacceptably cavalier with the horses' safety. We're told that the change in the rules was made after statistical research. I would be interested to know how many horses running barefoot in a jumps race on soft or heavy ground had slipped up. My guess is that the number is zero.
The one topic which, although it has received plenty of attention, deserves more is the BHA's inexplicable decision to insist that jumpers wear hind plates or shoes when they race. Funnily enough, I was thinking about this in recent months, and had more or less decided that when I next run a horse in a jumps race on soft or heavy ground and I think that the horse has a chance of winning, I would run the horse without hind shoes. Arguably the biggest danger facing jumpers is landing awkwardly over a jump and having the hind foot slam into the back of the front tendon, slicing into the tendon. This usually results in an injury which is life-ending or career-ending.
Plenty of trainers, myself included, run jumpers in front boots so that they have a shield protecting their tendon if this happens. The last horse I ran in a jumps race without front boots had to be put down after the race because of this (Ngauruhoe at Wetherby on 1st June 2006) and that made me vow never to run a jumper without front boots again. Since then I have had one who was only slightly injured, but who would have been killed if he had not been wearing boots. It disappoints me that so many trainers run horses without boots, but I can understand why they don't because they are optional so if one elects to use one, one is not merely decreasing the chance of the horse being fatally injured: one is also decreasing the chance of the horse winning as he is carrying extra weight on his legs.
Anyway, I had come to the conclusion that I would leave both the boots and the hind shoes off. If one is leaving the boots off, leaving the hind shoes off too would be pretty much compulsory to my mind, as the combination of no boots plus hind shoes/plates is potentially too lethal for my liking. (Obviously being bare-foot behind doesn't mean a horse won't strike into himself, but it does mean that the consequent cut would be likely to be significantly less severe). The ideal ruling would be that boots are compulsory, because then one wouldn't be putting oneself at a disadvantage by using them. But in the absence of their being compulsory, taking away the option of running the horse bare-foot behind is being unacceptably cavalier with the horses' safety. We're told that the change in the rules was made after statistical research. I would be interested to know how many horses running barefoot in a jumps race on soft or heavy ground had slipped up. My guess is that the number is zero.
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