Synchronised and According to Pete were the two put down - how much more ammo does that give those who want the race banned on cruelty grounds?
If a horse makes the jump (which falls within standards) yet falls and needs to be put down, whose 'fault' is it? You cannot blame the governing body if a horse makes an error of its own device, surely?
I would hope no-one tries to find any ammo for banning it
At the end of the day, they aren't put down because they fell, but because they have sustained significant injury, such as a broken leg, which they cannot recover from (even if they did, it would take a long time and they would never race again)
Bear in mind that a horse in the wild, if they were to do something similar would end up having a slow and painful death as they can't get food and would also not be able to defend themselves - it is all about survival of the fittest, as with many species. At least in this case, they don't suffer (I am told that initially they won't feel the pain due to adrenaline, and you will often see them try and get back up and continue)
At one time it was done using a shot gun but is now by injection.
You can make the same arguments for horse racing fatalities that are made for motorcycle racing (Marco Simoncelli, Shoya Tomizawa, Craig Jones) or four-wheel racing (Dan Wheldon, Henry Surtees, Scott Kalitta) or any other sport where death is a possibility - which doesn't rule out a lot except perhaps crown green bowls.
These animals are bred purely for the sport. They have no purpose except to race. They are no different to cows which are bred purely for beef, pigs which are bred purely for pork, or dogs which are bred purely to hunt.
Dispassionately speaking, they are tools of industry.
The only way you make racing safe is to ban it completely. Which would destroy a multi-billion pound industry, remove several sources of income from the economy / exchequer, and end up with a lot more horses being put to sleep unnecessarily.
Facts are that this year has been no worse than any other year apart from 1998, and you have to go back a long way to find a meeting with more than 2 or 3 fatalities - 1954 with the maximum of 4, and that was a race with 29 horses, 11 less than the modern field, over fences that were higher and more brutal than they are now. The point is that no matter what the field size or fence condition, equine death is a reality in this race. You can minimise it, but not eliminate it.
I agree with this - in fact, the jockeys themselves are in danger as well, it is a hazard of the job, and is why they wear so much protective equipment (which I won't go into here, but it is significant)
As said above, the industry for this is huge (which was hit a fair bit with the ban on hunts), in more ways than just the cost of equipment etc, but is a livelyhood for a lot of people (think of the owners, trainers, stable hands etc etc) - if you were to try and ban it on safety grounds, you may as well do the same for other competitive sports and let's face it, that isn't going to happen.
The only thing I'm not sure about is your comparison of crown green bowls being not so dangerous...with all the sponsorship for the televised competitions (mainly flat green admittedly) being Bupa or funeral companies, you'd think they were trying to say something
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