Grand National

[englishangel]

In reply to a request by MidA15 on Parents Past and Present.

I have been married to Mr EA for over 32 years and we still have too much month at the end of the money so I NEVER listen to HIS tips.

MINE on the other hand...... are just as bad.


I have just called him in the At The Races studio and he has had Hear The Echo and Offshore Account weeks ago at antepost prices.

He has picked Darkness for our daughter and I have had Comply or Die (last years winner).

He said if he was backing one today he would have Butler's Cabin and as I have that in the office sweep I would like it to win too.

[englishangel]

Well there you go.

I won a tenner.

probably only the horse's lass had backed Mon Mome

[lonelymom]

I very nearly did 50p e/w (as much as I was prepared to lose) on Mon Mome but decided it wasn't worth the effort! Wish I had now, would have won £12.50 (I think)

I never win anything! Did anybody else have a win?

[blondie95]

I didnt bet on any but was rooting for state of play, dont know why as its a very mamangement phrase which i hate but i was drawn to it!

[Liz Jay]

Hi

As a horse lover I have such an uneasy feeling about the Grand National, you just know that it hardly ever goes by without a fatality.
The horse which died this year, French entry, name escapes me, was seriously a liability carrying 12 stone and an inexperienced jockey, been unraced for almost a year and prior to that failed to finish in last two races. Seemed like a suicide mission.
I understand two horses had to be given oxygen but have pulled through and didn't one die of a heart attack in its stable later?
And people (the BBC even!) have the audacity to complain that Crufts is cruel and lets not televise it as a protest.
What's cruel and what isn't? I don't like to watch boxing.....and some of the stuff on "You've Beed Framed" and suchlike gives me the heeby-jeebyies.
So am I just being a wimp?

Liz

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

No Liz -- you ain't a Wimp !
I don't bet on Horses for a good reason -- as a young 2/Lt I was given an "Absolute Cert" and spent more money than I should ------the result being a month on Mess Food and Water !
My first Wife's family were all "Horsey People" and attended Point to Points, (Melton Mowbray -- Quorn, Belvoir,and Cottesmore ) and I have ridden to Hounds BUT I think Betting is a mug's game.
My father was a City of London Policeman,in the 30s and knew a down at heel Bookies Runner named William Hill ---
I rest my case !
I also understand why you don't like Boxing, a stupid sport, in which two men go into the Ring -- with the avowed intent, of beating each other into unconciousness !------- I should add that I had 33 Fights as a Boxer !------ DUUH ! it never affected me --- Twitch twitch !
Boxers, Jockeys and Tghtrope Walkers do it of their own free will, and most horses love to race but I do take your point about the National. The fences were reduced agreat deal, many years ago, but I fear there will always be Caualties -- horses get injured when Hunting and riders break their necks in the Field
Keep expressing your views -- even if people don't agree with you, we live ( for the moment !) in a Free Country !

[midget]

I had an aunt who used to wish to win "the big one" on football pools. She said she would spend the prize money to pay any fine if she made Mrs ?? (owner of the GN course) run round the course and jump all the fences.

[Liz Jay]

Hi Neill

Anything to do with horses tends to carry an element of risk, for such big animals they are horribly fragile.

When our lovely Welsh Arab mare Tara pulled up lame after a gallop out hacking with my 14-year-old daughter and her friend on his pony, little did we realise her leg was impossibly shattered. She managed to limp home but we had to have her destroyed, all the kids in the village were in mourning. No more horses here now, we're sticking to dogs, cats and cockatiels - Tara was so special and could not be replaced.

My sister's little horse Abby severed a tendon in her own field, she had been sold the night before. Both my sister and the new owner, who had planned to do so much with Abby, were devastated.

Racehorses seem to be treated so much like a commodity, shrug and collect the insurance.

But I bet the stable girls were sobbing on Saturday night.

Liz

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Hi Liz,
I have owned many animals in my time, including a Camel (In the Sudan) ! and a plethora of Gun Dogs and Terriers, also a Greyhound . I once said that I couldn't afford an Austin-Healy Sprite, because I had a Wife, Two Children and a Greyhound to support !
We now have no pets other than Tropical Fish and a Big pond with Koi and Carp, --- this means we can go to Paris any Weekend for a trip, and not worry about Kennels or Catteries, or a neighbour to feed the Hamster------ Oh Freedom !
I like the idea of concentrating on COCKTAILS --- or did I read it wrongly ?

[englishangel]

I very nearly did 50p e/w (as much as I was prepared to lose) on Mon Mome but decided it wasn't worth the effort! Wish I had now, would have won £12.50 (I think)

I never win anything! Did anybody else have a win?

You have to be in it to win it and if you HAD had that bet you would have won £62.50. the £12.50 would have just been on the 'place' part of the bet, £50.00 on the 'Win' part.

The horse that died was one of the ones my husband backed, it did die of a heart attack, but like a human that can happen at any time.

So, if we didn't race them , either a) there wouldn't be any horses, or b) they would stand around in fields all day being extremely bored.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Hi Neill and Liz

I know that you both, unlike the people who get stuck behind me as my car repeatedly stalls on my way out of work's car park each evening, will understand when I tell people that I am not in a position to replace my car at the moment, as I am paying for my Vet's new 4x4.

I had never in my wildest dreams thought that a dog would cost more in vet bills than three horses. Then Maggie entered our lives. Our beautiful, darling, ex-racing greyhound. I will never regret the 7 years that she shared with us, but my bank balance will be in ICU for years to come. We are currently doggie sitting another ex-racer for someone I vaguely know from Uni. Rose is a beautiful brindled grey (tiger brindled?), and considerably smaller than Maggie was. Her owner bought her to breed from, but so far Rose has spent over a year in spelling kennels in New South Wales, and now almost three months with my daughter, during which time her owner has visited twice. One visit was to take her to our Vet for booster vaccinations - much against our will, but ..........

Every Easter weekend a picnic race meet is held in the Adelaide Hills. There will be protesters at the jumps, and possibly injuries and/or deaths, but I'm thinking that, statistically, the horses still stand a better chance than a hunted fox.

Liz, on what grounds is Crufts considered to be cruel? All the frooing frooing of coats?

xxxxx

[Liz Jay]

Poor Maggie and poor you, vets costs are spiralling out of control in this country too and insurance is big business. Vets now have all this state of the art technology and they need to both pay for it and justify it.
It annoys me when they sometimes use emotional blackmail on the owners to extract the last tuppence, can see the pound signs in their eyes when suggesting "tests". Having succumbed a time or two, and been told for example that the test showed the dog was "fighting something", or that there wasn't anything wrong, not that they could find anyway without another test, or maybe a scan.......I now try to resist....and allow common sense to prevail, if possible.

Having had mainly dogs, but also other animals, for about a hundred years, and been in on the whole life cycle from pre-conception to deaths both untimely and magnificently and peacefully timely, I have tangled with vets and other breeders good, bad and indifferent. While one never stops learning, it is possible to acquire a good grounding in animal husbandry without ever going to university to train, or acquiring one single paper qualification, simply by getting in there amongst the s...t and being willing to feed, groom, exercise, train etc. Many young vets have never seen a normal whelping, and most of them learn about nutrition via a couple of lectures from a visiting pet food rep. And these are the "experts" we turn to for advice??

The whole "Crufts is Cruel" thing is recycled annually but this year was given addition momentum by the screening a few months earlier of a BBC "documentary" called "Pedigree Dogs Exposed" , made by Jemima Harrison of Passionate Productions. It was a shameless piece of near-propaganda which cobbled together an attack on the Kennel Club and dog breeders using all the ammunition it could find and studiously avoiding any mention of the good work which is being quietly carried on by most. Harrowing clips of sick dogs then flash across to a dog show then interview a vet. Result, the great British Public now is confused and believes all pedigree dogs are "crippled mutants" as per the RSPCA vet and the public outcry led to the BBC opting out of televising Crufts this year on the grounds that they couldn't condone the cruelty.

I love their blatant doublethink as they don't have any problem screening the Grand National which to me is positively gladiatorial in style. Mind you, there's doublethink from the GBP as well when they cheer as horses come down at the fences, giving their flutter more of a chance at the winnings.

Each to their own I suppose.

Love

[englishangel]

Poor Maggie and poor you, vets costs are spiralling out of control in this country too and insurance is big business. Vets now have all this state of the art technology and they need to both pay for it and justify it.
It annoys me when they sometimes use emotional blackmail on the owners to extract the last tuppence, can see the pound signs in their eyes when suggesting "tests". Having succumbed a time or two, and been told for example that the test showed the dog was "fighting something", or that there wasn't anything wrong, not that they could find anyway without another test, or maybe a scan.......I now try to resist....and allow common sense to prevail, if possible.

Having had mainly dogs, but also other animals, for about a hundred years, and been in on the whole life cycle from pre-conception to deaths both untimely and magnificently and peacefully timely, I have tangled with vets and other breeders good, bad and indifferent. While one never stops learning, it is possible to acquire a good grounding in animal husbandry without ever going to university to train, or acquiring one single paper qualification, simply by getting in there amongst the s...t and being willing to feed, groom, exercise, train etc. Many young vets have never seen a normal whelping, and most of them learn about nutrition via a couple of lectures from a visiting pet food rep. And these are the "experts" we turn to for advice??

The whole "Crufts is Cruel" thing is recycled annually but this year was given addition momentum by the screening a few months earlier of a BBC "documentary" called "Pedigree Dogs Exposed" , made by Jemima Harrison of Passionate Productions. It was a shameless piece of near-propaganda which cobbled together an attack on the Kennel Club and dog breeders using all the ammunition it could find and studiously avoiding any mention of the good work which is being quietly carried on by most. Harrowing clips of sick dogs then flash across to a dog show then interview a vet. Result, the great British Public now is confused and believes all pedigree dogs are "crippled mutants" as per the RSPCA vet and the public outcry led to the BBC opting out of televising Crufts this year on the grounds that they couldn't condone the cruelty.

I love their blatant doublethink as they don't have any problem screening the Grand National which to me is positively gladiatorial in style. Mind you, there's doublethink from the GBP as well when they cheer as horses come down at the fences, giving their flutter more of a chance at the winnings.

Each to their own I suppose.

Love

I have been to many race meetings in the past 35 years and I have NEVER heard real racegoers cheer when a horse falls. The people who go as a social (drunken) outing may do so, like people cheered when the trapdoor opened at a public hanging, but most owners, trainers, lads/lasses and jockeys etc will cry at the loss of a beautiful animal who is often a friend too.

[Liz Jay]

Hi Mary

We live in North Yorkshire - real racing territory - and at our last home in Norton, Malton, had more than a dozen training yards wihin a few miles radius of our home, most of which brought their lovely strings of youngsters out at exercise past our front gate every morning. My husband's extended family include the Carrs who have Whitewall stables, and one of my best friends rode out for Blinkbonny for years, with a jockey as a boyfriend. Most recently my niece married Noel Wilson, a small-scale but promising young trainer.
Another friend is Jackie Teal who has Linton Kennels, racing greyhounds. She is the top lady trainer I believe.
I can say without doubt that all my animal professional friends/relatives think very highly of their charges and give them the best of care. I am sure they are typical, and I don't have a problem with them, but with the drunken morons who follow the racing only to bet.
Sad to say they are the majority, and the whole industry relies on them turning up to spend their money, or frequenting the bookies' shops to perticipate from afar.
There is huge wastage of horses and dogs to feed their appetite for betting.
As for dog showing, well what a genteel affair that is in comparism.....no betting....and apart from Crufts very few spectators either. It's so rare for a dog to die at a show that it makes headline news in the specialist papers!! Amazing that Auntie Beeb found it necessary to play both judge and jury and make a decision to pull from televising the one show that most people have heard of and have an interest in watching!

Liz

[Mid A 15]

Re Crufts:

The perception, rightly or wrongly, is that Crufts is populated by the white middle classes. This is too much for the white, unreconstructed leftie class warriors at the Beeb who are guilt ridden at their own middle class origins.

Hence the hatchet job referred to.

Re Horse Racing and The Grand National in particular:

I am one of those many people who have a flutter once a year on the National and to my way of thinking it is a fine British tradition. One reason probably why many (not referring to you Liz) want to get rid of it. Traditional Britishness is anathema to certain of our opinion formers.

I do not profess to know enough about horse racing to definitively state whether or not it is cruel. However, as a layman, it took the starter 3 attempts to get the race underway on Saturday because of the eagerness of the horses to get going. That does not smack of cruelty to me. It is also my understanding that jockeys are banned from competing, thus losing money, if they make "excessive" use of the whip.