Chilly at Carlisle this afternoon; very chilly however delighted with our novices Orkney Blue and Scarlet Jet, each ending 4th in respectable firm and giving us loads to sit up for.  On to Hexham tomorrow assuming it passes an 8am inspection.  The bottom is nice which received’t do for Half Monitor so our sole runner is more likely to be Spectress making her racecourse debut within the bumper at 3.30.  She’s a properly bred, enticing younger mare with an amazing angle which can stand her in good stead however is more likely to be inexperienced tomorrow having by no means been away from residence – 6 run and Bruce rides.

Spectress

A lot has been made from the dreadful lack of three horses in a brief house of time at Cheltenham on Sunday afternoon.  For 2 to break down with suspected cardiac arrests in the identical race was an terrible coincidence and half an hour later a 3rd suffered a deadly damage when falling at a hurdle.  It utterly took away from what had as much as then been three super days’ racing and rightly has us questioning ourselves.  Sadly in racing, or should you preserve animals in any respect, it’s one thing you need to deal with, it’s a part of the deal, in any other case they wouldn’t exist.  I quote one in all our House owners right here following a fatality we had eighteen months in the past; he put it extra eloquently than I ever might – “Time sufficient for the shock to subside . The contract now we have with these wonderful creatures includes offering them with the utmost care , consideration and love , in change for his or her most bodily effort on the racecourse . Leaping obstacles at pace is inherently harmful , so the unstated clause requires them to danger their very lives.”

The extremely promisng Duyfken who received 2 of his 12 hurdles and died as a 5yo final week.

To place the figures into perspective soar racing has a fatality price of 0.42% (112 horses from 29,947 runners in 2023); now we have very sadly misplaced three horses on the racecourse during the last three seasons – That’s a Given, Chanting Hill and Kellerman – every a kind of accidents sits in my reminiscence as if it was yesterday. That’s from 495 runners so 0.6%; larger than the common however we had been blessed with a transparent run for just a few seasons previous to that so general in all probability properly beneath the common.  Nevertheless we even have accidents at residence, two sit in my thoughts – Benny’s Secret kicked within the discipline in 2021 and solely final week we misplaced Duyfken, a promising younger horse who since Might had bravely battled a critical damage incurred within the discipline.  Very sometimes we lose horses to colic and we misplaced Little Glenshee to pneumonia final winter after one other lengthy battle.  It’s horrible each time however it’s a actuality, as is dropping horses on the racecourse.  Horses will die, my conscience rests on how we glance after them whereas they’re alive, how we deal with them in adversity and within the information that if we didn’t do what we do, they wouldn’t exist.