The Horse racing thread

[under the bar]

Ladbrokes phone betting system has crashed buy paddypower.com back up again!

[CiKe]

My first national win with the last bet! Thought Paddy Power was going to crash as didn't go through the first time...

[Gold]

How much did you have in CIKE?

[muppet]

@racing_post Sadly, Gold Cup hero Synchronised and According To Pete are reported fatalities in the Grand National

[CiKe]

How much did you have in CIKE?

Only a fiver, more's the pity...had a fiver on each of four of them, Planet of Sound was going well but faded, never heard the other two mentioned.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Frankel may never run again and such an admirable Gold Cup winner destroyed - what a bad day for racing.

[winsamsoon]

How many times could the horse be whipped before incurring a jockey ban in the national?

[SLIGONIAN]

Frankel may never run again and such an admirable Gold Cup winner destroyed - what a bad day for racing.

sad day all right, watching this race seeing horses and jockeys hitting the grd makes my stomach turn, is it really worth it? RIP to the horses. Jees the jockeys are brave men and women, no doubt, total lottery from winning to getting hurt.

On another note ive watched the finish 3/4 times and the over head shot shows the jockey riding the winner pushing it along alot more aggresively, the rider of sunnyhillboy was way to relaxed imo, what you reckon DH? im no expert but the winner wanted it way more,

[Donnellys Hollow]

I love NH racing and made a living involved in the game for a number of years. The danger in working with animals is part and parcel of it and can never really be taken away. However, the changes to the national track in recent years have been misguided.

By reducing the height of the fences and not having them as tightly packed is encouraging the horses to go faster, thus increasing the chances of more fallers rather than reducing the numbers. Horses will make mistakes when they have to gallop half a stride faster than they want to. You only need to look how few fallers there are at the cross-country course at Cheltenham and the banks course at Punchestown. The jumping test is arguably greater than Aintree but they don't tend to fall because they only hack round. The English National is a brilliant spectacle but I think you'd want to be daft to run a good horse in it.

[Hardy]

RIP to the horses.

What?

[Hardy]

On another note ive watched the finish 3/4 times and the over head shot shows the jockey riding the winner pushing it along alot more aggresively, the rider of sunnyhillboy was way to relaxed imo, what you reckon DH? im no expert but the winner wanted it way more,

I don't think McLernon knew the winner was coming until it was too late. He only hit the horse once in the last 100 yards. When he went by Katie, he must have figured he had it won as he was going best of anything at that stage and it seemed to me he wouldn't have known Jacob had got a tremendous acceleration out of Neptune. Another slap or two in the last 50 yards before it was too late might have got the extra six inches that would have won it. That's what I think anyway, though I'd be interested to hear what a proper horseman like DH thinks.

Great entertainment, though, even if the BBC are starting to get very annoying in the way they're trying to dumb down sport into Strictly Come Dancing and it's sad to see a respected figure like Mick Fitzgerald making a clown of himself.

[SHEEDY]

why do the horse in the national have to line up behind a tape. seems a bit of mess every year.

[Tony Baloney]

On another note ive watched the finish 3/4 times and the over head shot shows the jockey riding the winner pushing it along alot more aggresively, the rider of sunnyhillboy was way to relaxed imo, what you reckon DH? im no expert but the winner wanted it way more,

I don't think McLernon knew the winner was coming until it was too late. He only hit the horse once in the last 100 yards. When he went by Katie, he must have figured he had it won as he was going best of anything at that stage and it seemed to me he wouldn't have known Jacob had got a tremendous acceleration out of Neptune. Another slap or two in the last 50 yards before it was too late might have got the extra six inches that would have won it. That's what I think anyway, though I'd be interested to hear what a proper horseman like DH thinks.

Great entertainment, though, even if the BBC are starting to get very annoying in the way they're trying to dumb down sport into Strictly Come Dancing and it's sad to see a respected figure like Mick Fitzgerald making a clown of himself.

I think that was the last year at the Beeb. Channel 4 next year I think.

I backed 3 horses and they were all gone on the first circuit!

[mylestheslasher]

My 5 year old daughter picked the winner, 2 year old sons came in 4th, fiver each way on both. My two bets didnt make it past 10 fences.

[ross4life]

RIP to the horses.

What?

For some reason i can't help thinking of this..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFKqDvAxJ6Q&feature=related