Anyone remember Springwell Bay and Corbetts Cross? Horse racing fans might because these two beautiful eight year old horses died at last year’s Cheltenham Festival after suffering heavy falls. Doubtless, racing officials surrounded the ailing animals with the usual tents in order to avoid distress being caused to pissed up men in silly suits and women in garish dresses, before the local vet puts a bullet through their brains. No one wants to see that, do they, but the best part of a quarter of a million punters turn up year in, year out for the spectacle. If there’s a faller, there’s always the Guinness tent.
78 horses have died at the Cheltenham Festival since 2000. That’s an average of more than three per year so there is a fair chance that you will see one die if you happen to turn up this week. It’s certainly one reason I won’t be going, although the main one is that I cannot understand the attraction of racing when the main participant, the horse, obviously, has no idea it’s racing in the first place.
To be fair to Cheltenham, their festival is only a small part of the dead horses business. Since 2007, an astonishing 3118 horses have died on racetracks throughout Britain, not far short of one every other day. Just the 19 have died this year so far, a number sure to rise as Cheltenham gets going, and if you were at Kempton Park on 10th January you’d have seen three horses dying at the same meeting. Their deaths were described as follows: ‘Hit Fence And Injured Right Foreleg On Landing – Destroyed. Fell – Broke Neck – Dead. Injured Near-Hind Fetlock After Crossing Polytrack To Turf – Destroyed.’ Most of the descriptions are along these lines, including one that says ‘Fell – Dead‘. Not much of a eulogy, is it? Still, they’re only horses, eh?
Naturally, the media is never bothered with the dark side of racing. The smartly TV presenters standing with gurning trainers whose horse has just survived (literally) the gruelling course and won the owner a few quid. No one is ever asked: “Wasn’t it a bummer that Springwell Bay had to be euthanised after falling?” We’re just shown the good bits, the cheering of the crowd, the starved jockeys punching the air and twats who like they’ve just come from the local hunt wearing what looks to be as fancy dress.
I am not sure that any other sport could survive with the levels of fatality we get in horse racing. Imagine losing a Formula 1 driver ever other Grand Prix or if footballers were being ‘put to sleep’ after feigning injuries in order to con the referee into giving them a penalty? Actually, thinking about it a bit more, maybe that’s not sure the latter isn’t such a bad idea after all?
The likely death of horses will not be in the minds of the fans as they make their way to Cheltenham from tomorrow. It’s about the racing, it’s about the fancy dress outfits and it’s about getting seriously bladdered. And if a few horses have to lose their lives, then so be it. You certainly won’t see it on the telly and if you’re really lucky you won’t see it at the racing either.
Should horse racing be banned? Well, if it had been invented today and horses kept dying, then maybe it would be. After all, if someone invented cigarettes these days in the certain knowledge that a smoker’s life would be shortened, probably quite unpleasantly, I doubt whether they’d be legal for long. The trouble is racing is here and it won’t be banned anytime soon.
Maybe the authorities could make it safer, getting rid of those horrendously high fences that cause so many of the falls. Make the races shorter, so horses don’t die of heart attacks and other exhaustion-related conditions. I’m doing my bit by not going and not watching because when it comes down to it horse racing is shit.
If you like your horse racing, I hope you enjoy your Cheltenham and indeed boost your bank account by picking out a few winners. And if a horse falls anywhere near you, just hope that the tent comes out quick enough, then close your ears and look somewhere else in order to avoid the truck which is on its way to dispose of the dead horse’s corpse.
Cheltenham is known as ‘The Greatest Show On Turf’. Hmm. I’d hate to see the worse one, then.
