I have a question

Let's say the Grand National as a race was banned tommorow.

Would you be happy for the rest of the horse racing world to continue on as it is?

Or would you want to see changes in the racing world as a whole?

Or would you want to move towards banning horse racing altogether?

Would you want other Equine sports banned/changed?

What about greyhound racing?

So sad to hear about the deaths again this year

I admit i no longer support the GN, yes there are risks in anything you do with horses (Our pony nearly lost his leg when he got it caught in a fence) but these risks are unforseen ones. Its seems now like deaths are expeted in the GN which is wrong.

If a race is year in year out getting 2-3 deaths a race then it needs to be reviewed as clearly there are faults being made. It shows negligence on the part of the race course really

Yes but I was asking if they were taking the same rick as the horses - would they be happy with 1 in 20 odds of dying? There is a risk in me leaving my front door every morning, but I would be asking for changes if 1 in 20 of my neighbours were dying leaving their front doors

I dont know because I dont know what the risks are with the other things, but I am not hearing about horses dying on Ch4 racing every day
Same with Grayhound racing, yes I would have some of the cruel practises stopped in it, If one in 20 dogs is dying in a race then I would want that to be brought to the public eye and something done about it too

A little looking around the web about statistics for 3 day eventing for horses seems to show some interesting statistics

In 2010 for Badmington there were 80 horses, about 60 of them finished - 40 in the course time
one horse died - and it was considered shocking and tragic
Eventing is considered the most dangerouse of horse sports
In around 4 years 18 riders died

But even although there are some heart stopping falls it seems surprising and rare that the horses are dying

Is that because the grand national horses are being bred to be too fragile so we can get eveyr last bit of speed out of them?
Or the courses are too excessivly difficult compared to what the horses are trained for??

Whatever it is interesting to see, and sad that people think a couple of horse deaths just about every time the grand national is run is acceptable to make it an exciting sport

If we pushed F1 drivers to be quite as exciting we would have to have totaly new drivers every season as they would all be dead every year

So it's the number of horses that die in the GN race itself that's the issue for you, not necassarily that horses die in horse racing as a sport in general?

I think its the frequency of the deaths as well that troubles me. Yes horses die racing but is there any other race where multiple horses die everytime its run?

Race a held in 2010 a horse dies the same race run in 2011 and 2012 has no deaths so that death in 2010 can be labelled a tragic accident. race b held in 2010 2 horses die, held in 2011 3 horses die, held in 2012 another 3 horses die . . . It is no longer looking like an accident but serious issues with the course or the ways its run

Yup totally, I am not against sport with danger, although I do prefer the human to be taking the risk
Imo a death at a event like this can be a risk, but at the moment its not a risk its almost guaranteed

Making the field smaller---which was the part of the post you highlighted----is not the same as making the fences smaller.

rune

41 horses died in racing altogether this year according to the news this morning, deaths are not restricted to the GN.

and as we are only in April, that is truly despicable.

What an industry