This course is the most extreme, and horses are killed regularly. This (to me) shows that other factors are there as well as carelssness or misjudgements.
If a course regularly kills horses, then it needs to be changed, yes.
The punters are betting on which horse wins, not how many survive. It is not necessary to put animals at such risk to find out which horse comes first.

with all due respect, that website is a long way off accurate. There are a few horses on there who shouldn't be, including one who died at home a couple of days after a race in the field, and it's listed as having a heart attack on course.

Think you will find that male chase horses are all gelded

I tried to give you some reps. but it wouldn't let me, apparently I have to spread them around a bit more?? seems daft to me....I mean what are you actually gaining - a holiday abroad, jack pot win? don't think so........ hey ho.. good post which I agree with.

That site lists 816 deaths in 1861 days.

How many of those deaths are the "few" who should not be amongst them? 10? 20?

I do not consider that "a few" means that the site is "a long way off accurate".

i'd go for around 75-100 which is a fair proportion of the deaths listed.

However a very good friend of mine has trained racehorses to a high level for 11 years, and had a runner in the grand national last year, who i believed finished tenth. He has lost more horses in the field than on the course, and statistically of all horse, racing, polo ponies, Sjers, eventers, more horses die and are injured in the field. Yet there are no calls to ban putting horses in fields.

Not all of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelding

I disagree, only the minority of breaks in horses can be fixed effectively. They type of leg break usually sustained by racehorses and horses in other fast jumping disciplines (ive lost 3 to leg breaks) are usually of the type that just cannot be fixed.
Errmmm, Neptune is a gelding, as are most other NH horses.

By the commentary, and in the GN coverage, some horses were pulled up, before they injured themselves .

I take your point but even as a coldly commercial decision better a live horse, who may do better another day, than a fatal or career-ending injury surely?

However I do thinking whipping is adversely influenced by being seen to do everything possible to get the win and future work.

lots of jockeys pull up. AP McCoy has pulled up, Ruby Walsh has pulled up, Frankie Detorri has pulled up, they are not short of work!

RE the whip, changes have been made, albeit slight ones, and I know it's hard to believe, but racing whips hurt as much as being hit with a cardboard kitchen roll tube (i was cracked round the head with one the other day!) they make one hell of a noise, but they don't hurt. Everyone in racing knows they don't hurt thus spend most of their working days hitting each other with them.

They are far kinder than the sticks preferred by Showjumping and eventing riders.