[QUOTE=Drvmb1ggl3;6927780]
Ryan Mania has just been airlifted to hospital after a nasty fall at Hexham. Screens were up and the medics tended to him for a long time.
Hoping for the best for him.
Talking about the highs and lows of the game… less than 24 hours after riding the winner of the National.[/QUOTE]
Holy crap!!! :eek: I hope he will be okay.
Oh, dear. Hope he’ll be fine.
[QUOTE=Equibrit;6928014]
Article; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/racing/article-2305337/Grand-National-winner-Ryan-Mania-airlifted-hospital-horror-fall-Hexham.html[/QUOTE]
According to his valet, he’s moving all of his limbs and talking, both very encouraging signs.
I am much happier seeing that most of the competitors finished and hopefully, that the horses that fell were not injured in the course of it. A good race does not need to be some kind of test of life or death in order to “weed” out the good from the bad. Perhaps there is an overcompensation for the animal rights groups which is not good, but it certainly is better that horses are not killed or (what we normally do not hear about at all) are the career ending or permanent cripples who so called “survive”. I think a nice balance between the two is in order but I for one celebrate it and thank God I do not have to watch the Canal Turn massacre that always made me cringe. I do not watch this race regularly as I cannot stand all of the fallings, and jockeys being trampled, etc. (I do not like those kinds of "spectacles), and never did follow it much except from a historical reader’s perspective as Jay Trump was a childhood hero of mine and Red Rum and Battleship’s wins in particular. Once I finally watched it “live” so to speak, I was horrified, the number of horses falling into the canal, flipping upside down, or back into it, and the number of fallings period was insane. It needed to get out of the Dark Ages.
I don’t watch much steeplechasing so can someone explain what the announcer means when he says the horse made “a bad mistake”. It happened several times and I couldn’t quite see what was going on but the horses in question mostly kept running, so I can assume it meant hit the fence in a way that caused a stumble or loss of position, but not necessarily a fall or horse or rider?
i am really glad no one was killed -and as an eventer am keenly aware of the discusions about too hard/too easy.
Fences that don’t kill because they are softer/break away etc are a good thing, IMO. Shortening the course? I dunno. I know fatigue can play a huge part in horses breaking down - and again I don’t know enough about the sport to know how many of these guys are sound the next day , or the next week. But if the winner is 11, he’s made it several years!
Just guessing, but a bad mistake would be coming into a fence in such a way that the horse would not land in full stride. Horses lose a lot of ground if they have to regroup after a fence, and they can gain a lot of ground if they are able to take the fence in stride.
Thanks for the link to the Daily Mail article. Looks like hopefully it’s not serious. That jockey is a doll!
And the poor horse here looks like he’s got some kind of skin issue - or is just blowing his coat? Guess it made no difference!
Found some more neat pictures online. Check out this article. Once the horse got home, they led him down to the local pub. :lol:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grand-national-winner-auroras-encore-1816643
[QUOTE=CVPeg;6928392]
Found some more neat pictures online. Check out this article. Once the horse got home, they led him down to the local pub. :lol:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grand-national-winner-auroras-encore-1816643[/QUOTE]
That’s a Red Rum sort of thing.
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