Reply To: The Grand National
I subscribe to Ian Fleming’s view of horses: Uncomfortable in the middle and damned dangerous at both ends.
Our older daughter did a bit of riding when she was in her early teens but lost enthusiasm for it after a couple of falls.
Horse racing doesn’t feature in my thoughts very often. Forty years ago I’d sometimes take a camera to local point-to-points in rural Northumberland because you could get close to the fences and grab some fantastic shots. I think health & safety has put an end to that. I’ve been to a few race meetings but thankfully haven’t caught the bug.
It can be a brutal sport. Apparently a horse fell at the final fence in one of the Aintree meeting races while in the lead and broke its back. According to the report it staggered to its feet and the jockey whipped it over the finishing line, whereupon it collapsed and had to be “destroyed” as the unhappy parlance goes. When I read about that kind of thing I just want to see the jockey and the owner and the race organisers in prison. But there’s too much money to be made; not least for the government in betting tax.