Reply To: Northern Racing – More Flak

"Animal Aid horse racing consultant" – now there’s an oxymoron.

Or maybe just a moron.

Nobody on this Forum is flippant about equine fatalities, as evinced by both the Memorials threads and the heartfelt discussions on water jumps following East Tycoon’s demise. However, Sedgefield is a speed track by its very nature, and one of the least palatable truths of this sport we love is that speed kills.

I was a little surprised to learn that Sedgefield has leapt as far ahead of the likes of Market Rasen and Stratford where losses are concerned, given that those two host more meetings on faster summer going, and from what I have seen of the course on regular visits there over the last ten years or so, there is nothing more inherently dangerous about that course compared to the others.

The numbers involved probably preclude the blithe writing-off of these findings as just "accidents of racing" without the Sedgefield executive holding some sort of internal investigation, especially with the witless opportunists of AA casting their gaze over the Co. Durham venue more closely now, but I’d be confident of any such investigation proving that no exceptional circumstances beyond the course’s topography being at fault here.

gc