October
JuneThe ultimate test
There should be more jumps racing, more flat highweight events and more distance racing in general in Australia. I’m not talking about more 2000m races, but 3000m-plus races such as the 3600m flat race at the Oakbank carnival and longer.
Good distance racing is far more interesting and exciting than sprint races, but jumps racing is something else again — a challenge for horse and rider, an examination of horsemanship and endurance.
Racing fans flock to see these races and the equine and human athletes involved. The excitement of a competitive hurdle and/or steeple cannot be challenged by a short-distance event. Oakbank and Warrnambool are shining examples, as were the Australian Hurdle and Steeple this year.
Great horses, trainers and jockeys have provided Australia, in particular Victoria, and South Australia, with a rich history of jumps racing. Our horses have been competitive and dominant overseas. Crisp, The Feline, Sharp As, Pentiffic, Karasi, Zama Lad, Moon Chase, Marlborough, River Amos and Planet Hollywood are just a few of the Australian-trained champion horses to have enthralled racing fans with their dominance and courage. Then there are the Kiwi invaders, such as St Steven, Foxboy, and Light Hand, who came over and won some of our richest jumping and thereby winning our hearts.
These are horses who would have struggled on the flat. Without jumps racing would have been slow, failed flat horses, not the champions they became.
I love and respect horses, as do the trainers, owners, jockeys, trackwork riders, strappers, farriers and other people who work in the industry. These horses are extremely well cared for — on average the cost to keep a horse in training would be as high as $30,000 a year.
Anyone who believes owners and trainers retain jumpers and race them for the money is deluded and ignorant. It is not a money-driven industry and the monetary rewards are not high. There are no million-dollar jumps races and the jumps season in Australia is barely seven months of the year.
Jumps racing is an easy target for the anti-jumps racing protestors, as certain members of the media, both written and electronic, sensationalise and are selective in their reporting. The majority of hurdle and steeple races are incident-free. However, certain members of the media only ever report falls. In the event that there are no falls, it is not uncommon for a photo of a long-past incident to be published.
In an ideal world there would be no incidents but it would be unrealistic and irrational to expect that. There is always a degree of risk in equestrian sports, whether horses are racing, showjumping or even in the paddocks spelling.
Jim Watters, CEO of Thoroughbred Racing SA, was quoted in the Mt Barker Courier in May as saying that jumps racing has accounted for 0.67 percent of equine fatalities in racing in South Australia in the past decade.
Jumps racing is hardly the bloodthirsty, barbaric industry the anti-jumps group portray it to be. This sensationalised portrayal is insulting.
The racing industry cannot allow a minority group of radicals with questionable intentions corral it. These people contribute nothing to the racing industry and want to destroy it. Jumps racing is just the tip of the iceberg.
The racing and breeding industry as a whole needs to get behind jumps racing and stand firm.
Woodside (SA)