Early yesterday morning I pottered off on my usual round of shopping for my eclectic diet (eggs, figs, prune juice, sesame seeds, jelly, dark Choco Leibniz biscuits, coffee, and loo roll) but I took a detour back to the Abbey, and wondered into what is known as “A Betting Shop” or simply “The Bookies”. I do not generally gamble other than the occasional couple of pounds frittered away on the Euro Lottery, but it was Grand National day and I had decided to have a flutter. I selected two horses on a highly scientific basis. One was the favourite and thus, I reasoned, likely to be in the mix at the end, and one had a name that reminded me of a rather exciting ex girlfriend (Viking Blond, since you ask – say no more). I was also instructed to place a bet on behalf of my present special friend Sister Eva Longoria, who had selected a horse called Treacle because, she said, she liked treacle and its rider had the best colours. I had to place my bet with the aid of the patient staff who were clearly prepared for a whole day of amateur punters placing 50p each way. In fact I had to be reminded what “each way” meant, and anyway handed over my total bet of £20, and thus condemned all three horses to doom. With this interesting diversion over, I retired to have a coffee and half a packet of my latest addiction, dark Choco Leibniz biscuits. And to play on “Twitter”.

The Twitter hive mind seems not just to be the source of all news these days but the home of all moral debate. The big issues this week seem to have been the loathsome Philpott man who happily sacrificed six of his brood in some mindless and moronic plot to regain possession of them from what is rather extravagantly called his “mistress”, and a programme on Channel 4 about something called “dogging”, which, as I understand it, involves going to a car park and having sex with strangers. I am afraid I wouldn’t really know. What a sordid world. Be that as it may, I immediately noticed a tweet from a person I follow with great pleasure and delight whom I shall call “Nim”. What I know about Nim is he gave up a high-powered job in the City and the rat race, and has taken up a job in the country which involves long hours and hard work in all weathers, and caring for horses. Nim, by the way, is a happy and fulfilled man.

His tweet, however, struck me like a slap in the face. Today he would not be placing any bets. He tweeted. He would be caring for horses, not seeing them injured and even killed for his own sport and pleasure. Ouch. Indeed there were many similar observations.

Of course I had placed my bets without any great thought for what is a genuine issue. The casualty rate amongst horses has necessitated changes to the fences in terms, as I understand it, of both height and layout of the ditches. And this year the core of the fences has been changed from wood to the more forgiving wood. Nevertheless, although the race yesterday passed off without any fatalities, two horses would not be returning to their paddocks after the Aintree meeting. And so I began to ponder what might loosely be called “the morality” of this sport.

I have to freely confess I don’t have much expert inside knowledge, and thus I am not sure I can set out a coherent position, and I would be happy to be further and better informed. I have some credentials as a rider. Some years ago I rode reasonably regularly, and through a series of coincidences I had the pleasure of “walking out” a hunter called Basil. That is to say, taking him out for regular exercise walks to keep him loose and in condition. Basil was a bit of a beast. He was indeed a true “Hunter”, a chocolate coloured gelding who stood at nearly 17 hands (big) with a powerful build. His owner, a wealthy woman in the “gin and jag” belt, was a good amateur rider and used to compete with him in jumping, and occasionally, as his description would imply, hunting.

Basil was on the whole a placid soul, who willingly put up with this clumsy human sitting on him. However, he frightened me once. One afternoon – I think it was autumn – I was out on my own with Basil, and had taken him for a walk through a copse when I heard a very distant sound. I couldn’t quite place it at once, but Basil did. It was the sound of distant horns, because the local hunt was on. Basil’s ears pricked up like antennae and his whole demeanor changed. He wanted to “go”, and he blooming’ well started to. I am hardly a weed, but I suddenly realised this three-quarters of a ton of animal beneath me had a mind of his own and wanted to join in the fun, and was also immensely strong. In fact I wasn’t sure I could stop him galloping off and joining his mates careering all over the countryside in pursuit of Mr. Foxy. I only regained proper control when the noise of the hunt faded.

Which I suppose made me realise that horses have their own predilections. I stopped riding because I got to the point when I needed to have my own to progress, but I could not afford the investment in time and money. However, I recently visited my friend Dr Firenza Pesta in the USA. As well as – or perhaps partly because of – being a hugely accomplished veterinary surgeon, Dr Pesta also has a deep love of animals. Animals seem to sense this about her, and place their trust in her. She is also an accomplished and brave rider. One of her horses she found ill-treated and malnourished and deprived of water. She took him in and slowly restored him, treating not just his body but his mental scars with patience and kindness, and turning him into an excellent and accomplished jumper, although he still has occasional “panics” which can make him a rather dangerous horse on occasions.

On my visit I became reacquainted with horses, and what struck me was their big expressive eyes, and placid demeanour. What then of the morality of a race like the Grand National. Should the course be shortened, or the number and six of the fences be reduced. Should it even be run at all?

I am not sure I have answers for any of this. With Libertarian leaning sensibilities, I am on the whole against banning anything. What is more I can see that these horses are bred and born to race. Genetically that is true, and from what little I understand the best horses seem to get a real kick out of it. But whereas a jockey has a choice as to whether to risk life and limb, the horses on the whole don’t. I seem to remember last year one horse just refused to race. It simply would not line up. Maybe it had some equine premonition. I hope its owners didn’t send it off to be turned into burgers.

On balance, I am in favour of the race. Life without risk, without danger is a tepid affair.  But please help me form my views more coherently, and with greater rigour. All I would say is that from a Christian ethical point of view, man has by virtue of many faculties dominion over the animal world. So be it. But with that dominion comes responsibility to care for and display kindness. So, where is this balance to be struck when it comes to racing?

Philpott? Balls!

I can’t let the week go by without having at least one swipe at this. I am not sure the case tells us much more than this. We have in our society some individuals who are uniquely unfit to be part of civilisation and indeed whose very values, even existence are anathema to it. With his wholly irresponsible attitude, bouts of irrational anger, fecklessness, controlling and malevolent self-serving behaviour and reckless disregard for the lives of others, this is a man who played the grief card, but in reality he was the man responsible, the perpetrator who cared not a jot for those who he sacrificed in pursuit of his self-serving plans that created such terrible damage. He is clearly insane, but that does not mean we should not lock him up and throw away the key.

Ed Balls, that is.

Oh, and Mick Philpott isn’t very nice either.

Gildas the Monk

Backwoodsman
April 9, 2013 at 19:32

Gildas, another good and thoughtful article, my friend. I was a keen
hunting man and can confirm that a horse which knows his job absolutely
switches on when he hears hounds or horn.
Although I love point to points,
I find it impossible to watch The National – I fear for these beautiful, brave
, animals too much. An interesting contradiction !

miss mildred
April 8, 2013 at 11:08

I heard that the winner jockey of the Grand Nat got flung from his horse
and flown to hospital, so the horses got their own back? How many riders have
died or been paralysed, or severly kicked and later died of thrombosis, as did
the husband of a very dear friend. One of his sons nearly went later the with
pulmonary embolism after a riding accident. I wish this strident, plotting
gang of animal rights persons, and NGOs, would campaign as vigorously for the
rights of children not to be dragged up by the likes of Philpotts and their
feckless mothers. They had lives far more miserable than posh race horses that
are pampered and fussed over all their lives. Us humans have seem to have the
right to stultify the lives of their children, if they have bred them, not for
their own intrinsic value, but for the purpose obtaining an income to spend on
themselves. As for that obnoxious man Balls. Why do I keep saying hjs name
over and over when he is ranting on TV? I am pro Grand National….look at the
pleasure it gave all those spectators last Saturday, after the longest
dreariest winter I can remember.

m.barnes April 8, 2013 at 08:57

There is a micro-climate of media furore around the National with regards
to Horse fatalities. It’s been a smart move by lobby groups whose intention is
to end horse racing and they are aiming for death by a thousands cuts. Make
the fences smaller, make the fences softer – am guessing in the future it will
be make the race shorter and make the number of runners smaller. I ackowledge
the tactics and I also have to admit I have a problem with the fundamental
dishonesty of the campaign. I also worry about unintended consequences. Is it
not the case that the race is now faster that previous years? Because the
fences are smaller and softer, the jockeys and horses run faster – at speed
there is more chance of a fatal collision. Am not sure the do-gooders are
really doing good.
As a previous poster has said, horses die in other races
and there is not a murmer from Animal Aid or RSPCA. Horse also die running
around their fields but since those horses aren’t racers and aren’t famous
no-one cares. There are horses in the field at the back of my house and they
go for a mad run a couple of times a day just for the joy of it. This is a
normal field so a broken leg is entirely possible.
I am not sure what the
campaigners imagine the world will be like if racing banned – and jumping and
presumably dressage and point to pointing after that. Do they imagine horses
would be kept in fields for people to look at? That they would be allowed to
go feral and run where they want? That isn’t what would happen. Horses would
simply slowly disappear from the landscape.

Said everything I would ever want to say about Philpott. I find Ed Balls an
entertaining politician in the same way Alastair Campbell is a hugely
entertaining shit-stirrer par excellence. Wouldn’t necesssarily want either of
them in power tho’.

Grand National
Guide April 8, 2013 at 03:36

The horse which refused to even start the race last year was ‘King Johns
Castle’ who the year previously had finished in the places.

As for the morality of the race I think this has to be widened to cover all
horse racing. To single out the National I think is unfair but this doesn’t
stop AnimalAid and the RSPCA using the race as a starting point to getting all
horse racing banned.

Obviously the intention of the race is not to harm the horses. Some do
suffer fatal falls, the week before the race an entrant to the national broke
a leg on the training gallops and had to be put down. There was no outcry
about his from AnimalAid or the RSPCA, the national is a stern test of a
horses endurance and jumping ability but the moral argument is the same
regardless of the race.

Statistically more horses do die in the National than other NH races but
the national is also twice as long as most other races too. Having said that
the race has gone 4-5 years without a single fatality in the past when it
could be argued that it was a much tougher affair.

If the National was ever ‘banned’ i think it would signal the end of NH
racing and soon after the end of flat racing in the UK too.

The new fence cores are plastic btw.

drsolly
April 8, 2013 at 00:03

Are they still allowed to use the whip on the horses?

alan scott April 7, 2013 at 20:41

Sunt lacrimae rerum…applies to all our pursuits and days. As one grows
older, one appreciates this more; nothing in life without risk is worth
much.
From an octogenarian.

Ted Treen April 7, 2013 at 23:48

Agreed perhaps – but do we have the right to impose those risks on dumb
animals who have no choice?

My moral code says no.

Robert Edwards
April 7, 2013 at 15:59

Re. The National, I think that all points of view are welcome, but I’d make
the following points, after a (fairly undamaged) life lived on, near or around
horses.

I was taught to ride by a magnificent man called Sgt. Young, a Paddy, who
had actually taken part in a cavalry charge in Mesopotamia during WW1. He had
the sabre scar on his face to prove it and must have been pushing eighty when
he taiught me. He opined that you could not make a horse do what it didn’t
want to do, but, en masse (a bit like people) they will do the most irrational
things, which of course both includes steeplechasing and galloping towards the
enemy’s guns. And (a bit like people) they also undergo a sense of loss when
one of their number dies. As flight animals, a crowd of horses seems to amount
to rather more than the sum of its parts, (ususally unlike humans) but for
only for a short period of time. To coax a horse to attempt The Chair at
Aintree, or the old Derby Bank at Hickstead, are different efforts; for there
is no company when essaying the Derby bank, which is why I thought it
interesting that Harvey Smith was the trainer of the 66/1 winner. H has form
in the matter of ‘schooling’.

Regarding Balls, I couldn’t agree more. I still don’t understand why he has
not been impeached…

Mina Field
April 7, 2013 at 16:09

@Robert Edwards
H certainly does. I used to work for him and Sue. His
temperament v mine was never going to end well, but he is a genius with
horses. Was devastated for them when The Last Fling was killed at Aintree
(and the first time it was a horse I actually knew, who had died in the
race, and therefore felt differently than I had with all the others I’d seen
it happen to) and chuffed for them yesterday.

Furor Teutonicus
April 7, 2013 at 15:46

You would be better putting your money on a hamburger, or frozen lasange.
More horse meat in both, than you will ever find on a race track.

Jonathan Mason
April 7, 2013 at 15:45

We live in such a sterile world these days, where people are shielded from
the facts of life and death.

Last week I went to a butcher’s shop here in the Dominican Republic where
there were corpses of cows and pigs hanging from the ceiling and skilled men
in rubber boots wading around in pools of blood hacking off your Sunday lunch
with cleavers. How unlike the meat counter at Waitrose with butchers–probably
now known in the UK as main course preparation techs–in boaters and striped
aprons offering cooking hints for dep-shelled pre-garlicked frozen
escargots.

Horses are just a kind of obsolete version of the motor bike and they
should be recycled as much as possible to make food for dogs and humans. If
they die, no violins please, even if the bow is made from horse hair.

Ted Treen April 7, 2013 at 23:46

And I’d be the first to suggest that perhaps Mr Mason – post demise, of
course – could be taken to the Pedigree Petfoods factory to be rendered into
nourishment for working animals (sheepdogs, police dogs etc.).

Et pourquoi pas?

Michael April 7, 2013 at 14:29

Not so worried about the horses, but if there was ever a sport where the
animals were starved to the point of stunted growth it would be banned in a
second. But there you go. Jockeys. Nutters.

JuliaM April 7,
2013 at 15:27

Not so! Look at the fashion industry…

Mina Field April 7, 2013 at 13:25

Horses that end up running in the National are near the top of the pile as
far as their health and well being is concerned. Its their less fortunate
counterparts tucked away in the hands of bad and neglectful owners that
deserve our sympathies.
As Gildas mentions – if one horse makes its mind up
not to start or to jump a particular fence, then nobody can force it to. The
others do it because they like running and jumping and/or they want to follow
their fellow equines because that is their natural instinct. The one thing
they lack, wonderful though they are, is an imagination. They don’t think they
might get hurt or killed.
When they are hurt, there is immediate
professional assistance, even if the only assistance must be a permanent end
to any suffering. Again, lacking imagination they don’t think ‘OMG I’m going
to die’, they simply know no more. Human casualties in terrible accidents
suffer for longer. And when the poor horse is dead it has no mother, father,
brothers and sisters to grieve for it. The only grieving is that of its lads
or lasses, its trainer to an extent, and sometimes its owner, and that grief
suffered by the lad or lass is horrible.
It can’t be a bad thing that the
fences are less likely to claim casualties these days, of course. But by the
same token, the majority of runners coped with them in the past, and the race
was challenging and exciting in a unique way.

Lilith April 7, 2013 at 12:50

What I really can’t comprehend is how you stop after half a packet?

GildasTheMonk
April 7, 2013 at 12:52

Correct!

JuliaM April 7,
2013 at 12:17

Errr…. shouldn’t this be under Gildas’ byline?

Anna
Raccoon April 7, 2013 at 12:28

Errr. Yes. Guess I’d better wake up, eh?

BenSix
April 7, 2013 at 12:01

I am no fan of the Grand National but I wonder how many of the people who
are exercised by the risk of pain and death experienced by the poor horses are
concerned by the inevitable pain and death experienced by comparably
intelligent pigs and cows.

Dave H April 7, 2013 at 11:14

Ed Balls, when he was in charge of DCSF, took a tragic case (Khyra Ishaq)
and used it for his own political ends. Fortunately he failed at the time, but
only because the election caused large parts of the CSF Bill to be
dropped.

Don’t throw away the key, there’s always the risk that someone might find
it. Melt it down.

Ted Treen April 7, 2013 at 23:24

Whilst I am both agreeably amused and would heartily endorse Gildas’
footnote regarding the esteemed Mr Balls, I still chortle over the Sky News
newscaster’s description “…Ed Balls – who frequently lives up to his name
with what he talks.”

Absolute genius.