Monday, 22nd February 2021
Some days you just don’t feel like it. And today is one of those days for me….
Horse racing is a dark sport on occasions. It can take you into the deepest doldrums….
And I’m not talking about the betting….
Win, lose, or draw – the betting is just a game….
I like winning. But I can lose with equanimity. It doesn’t touch me. It doesn’t affect me….
And nor should it. If betting affects your equilibrium you probably shouldn’t be playing….
Achille can run a massive race and get touched off in the Grand National Trial at Haydock and I’m straight on to the next thing – no histrionics and no recriminations….
Wild Max can fall at the first obstacle in the Betfair Hurdle – and I can instantly accept and digest that turn of events as ‘one of those things.’ I don’t turn a hair….
Annual Invictus can run a good race at Newbury but only manage to finish 4th – and that’s just how it is. I don’t dwell on ‘if only’ or ‘what might have been’ had things worked out just a little differently….
It’s just betting. It is what it is. Defeat is no big deal. It doesn’t matter. No problem. No drama. No hand-wringing….
But I must confess I’ve never managed to get used to – or to simply blow off – the death of racehorses that I feel a connection with….
The Conditional lost his life at Newbury yesterday….
It looked innocuous when Brendan Powell pulled him up in the Denman Chase – at least it did to me at first glance. I thought he’d lost a shoe. But the injury proved to be fatal….
In the blink of an eye one of my favourite horses in training (a horse that produced a 50/1 win and a Cheltenham Festival win for this column – and a horse I’d backed to win this season’s Grand National) was gone….
I am soft-hearted by nature. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I just don’t have the minerals for the harder edges of the game….
I feel more for animals than I do for people. Perhaps I’ve got my priorities backassward….
Horses are ‘just animals’ to some people. But I’ve never bought into that argument. I don’t think or feel that way. I can’t write things off so glibly. It doesn’t sit right with me….
Perhaps because I take so much pleasure from the betting puzzles the races represent to me, I feel a sense of personal responsibility when those same races – races I spend so much time obsessing about – turn out to be the death of the animals that contest them….
And I probably feel as uncomfortable as I do because on some level I’m suffering from cognitive dissonance….
….I’ve always continued to engage with – and will continue to engage with – a sport that produces moments, circumstances and situations that profoundly conflict me….
Of course, I’ve been playing this game for 30+ years. And Sunday is not the first time a horse died out on the track. It’s a common occurrence....
But most of the deaths I can ignore or remain ignorant of because I’m not watching or analysing the C5 handicap chase at Plumpton or any of the other lower-level races that take place Monday to Friday….
I am protected from total reality by the bubble I’ve created for myself by focusing only on the top-level handicaps (where I bet) and the top-level conditions races (which I watch)….
But those top races are not immune from disaster or tragedy. Horses die in those races too. Sometimes in volume….
And perhaps that’s why I’m in the doldrums to a degree this morning. Perhaps – like a true hypocrite – I can stomach the death of horses on a here-and-there occasional basis but not so easily when they arrive in a glut….
When the deaths occur in such volume that they can’t be ignored perhaps it is only then that my finer instincts kick-in and I question what I’m involved in – however tenuously – and what I really think about it when I allow myself to look at the game in the starkest light….
There was certainly a volume of death this last weekend….
The Conditional, old L’Ami Serge, Yalltari (who was carrying my money in the Swinley at Ascot), Sevarano, Here Comes Johny at Market Rasen – all contested their final races….
I’m probably guilty of over-thinking things….
Perhaps it’s just when one of my favourite horses comes to grief that I resort to soul searching….
Some horses you feel like you know more than others. The Conditional was one such horse for me….
On some level it felt like he was partly mine. That some transaction had taken place between us….
Something to do with me seeing something in him and him delivering on the promise – a happenstance that created some bond that I felt and that he was entirely unaware of….
Where he went…. what he did…. how his races turned out…. what the plans were…. how he was going at home…. how his career turned out…. I followed the news. It meant something….
It was about more than just prices and bets…. more than just dollars and cents. I was in it with him. I was on his side. I was one of his wider connections. He was very much one of my horses….
And maybe (when all is said and done) that’s why any racing fan sticks with the game through thick and thin and all the darkest and dreadful moments it delivers – because ultimately the game is about more than just betting….
On some deeper level these horses mean something to us. Something we might not be able to fully put our finger on – but which is there nevertheless….
Perhaps they mean more to us than we sometime realise or care to admit. That’s why – whatever happens and no matter how difficult it is to take – we always end up coming back for more….
Like I say, I don’t feel much like it today. I’ll be back tomorrow. Meanwhile….
Anything to report? Anything to say? Anything to share? Contact me at: nick.pullen@oxonpress.co.uk
Until next time. Stay tuned.
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