tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3782644139927778760.post-53354773997779021282008-05-04T20:19:00.000-04:002008-05-04T20:19:00.000-04:002008-05-04T20:19:00.000-04:00These fatal incidents are as devastating - if not more so - to trainers, jockeys and owners as they are to readers here.<BR/><BR/>I think you have to look to the regulation or oversight functions of racing associations. As in some other subject areas we explore here, narrowing the focus of an activity to money and velocity can have disagreeable consequences. As you point out, the conventions common to other parts of the globe greatly reduce some risks. And the conventions of past, but recent decades were somewhat less dangerous than today's practices.<BR/><BR/>I grew up in a thoroughbred training center and am as fond of these beautiful animals as anyone inevitably is who has spent time around them or had the pleasure of riding them.<BR/><BR/>I think the changes have been unsurprising as we have moved farther from times when the object of racing and breeding was to produce a superior <I>animal</I>, although speed has always been a great consideration. It's an old sport which, before the automobile became prevalent, existed in a different relation to common experience: not impossibly long ago,nearly everyone had at least one horse of their own.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the Secretariat footage. I wouldn't have thought myself a racing enthusiast, but that clip goes some distance towards demonstrating how riveting the sport can be.burnsidenoreply@blogger.com