Execute Had The Killer Instinct

In the post below I mentioned a horse named Execute which raced in NZ in the '70s. He was by Head Hunter (GB)-Queen Arma, by Blueskin II (GB). Subsequent to Execute's foaling, IRT's Quentin Wallace part-owned the mare Queen Arma.

Execute was a swimmer. He loved the track when only his ears were above water, as you used to get occasionally in NZ. He won 23 races including a Founders' Plate, which was weight-for-age 1400m, a black-type handicap at Ellerslie as well as a Great Northern Hurdle which was 4200m. Bill Sanders trained him. His son Graeme is tending to Seachange in England right now and chief Queensland steward Reid Sanders is of similar pedigree.

I'm not sure anyone in the 'modern' era races their horses as often, as hard and as well as Bill Sanders did, but by golly he had a lot of good horses, most of them el-cheapos. Probably the horses aren't up to it today, the guts has been bred out of them. Horses, especially those out of the South Island like Eiffel Tower, Kumai and Loch Linnhe, did unbelievable things by today's standards. I'm sure there have been Australian equivalents but my knowledge of Australian racing is much shallower.

Perhaps Toulouse Lautrec is headed in that direction. The erstwhile Derby winner has resuscitated his waning career as a jumper, though those farcical yellow toothbrushes which masquerade as fences in Victoria are more a risk to a horse than a help. Somehow skipping over a dozen or two of them doesn't seem the same as going 6,400m in the deepest bog, three times up the Ellerslie hill, jumping two at the top then having to negotiate a stone wall on the way down each time (don't worry folks, they got rid of the stone wall some years back), not to mention the live stand double, the water jump and several other energy-sappers.

I know - we didn't have satellite TV back then or mobile phones or computers so we needed something to occupy our time. Like crocheting, macrame or watching a long race. Today all we're interested in is the last 600m sectional.

Recent events in the USA spotlighting Big Brown, Eight Belles and Barbaro are causing a lot of teeth-gnashing about just where the breed is going. Americans in general only care about racing for no more than five minutes per year and to be confronted with these calamities one after the other has unleashed an unbelievable fury of anti-racing sentiment. Like John McCririck's diatribe against excessive use of the whip from Royal Ascot this morning (which I agree with; there are shocking examples to be seen every day on Australian TV but nothing's said) - these issues lie simmering just beneath the surface everywhere and if we become too obsessed with win-at-all-costs they will eventually engulf us and destroy us. Mark my words.

Apparently, man can do whatever the hell he likes to his fellow man - and lamentably does, often - but his dignity is measured by how he behaves towards animals subservient to himself.