In The Sulky Forum
General Category => General Harness Racing Discussion => Topic started by: jimee63 on November 09, 2012, 05:22:08 AM
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Integrity in harness racing is a big problem. One issue I'd like to bring up is that the stewards are not doing as good a job as they could be doing. They only call obvious violations while letting a number of racing infractions get by. A prime example was in the last heat of this year's Little Brown Jug. Going into the first turn, Gingras hock kicked A RockNRoll Dance 3 times. This blatant violation was not called, and, I don't think I'm the only person that saw it. I go to Pompano Park and that place is a joke. Racing violations go on almost every night and nothing gets called. Their obvious policy is to not make waves. Every aspect of the sport needs to be cleaned up to keep existing fans and to be able to attract new ones.
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Most of the complaints generated by this year
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As any horseperson with a shred of common sense knows, drivers do not kick any horse in the hocks.
"Kicking" actually means letting their foot out of the stirrup and letting it hit the horse in the meaty area of the flank/upper rear leg. This does far less harm than hitting an animal with a whip-matter of fact it causes zero pain to the animal.
Bettors need to be informed of this fact. Now, if a horse bites or steps on you in the barn and you kick one in the belly, that might hurt a little, but not nearly as much as the horse biting or stepping on you. In the case of Amy or myself, we would probably fall over backwards when attempting this, giving everyone else in the barn a hearty laugh.
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I like the look I get after I slap one on the ass........."seriously, you know that hurt you way more than it hurt me"..........and they are right.
The problem with "kicking" which isn't actually kicking, is safety........but if you let experienced drivers do it, you have to let everyone do it........even those you know will fall out of the bike.
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As any horseperson with a shred of common sense knows, drivers do not kick any horse in the hocks.
"Kicking" actually means letting their foot out of the stirrup and letting it hit the horse in the meaty area of the flank/upper rear leg. This does far less harm than hitting an animal with a whip-matter of fact it causes zero pain to the animal.
Bettors need to be informed of this fact. Now, if a horse bites or steps on you in the barn and you kick one in the belly, that might hurt a little, but not nearly as much as the horse biting or stepping on you. In the case of Amy or myself, we would probably fall over backwards when attempting this, giving everyone else in the barn a hearty laugh.
Oh fearless leader, you are wrong. The violation you describe is foot out of the strirrups, a lesser and different offense *at least in Ohio.
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Oh fearless leader, you are wrong. The violation you describe is foot out of the strirrups, a lesser and different offense *at least in Ohio.
I did not know that. I assumed that the foot out of the stirrups rule was when their foot was just out of the stirrups.
Still I have been in or around the business since 1969 and never known anyone to kick one in the hock. Why would you risk something like that?
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Brushing a horse's hock with a toe as it's passing is not kicking, period. I never used that driving style because I never liked having my feet out of the stirrups during a race. All the new bikes don't have stirrups anyway, just a little foot pad. Do the math: How many times would you like to get laced with a whip versus having a toe brush your leg. It's much ado about nothing.