National Racehorse Week 22-31st August

Stuck for what to do with the kids and can't be arsed with Peppa Pig for the millionth time?

Come to a stable, a farrier, a stud farm or a vet near you and find out more about the racehorse and the love and care they receive away from the course

https://nationalracehorseweek.uk

Twitter @RacingWhat

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello everybody and welcome to this episode 22 of The Rap, the What's Racing About podcast. This is going to be a real short and sweet one. I always say that, but this one is genuinely going to be short because it's nothing more than a reminder. A reminder that it is National Racehorse Week. Commencing the 22nd, ending the 31st of August in a few weeks' time. Just in time for the school holidays. It's still going to be holiday time, so it's worthwhile investing a bit of time and effort into finding out what events are taking place near to you and maybe taking the kids along. You need to go to national racehorseweek.uk. That is the website, and that is where you will find out all the information about National Racehorse Week. Put very simply, it's a way that the industry opens itself up to scrutiny. Not all, but a very large number of racing stables and equine centres and equine hospitals and farriers and stud farms open themselves up, and members of the general public can come along and take a look at what happens behind the scenes in horse racing. It's a way of assuaging people's doubts and fears about the nature of horse racing and disparaging, hopefully, the notion that this is a cruel sport and we are intrinsically cruel to our charges. We're not, and I hope if you've been a long-term listener to this cast, you know that has come across loud and clear. But who am I? I'm not just some guy with a microphone that shouts into the void every now and again. You need to go along and find out and understand the nature of the social contract between racing and the world that enables us to break horses in, to put tack and bridle on them, and to train them and to get them running for our entertainment. And you need to understand that in order for them for horses to do that, we need to look after them. We, racing en masse, need to put horses front and centre of everything we do. Their welfare is paramount. And National Race Horse Week is, I hope, a way of you doing that. Getting up close and personal with horse racing, asking your questions if you have any doubts. You will be met with very knowledgeable people, masters of their crafts, who understand racing and the horse inside and out. But ask the questions. And if you have any doubts, go go in, go in hard, you know, be be polite and listen to what they've got to say. But yeah, come armed with arguments because it's only by engaging with the doubters and the naysayers that racing can thrive and you know can maintain the social contract that I talked about that allows us to get these beautiful animals to run for our entertainment. If you want any further information, go back to the second podcast that I ever did. You need to go back to July 2021, and it was an interview that I did with Richard Phillips, who was the founding father, if you like, of National Racehorse Week. He outlines much better than I'm doing and in greater depth what National Racehorse Week is about, the rationale behind it, and the causes that National Racehorse Week supports. So go back to July 2021. The podcast is as fresh and as vital and as informative as ever. If you ever come across Richard, you'll know he's a real crackerjack, a real live wire, thoroughly entertaining guy. The time that I spent with him was easily one of the top 10 afternoons of my life, just being met by a really nice, honest, committed, enthusiastic trainer who just loves the racehorse, loves his charges, and that came across resounding loud and clear during the interview that I had with Richard. But go back and listen to that, and you know that explains National Racehorse Week as it was then and as it still is now in much greater detail. So, top line information: it's the 22nd to the 31st of August. Stables, farriers, stud farms, the backroom of racing opens itself up to you, the general public, to come along and visit to ask you questions, find out more about horse racing, and generally broad us and talk to us and find out more about Racehorse and why we love them so much and the care that they receive. As I say, you need to go to nationalracehorseweek.uk, register there. It's a really good search engine which allows you to find out what the closest event to you is. I'm going to be heading to Stuart Edmonds' Yard at Croft Farm near Leighton Buzzard. Maybe see you there. But pump in your uh postcode, you can find out the closest event to you, and go along and take the kids along. Have a great day out or great afternoon out and find out more about horse racing and the racehorse and the care and love and attention that they receive from us. That's it over an hour. I told you it'd be short and sweet. Have a great continuing summer. Boecho today, doing this on Sussex Stakes Day, just an hour after he finished the race. What a horse, what an absolutely superb performance that was. That's what I'm talking about. That's what racing's all about. That is a horse in full flight, majestic, beautiful. This is what we do it for. Moments and animals like this. And also the lowest rank later running off a market of 1020. We do it for them as well. Okay, that's it, me over and out. Keep on rocking in the free world.