The British Horseracing Authority took the unprecedented step to suspend Monday’s games in Beverley and Windsor and Tuesday’s games in Chelmsford, Southwell and Wolverhampton after the Met Office upgraded Friday morning’s extreme heat warning to ‘Red’ from ‘Amber’ ‘.
The courses are within or near the warning area and the BHA canceled them after the first red heat warning was issued. It is expected to be cooler in Cartmel and Ayr on Monday and Musselburgh on Tuesday, gatherings that are still taking place.
Richard Wayman, chief operating officer of the BHA, explains: “The main priority of the BHA when organizing a meeting is the well-being of all involved, people and horses. After the first ever extreme heat warning, we are taking sensible precautions.”
On Sunday, Stratford, which hosts seven show jumping races, moved the start time forward and changed the starting order so that the longer races are run earlier in the day. It is one of the measures taken to ensure that it is comfortable for the horses.
Stratford track director Nessie Chanter has hired industry fans and changed the requirement for horses to be in the paddock 15 minutes before the race to last minute. After the race, jockeys will dismount on the track where there will be two ‘cooling stations’. Horses will also be led back to the stables via another route that is more shaded and will be dotted with more water stations.
“We ordered a water bowser, we doubled the amount of water and ice and manpower available to help throw cold water over the horses,” explains Chanter. “The priority is to get as much cold water on the horses as quickly as possible.”
While the BHA is anticipating giving up racing by taking this unprecedented step, racehorses are in fact quite resistant to heat. They race in much warmer and more humid conditions than in Britain – Hong Kong, for example – and research has shown when it was run for eventers, who were then required to do a steeplechase stage, en route to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that horses are adept at acclimation.
‘Horses are well adapted to lose body heat’
If you’re sending a horse to race in a hot climate, send it a few weeks early to give it a chance to get used to the heat.
As it has been relatively warm in Britain for a while, most horses will be used to it by now, and indeed they are more likely to be thrown out by a single warm day after a cool period.
That was the case in Cheltenham in April 2018 when, on one of the hottest (25 degrees) April days in years after a cool spring, it was decided to suspend a long-distance hunt after several horses showed signs of heat stress earlier in September. the afternoon.
When a dog loses heat by panting, a horse’s main way is through sweating. Movement generates heat as a by-product, so when you canter it gets warm, about 1 degree per minute, and stays cool through evaporation, convection and respiration.
When a horse gallops, it creates its own wind, so the problem isn’t so much when it’s moving fast, but when it stops, at which point the heat must be lost. Signs of overheating can include excitement and shakiness.
The easiest method of cooling a horse is with cold water, while a fan mimics the wind it creates itself while galloping. A combination of the two should speed up cooling.
“Horses are well adapted to lose the body heat they generate,” says BHA vet Sally Taylor, “especially if that can be supplemented with cold water and an artificial breeze.”
Outside of the home track, most trainers will train their horses early – in some cases the first time at 5 a.m. – so that most are finished by 9 a.m.