LARRY'S VIEW - STORM REVIVED MEMORIES OF A MORE DANGEROUS ERA

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, November 23, 2012

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

The storm that struck Brisbane last week reminded me just how far racing has come over the years in terms of weather safety considerations.

If I go back many, many years I can recall several occasions where I’d been behind the barriers and there was lightning … and no one seemed to care! You’d still go out and ride.

If my memory serves me correct, I think a couple of horses came to grief in Perth in track-work and then people started waking up with the realization that, wow, you could actually get hit by lightning.

Then, obviously, the authorities got more stringent with the rules regarding weather conditions.

I also remember riding in New Zealand, when I was a lot younger … and riding when it hailed.

It was actually at a meeting at the bottom of the South Island at Invercargill … actually at Riverton, which is the southern-most racetrack … and it was not only genuine hail, but it was freezing. It was bitterly cold, maybe something like four degrees or something ridiculous like that, and it was absolutely freezing.

No, they didn’t even think of calling a halt to proceedings. They just carried on.

In fact, just as an aside, later that same day the track was that heavy they couldn’t get the barriers into position for one of the starts and so I rode in my first ‘standing’ start. That was something different again and I can say I’ve had the opportunity to do that, courtesy of the weather.

So yeah, experiencing lightning and hail while out on the track are probably the worse things that can happen to you and I’ve had them both but, thankfully, with the guidelines that have been developed over the years, those particularly nasty situations can now, by and large, be avoided.

Like I said, we take these safety measures for granted now, but there was a time where extreme conditions was just something that came with the territory.

A sign of a positive change!

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Not all dangers have been eliminated though and obviously you still can have extreme weather moments even today which can catch you out on the track.

I’ve ridden on days where the rain has been torrential and you dead-set can’t see.

To give an example, we wear two or three sets of goggles, or a visor, to help us get through the race.

Now let me try to give you an idea of what it is like when we say the visibility is bad … that we can’t see! Let me put it this way.

If you can, picture yourself driving down the motorway in torrential rain where your windscreen wipers just aren't coping. Now turn your windscreen wipers off. No wipers, your windows are fogged up … and then imagine mud getting chucked onto your windscreen.

All this while and you are driving at fifty kilometers and hour with other cars, that you can’t see, all completely around you … like in a race … and that will give you a good idea of exactly what our situation is on a horse in a race in a torrential downpour.

So when jockeys bring up visibility as a problem, believe me it is because we have a genuine visibility problem!

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Summer is the storm season in Queensland and summer means different things to different people.

For me the warm weather brings another challenge far removed from riding in stormy weather conditions.

It has been reasonably well documented just how much work I have to do on my weight and, contrary to what some might expect, summer is a lot harder for me than winter in that regard.

I just get so dehydrated. The heat takes it out of me because I am such a free sweater.

When you sweat as much as I do it takes all of the goodness out of your body and, of course, you can’t replace that quick enough on a race-day, so it can play havoc with your riding schedule. Sometimes you won’t be able to finish the meeting.

It’s nothing new with me. It is an age old story and I have learnt to cope with it as best I can, but everytime summer comes around I know I’m in for a difficult three months.

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Lastly, just a brief word on the changes that have been proposed with regard to the setting of strict minimum penalties for serious breaches of the laws of racing.

All I hope is that whatever is put in place in future brings more consistency to the punishment procedures and outcomes than there arguably has been in the past.

There is always a lot of talk about preserving the integrity of the sport.

Consistency in rulings will go a long way towards promoting that worthy cause.

Till next week,

Larry

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