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GoPro video shows why it's not wise to ride a retired racehorse

Commentary: It all starts so nicely. And then the horse remembers it used to be a racehorse.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


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Shamrock gives his rider a woah-ful ride.

Nick Bull/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

I did this once and survived.

I could barely stay on a horse to begin with, but the owner of the stables put me on a retired racehorse. Apparently, its knees hurt a little. However, this particular horse, on seeing a field, simply stretched his legs a little and gave me an immensely smooth ride.

The same didn't happen for Nick Bull.

In a charmingly panic-laden video he posted to YouTube, Bull takes his retired racehorse down what looks like a country track.

The horse is called Shamrock. From the GoPro footage, however, you'd think he was called "Whoa, Shamrock."

For Shamrock gives Bull something of a rock'n'roll ride that, inevitably, ends with him rolling off the horse, with pain his only accompaniment.

Bull didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. However, he offered on YouTube: "Please excuse the bad language and girly screams at the end."

His footage has already engrossed and amused more than 76,000 people. Some have given him technical advice, such as sitting back in the saddle. Others were critical that he'd gone out on his own with this professional machine of an animal.

Many just laughed, as Bull, in posting the video, clearly survived the ordeal and himself found it amusing.

Perhaps my favorite YouTube comment was this from Linda Kluge: "thats nothing compared to when my mule DECIDED to race a train!!!!" Mules like to race?

Still, if Bull hadn't had his camera with him, this would be just a story told in the local pub.

Now, it's featured in the biggest public house of all, YouTube.

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