Dear Editor,
Sunday morning (Aug. 10), I was greeted by a most unsettling sight whilst travelling along Homestretch Avenue at about 08.40 hrs. As I turned from Mandela Ave. into Homestretch I noticed a crowd at the western end of the road, with small groups scattered along the way as well, and I guessed that it was the usual dray-cart fraternity congregating for their Sunday morning frolic. From time to time on Sunday mornings I would see carts being readied for a race or see what appeared to me as carts just having raced, just off that end of the road. But this particular morning I saw the actual thing. There, coming towards me, and the motorist in front of me, at frightening speed, were two horse carts at full gallop. And it was indeed frightening as the outer cart was on the yellow lines and moving over them to our side of the road. The first thing that flashed vividly to mind at that instant was the chariot race in “Ben Hur”, but I was not in front of the silver screen in the Empire of yesteryear, nor was I comfortably ensconced in my chair at home watching the diminutive TV screen. This was the real thing and it was unsettling.
We both had to nudge our cars towards the parapet and let the race go by. The question I must now ask the Traffic Chief is why is this lawless, and dangerous, use of a main thoroughfare in our capital allowed to continue. The police must be aware of this as I have seen people gathered at the 1763 Monument with their dray carts on Sunday mornings on several occasions over the past few years, and reports must have gotten back to them about it. If, therefore, this nefarious practice is to be allowed to continue, I would like to firmly suggest that, in the interest of all concerned – the horses, the onlookers and the cart men, the road be closed to all traffic for the duration of the ‘races’, and that mounted marshals be placed along the route.
However, these horses are shod, and galloping at break-neck speed on a surfaced road, and this is why race courses are made of turf, an animal is apt to slip and fall, and with the weight of the cart behind it, it will tear its skin off on the road, most likely break a leg, if not its neck, and the cart will probably cartwheel over it when the shafts hit the ground. And there are people on those carts! With that potential forevere injury to the horses, the GSPCA is sure to have a word or two to say about this kind of sport.
Actually I don’t think it will come to that as I do not see dray-cart racing being promoted on our roads, and I’m somewhat dubious as to the reception it will receive, in its present form, from our Carifesta visitors whose presence is imminent. But it would be a novelty for us to have dray-cart racing in the Caribbean, replacing the chariot with the ubiquitous cart; but it will have to be over short distances, properly supervised, and naturally, on grass. The former Durban Park is literally across the drain from Homestretch and I can’t think of a better place, and one which is of marked historical relevance, to have such an idea materialise. But not on our roads!
Yours faithfully,
Dr L Applewhaite
