Word of the week: ‘rapping’

THE public became familiar with “metatarsal” bones after English soccer star David Beckham fractured one of his in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup.

Now, the Cian O'Connor controversy has brought into the mainstream another rarely-heard term: rapping.

Rapping refers to cruel techniques used to force horses to jump higher. The most common form is striking the horse's legs with a stick or bar as he goes over a jump while another is putting barbed wire on the pole of a jump. It is regarded within the sport as a cruel shortcut taken by inefficient trainers. Sometimes these trainers give sedatives to calm horses which have been treated in this way.