The Grand National was the race that hooked me in. Anyone who sat like me as a child and watched the 1973 National couldn’t help be spellbound by the sheer drama, thrill, danger & spectacle of that race.
When the entries came out each year I used to use a school exercise book to colour the jockey silks in and have a page for each horse entered with its form, connections etc. National day was bigger than Xmas Day to me.
Nowadays I look at what they’ve done to the once great race and have an overwhelming feeling of apathy bordering on antipathy towards the race.
They didn’t just remove the teeth & claws but also pretty much filleted the whole course. And when they reduced the distance they consigned to history every race that had gone before it. At that point I lost interest.