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My phrase, but that is what it amounts to. Aintree is to be turned into a triangular course with birch fences that fall apart when a horse jumps them, and represents no more of a challenge than Newbury. That is what I took from the report.
So are we to see a 30 runner, 4m856yd brookie version of the Hennessey next april? For all intent and purpose, that is what it will be.Can’t they realise its speed that kills, taking 4 inches off Bechers will not do anything to save the horses; they need to reduce the field & run it earlier in the season.
The race is fast becoming a joke.
Safety wise the course can not have done anymore to ensure that the fences are fair and that the ground is suitable for such a great race.
I have been to the national on numerous occasions and have always felt that the unique factor of the race was the most appealing part,especially in trying to pick the winner, now what these clowns are now doing in regards to the umpteenth modification of the fences is taking that factor away from the race that I have grown to love since watching Crisp & Red Rum in ’73.
The way it looks now is that the Grand National will not ever again resemble the race it was meant to be Shame.
The race is fast becoming a joke.
Safety wise the course can not have done anymore to ensure that the fences are fair and that the ground is suitable for such a great race.
I have been to the national on numerous occasions and have always felt that the unique factor of the race was the most appealing part,especially in trying to pick the winner, now what these clowns are now doing in regards to the umpteenth modification of the fences is taking that factor away from the race that I have grown to love since watching Crisp & Red Rum in ’73.
The way it looks now is that the Grand National will not ever again resemble the race it was meant to be Shame.
I have recordings of the full races on DVD, from ’60 to ’99. I will savour the disc as it is probably a record of a historic race that is about to be sanitised to destruction. A real pity. Another piece of heritage going down the toilet to appease the do-gooders.
Yet, the same could be achieved by simply doing as Crepello said. They listen, but they don’thear
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Surely it’s inexperience that kills?
Running more races over the fences, more trials etc is surely the best way as well as making the fences as "normal" as is possible without removing their uniqueness.
Would add that making horses and jockeys go around fences will only add to the speed they go into the next obstacle they jump and thus increase the risk.
Unbelievable! Do you dinosaurs not get it yet? After the outcry that followed last year’s race something HAD to be done or soon there will be no more Nationals.
And if you think that reducing the drop at Bechers by 5 inches, removing the drop at the first fence, reducing the height of the fourth fence by two inches and increasing the height of the take off boards will destroy the character of the race or turn it into just another handicap then you must be watching a different race to me.
Unbelievable! Do you dinosaurs not get it yet? After the outcry that followed last year’s race something HAD to be done or soon there will be no more Nationals.
And if you think that reducing the drop at Bechers by 5 inches, removing the drop at the first fence, reducing the height of the fourth fence by two inches and increasing the height of the take off boards will destroy the character of the race or turn it into just another handicap then you must be watching a different race to me.
Artists Return was killed in the 215 yesterday. Are they going to alter the course layout at Southwell?
Racing is racing, just as F1 is F1. Accidents happen. If you are going to destroy the fabric of the race as a specticle, then the race may as well just be banned altogether. But then think of all that revenue they would lose?
I won’t bet in it again. Many won’t. Just out of sheer principle.
Not that I only bet in races where horses get killed. I bet on the race to get involved in the spectacle. Once the spectacle is gone, then it does become ‘just another handicap chase’.According to ITV1 "
Granada Reports
" they will raise the landing side of some jumps, because a horse take off side is higher than the landing side. Also lower some jumps.
This I feel is a mistake because
to quote Michael Dickinson.
An Animal Rights Personal suggested take away the jumps to have a race on the flat for 36 furlongs, but I can imagine the outcry if something similar happened that happened to
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Some real measures was briefly talked about at the end of the report which in my humble opinion should be seriously looked at and that was to reduce the time in the parade. Horses are nervous enough spending the best part of a hour parading and secondly to get to them faster after the race to cool them off.
Myself I love the national and even if it meant watering to change the going, I rather do that than lose it.
Over the past decade we’ve had 16 runner safety limits reduced to 15 or 14 up and down the land, often on the most spurious grounds, in the name of ‘elf and safety. So much so that whereas four place handicaps used to make up circa 20% of races they now make up circa 4%.
It’s rather telling that when there are
legitimate
health and safety concerns they don’t even contemplate reducing the field size.
Can someone tell me how 40 runners is considered safe hurtling over the Aintree fences, but 16 runners is somehow unsafe plodding around at the likes of Southwell or Kempton on the flat?
There’s no way they can really win on this one.
They could either have left things the way they were, altered the fences or changed the conditions (smaller fields & earlier in the year)
If they’d done the latter, the outcry from the racing public would be little different. Of course, they’d never reduce the field because the bookies would never allow it. And they can’t run it earlier in the year lest the meeting comes up too quickly after Cheltenham.
If it had been me, I would’ve told everyone I was altering the fences & then not have done. If people find it so abhorrent, they won’t be watching will they?!
Seriously though, of course it cheapens the race doing this but it’s not exactly a race for the Grade One horses anyway.
I agree with whoever it was said there should be more trials. Certainly, all horses should be required to have completed at least one circuit of the fences if you ask me.
The irony of my Southwell example is that the course is flat as a pancake with boring brush fences. If you get fatalities on a course like that, is that not to suggest that fatalities will happen whatever they do?
The irony of my Southwell example is that the course is flat as a pancake with boring brush fences. If you get fatalities on a course like that, is that not to suggest that fatalities will happen whatever they do?
Good point.
Of course, the extra factor at Southwell is that the horses that run there are in the main, not very good.
For me, I’ll accept the changes for next year & save my despair for when the RSPCA demand more changes until it becomes a Gold Cup for handicappers. I suspect they might.
It’s the price being paid for Aintree’s failure to co-ordinate coverage with the BBC (aerial shots of a tarp-covered corpse and a voyeuristic peek at another behind screens) and to pre-warn audience, on-course and at home, of jockeys dismounting as though everything in the field was about to collapse with exhaustion as poorly co-ordinated volunteers threw water around as though on an episode of It’s A Knockout.
For me, I’ll accept the changes for next year & save my despair for when the RSPCA demand more changes until it becomes a Gold Cup for handicappers. I suspect they might.
I fairness I don’t think the RSPCA were particularly calling for the changes to be made – they just happened to be a party to the review, as they often are in cases like this.
For better or worse the National is not the race it was in the past, in terms of the fences it has changed beyond all recognition in the time I have been watching it to the extent that for me it has moved from being a special race to a novelty contest.
As has been previously stated the biggest problem is speed and that needs to be addressed by a) ensuring the ground is on the soft side of good, b)reducing the distance to the first fence either by physically moving it, which may not be practical or by shortening the race distance and starting just after the Melling Road and c) reduce the field size to alleviate the jostling for position giving horses and riders better sight of the fences.
I would also introduce additional qualification criteria in that both horses and riders can only take part in the race if they have actually "completed" a race over the National Fences.
Mixed emotions from me.
On the one hand my first introduction to racing came through the Grand National and I’m pretty sure, certain in fact, that its appeal was largely because of the anything-can-happen-and-probably-will. Each fence was a hold your breath and hope your horse still standing after it.
It was a unique event in so many ways, nothing like it in racing in the entire world.
BUT I do think some of the fences were unfair and I do think asking horses to jump a fence with the pronounced ‘drop’ that Bechers has/had is/was not really fair on the horse.
I do think sanitising the race will inevitably result in a large dose of its appeal disappearing, a Gold Cup for handicappers sounds about right (it’s almost that as is). But I do think we owe it to the horses to make it a fair test. A test still, yes, but a fair one.
And, do they really go that fast to the first? Has anyone measured that? I’d be interested to see some figures.
This year’s race was unusual because it was run in almost summer-like heat which undoubtedly took its toll in terms of dehydration.
I thought John Francome’s comment about more jockeys pulling up rather than trying to complete was interesting.
I think the race should be run in late February – the course can be covered with frost sheets apparently. Perhaps a recognition of a changing climate, I don’t know but it would stand out more as a midwinter highlight than part of a crowded early/mid spring programme.
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When will the fair-minded and sensitive souls who embrace this chip-chip-chipping-away at the deep-seated appeal of the sport realise the truth of the matter?
The well-meaning appeasers genuinely believe, that if they’ll only bend just a little further backwards to welcome this or that initiative, then all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well (as Juliana of Norwich put it some while ago).
Once again posters are tumbling over themselves to demonstrate once again how very
reasonable
we are – how
civilised
– and how supremely
extra-sensitive
to the horse and his welfare
"which always comes first"
.
Well people, I’m afraid I must offer you a hard truth:
There is only one logical outcome to this creeping appeasement – the death of National Hunt Racing. Do you think the Aiders will ever be satisfied with less?And if you really mean what you say about horse welfare, then please sign up and join Animal Aid in calling for a ban on the race, and on the sport, right now. Because the
"welfare of the horse"
does not come first in the Grand National.
It never can, and never will.
Unless you take all the fences away, run the race over five furlongs or so, and don’t allow the horses to get out of a canter on pain of disqualification.
I’m sorry to be brutal, but it exhausts and angers me to see how such admirably humane reasonableness is turned against you, transmuted into guilt by the Animal Aid Brigade, to advance yet another bridgehead. Can’t you see it? And what are you going to do about it? It seems that you’ve decided you can’t beat them. In which case, I can only suggest you join them.
All this on a day when the Waldorf Hotel has announced it will be serving champagne with traditional afternoon tea. Equally unspeakable.
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