- This topic has 93 replies, 33 voices, and was last updated 1 year ago by
.
- Posts
“I think 11yo should be the max age from here on.”
So what happens if a 9yo collapsed and dies?
A precedent will have been set.
I was just thinking that I can see it becoming just a virtual race as it’s impossible to make it completely safe and often safety features just open up other problems.
Irish National winner Hear The Echo sadly collapsed and died near the end of the Grand National aged 8. Do we need a minimum age of 9?
There are few 13 year olds who have run in the race in recent years. They can’t have a great record if hardly any of them run in the race. Vics Canvas was third a few years ago as well as Bless The Wings and another ran well to be 7th. Celebre D’Allen ran a good race last Saturday, was his age a major factor in his demise?
The authorities have never been averse to knee jerk reactions and I don’t suppose this will be any different. They will never draw a line in the sand, that should have been done some years ago.A horse died in a field near me last week.
I take the point about 13 year olds having run well before and the need to draw a line in the sand somewhere. I am just not sure 13 year olds in the race is good for the image of racing. Especially a 13 year old stepping up in distance, not fancied by its trainer and going off at 125/1.
It looked to me like a “social runner”. Owners need to ask themselves if they are a good idea in the Grand National.
Also, the National is a very different race now. The first three home are all borderline Gold Cup horses. Do 13 year olds really have a chance against them?
Due to the change in the class of the race, a 125/1 outsider nowadays will always be a far better horse than the outsiders of decades past. Celebre D’Allen was a classy handicapper with good course form. He totally merited his place.
If we keep introducing more and more rules to exclude horses, then we will end up with a tiny field and the race is as good as finished. I know some people think it already is.
Horses will die,same as people will die.Horses die in fields,in their boxes,bring trotted on roads.They will die.
Nothing can be done to make the race completely safe.
All the BHA can do is point out the changes ,improvements in equine welfare & also the large number of National winners still alive at a ripe old age.
I doubt the animal rights pressure groups could mount a legal challenge & if they did there are enough wealthy people in racimg who would ruin them.
Politicians have more pressing matters to deal with.The majority of the public still support racing,they must do judging by the crowds at Aintree & the turnover on the race.Its a loud minority who don’t.
Any party who supported banning racing would instantly hand the next election to Reform.The jockey should’ve pulled him up earlier as he got a 10 day suspension for carrying on.
Imo the age thing should be left alone, as others have mentioned something like his sadly can happen with any horse. Abuffalosoldier died after crossing the line in a staying chase earlier in the season and he was 7.
The fact that poor Celebre d’Allen has died illustrates the corner that racing in general, and Aintree in particular, has painted itself into over the last few years in its attempts to appease the unappeasable.
Where is left to go when you have shortened the distance, softened the fences and tightened the qualifications… and a horse still dies?
What do you say next after bombarding us with the “Society has changed…”, “It’s a different race these days…” propaganda throughout this year’s meeting?
Horses die over park fences, they die over hurdles, they die on the flat, they die on the gallops, they die in their stables. It’s an unpalatable fact of the sport we love.
Yes, the Jockey Club has an easy out in this case, to impose an upper limit on the age of horses taking part. There hasn’t been a 13-year-old winner of the Grand National in 102 years.
But I’m with Marlingford on this. A line has to be drawn. For me, it’s a line that says: “We have made this race as safe as we can.”
Because if Aintree compromises again, sooner rather than later the race will cease to exist and the frothing antis will then turn their attention to getting chasing, hurdling, and ultimately all racing banned.
There is an element of today’s awful headlines wrapping up tomorrow’s fish and chips (when such things happened) and then being forgotten about. The social media crowd will find something else on which to vent their collective spleens tomorrow.
Tickets for Aintree 2026 went on sale yesterday. I will be booking mine later. I expect the crowds this time next year will still be about the same size.
However, we cannot afford to be complacent. The anti-racing and anti-gambling voices are getting louder and more numerous. They are not going to go away.
I don’t especially like him but Neil Channing made a point on “Luck On Sunday” about whether or not it is sensible for racing to have so much riding on one unrepresentative race every year, given how much it is scrutinised. I do sometimes wonder if indeed it has become more trouble than it is worth. Because hardly anyone would have noticed if Celebre D’Allen had collapsed at Carlisle today and it certainly wouldn’t have been headline news.
Of course, the counter argument is the anti-racing crowd would not stop even if the Grand National disappeared.
The hole in the dyke remains and is likely to do so whatever is done. They’ll probably start with knocking a couple of inches of Valentines.
Place money down to tenth these days may be muddying the waters for some of the jockeys. Are we going to get horses who are emptying pulled up on the run in ?
The vulgar prize money should be halved anyway but that won’t happen.
If you ban 13 year olds from the race (didn’t two finish 1st & 2nd in the Welsh National a few years ago) then what happens should a 12 year old collapse on a steamy hot April day next year?
Nothing like backing yourself into a corner which is pretty much what the BHA and Aintree executive have been doing for the last decade.
I hope you have a fantastic day there CAS.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail website is now back to more familiar territory leading with Prince Harry
The “Daily Mail” has lost interest. The latest whine from Prince Harry is the headline now.
The Grand National story is well down the site now and the “RACED TO DEATH” headline has gone.
1,700 comments but I haven’t read any of them and don’t intend to.
On the subject of age, I get the arguments in favour of 13 year olds participating. But given how few run and realistically they are not going to win, introducing an upper age limit at 12 seems like an easy win to me.
13 year olds can run at Ayr or Uttoxeter instead, where there is far less scrutiny.
But I think we have to recognise this case is made worse by the horse’s advanced age. 13 year old horses being raced to the point of exhaustion and collapse is not a good look for the sport.
One of the counter arguments against the animal rights extremists is racehorses are cared for to an exemplary degree. We all know that is true here. However, in the court of public opinion and social media where feelings and emotion rule the day, it is very difficult to argue that point when a 13 year old horse has been raced to the point it collapsed.
It is also not easy to defend the idea that owners and trainers love their horses when a multimillionaire owner runs a popular Grade 1 winning horse on ground that was obviously not suitable.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.