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The protestors who claim to care about animals should focus on real cruelty.
Have any of them said anything about halal slaughter, for example? I must have missed it if they have.
Don’t see them breaking up dog fight rings or protesting about fly grazing either. High profile and risk-free rather than actual cruelty seems to be the priority.
Trouble is the protesters don’t see the good side of racing and in time neither will the public. Racing is (according to them) full of the elite and addicted… And – whichever person of the two it is – full of people that don’t care if horses die for their sport.
Value Is EverythingWhat more can be done to the Grand National? Reducing the field size is the quickest/easiest box tick. I don’t believe it is necessary, but the sport needs a “quick win” to show it is adapting in the face of scrutiny and this will likely be the knee-jerk change they make.
I personally would bring the start back as the shorter run to the first gives them less time to sort themselves out/fan out.
To that end I would also make the race a mandatory standing start. Force riders to line up using the full width of the course. I hate seeing the relatively new routine of gathering up at the finish line and jig jogging around the bend. The inside gets so congested that way and the evidence suggests this is causing serious problems (Up For Review, Eclair Surf and Hill Sixteen were all down the inside). I personally think the inconvenience caused by standing starts is blown out of proportion; another relatively recent mindset.
The late start time can’t be doing much favours either.
tbh I’ve been calling for the field size to be reduced for a decade or more, Peter.
Yes, the course and jumps may be visually quite wide, but no jockey uses the outside of Canal Turn. All 40 runners can jump a fence that is effectively just three horse widths wide. That’s asking for trouble!
If devising the Grand National as a new race right now, then 40 runners simply would not be allowed.Value Is EverythingPeter, I’m not sure what can be done about it, but the issue of loose horses is something else that definitely needs looking at further. They caused havoc today, and at least four of the fatalities in the National since the turn of the millennium have related to horses running loose.
The number of fatalities early on in the race also needs further assessment. I really don’t want to suggest reducing the field size as part of the “magic” of the race for me has always been the large field, but I’m struggling to make a strong case against it any longer. As I’ve said elsewhere, I really didn’t enjoy watching today’s race, and this was mainly due to the carnage on the first circuit.
The first circuit is the real problem, isn’t it? I am not totally convinced reducing the numbers from 40 to 30 will make much difference (is the Topham safer?) but I would not oppose it either.
The first fence has always been a problem. I am not always a fan of standing starts but I can see why it might be helpful in these circumstances.
I am not sure what can be done about loose horses. Outriders would not have been able to do anything about them today.
I am not particularly enthusiastic about the late start time but that is the world we live in nowadays. Football is king and I can understand why racing wants to avoid a clash.
I am not sure what the statistics tell us but my perception is the race was safer and less nerve wracking to watch when it still had the big upright fences and most of the horses were plodders. Now the race is run at a furious gallop from end to end with horses able to take the fences at speed. Changes introduced in response to protests and complaints! But we cannot turn back the clock.
The ITV coverage was spoilt with what seemed like an inter team competition to see who could repeat lines relating to how well racehorses are treated at home the most number of times. Mick Fitz probably sealed 1st prize when he came out with, ” And even when they fall over they are back on their feet, happy and galloping away, loving the day out.”
I’m sure if Julian was still around he’d come clean, explain every day in life is full of risks, point out that jockeys suffer fatal injuries with others who survive bad falls ending up in wheel chairs – but then highlighting the great good that racing does for related charities such as spinal injury care and research, and not to mention his colleague Peter O’Sullivan’s contribution to raising large amounts for horse welfare ect
But this ITV lot really need to cut out the John Craven’s Newsround mentality as they are making themselves objects of ridicule whether they realise it or not. Even the greenest of viewers would have been able to see through them.
A fairly sober reaction to the race among many racing fans and people close to the sport on Twitter.
It’s an obvious statement but the fatality was the very worst of possible outcomes for racing and for the National itself.
On the back of the high profile airtime given to protesters they’ll now simply be saying ‘we told you so’ while racing now faces a tougher than ever task of justifying the race.
It must be odds-on they’ll reduce field size in an attempt to do something. And it’s hard to make a case for not doing anything, I’d say there will be plenty even within the racing bubble having personal doubts about the race.
And another odds-on shot is that protests will be bigger and better organised next time around.“The protestors who claim to care about animals should focus on real cruelty.”
Too bloody right, CAS.
Roughly seven billion male chicks, deemed surplus to requirements by the egg industry, are slaughtered every year; do we hear about that on the news?
https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/farm-animal-welfare/egg-laying-hens/what-is-chick-maceration/
When my younger colleagues and other acquaintances ask me how I can love such a “cruel” sport, I ask them one question: if racing didn’t exist, where would these horses be?
Racing has yielded so much on this issue that the powers that be are now backed up against the wall with barely any other concessions to offer – field reduction would be the final one.
This has long been coming. While images of a tearful Jonjo knelt down over Alverton was one of the most disturbing back page Sunday newspaper images I’ve seen (and it was plastered across the lot of them) I did not feel the race was under any threat at the time – for me that moment arrived in the mid 80’s when casually reading a Monty Court Saturday P3 column in the Life, during his spell as editor.
Court introduced the reader to a senior RSPC official who he claimed was a ‘racing fan’ and suggested that it would be best for the sport if the organisation were allowed more influence on the sports progress. Fact is these characters, if not wanting all racing banned, clearly would like to see NH racing ended and are happy to allow their aims to take effect step by step, steadily chipping away. This was the first time I can remember an influential person within the sport being supportive of working together with an overall anti racing organisation.
Very few, if any people in racing were calling for a reduction in field size prior to yesterday’s race, in fact the main concern appeared to be that less than 40 runners would be declared to run. Why the change and knee-jerk by some on this issue just based on yesterdays events?
In fact Sandy Thomson, the trainer of Hill Sixteen believes all the nonsense and delay could have been a major contributory factor in the horse’s demise. No reason to believe that this may not be the case.
Reducing the field size will have zero effect on the the totally misguided animal activists.
Aintree will have to have more security around the entire course, possibly made up from volunteers within the sport. Although of course this wont safeguard other events.Unfortunately, the Grand National is just too easy a target for the screeching activist. Whether you agreed with fox hunting or not, it was a lot less taxing for protesters to jeer at a red-jacketed toff, than to travel to Africa and confront a heavily-armed elephant poacher.
Nor do we hear about bull calves on dairy farms getting a bolt in the head a few days after they are born. I appreciate a male calf is no use to a dairy farmer being squeezed by the supermarkets into tighter and tighter margins and I am not sure what can be done about it. But the fact remains that a perfectly fit and healthy young animal is killed.
I get the impression that a lot of the protestors go after racing because they believe it is for “posh people”. I saw a few comments on social media about toffs using horses to make money. Trying to tell these dimwits that racing is popular with all classes and lots of the crowd at Aintree are from working class backgrounds is a waste of time.
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