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I have been a strong believer that it is the build of the National fences that causes bad falls and injury. I have been to Aintree at non National meetings and seen the fences before they are ‘greened up’. Their construction is vertical timber like a log wall. NH horses are used to park fences which are brush and therefore if leaving a leg or bellying through it, the brush will give. The log wall under the green in the National catches them out, I think this gives the type of fall more usually seen in Three Day Eventing. It tends to catch the horses out and either they adapt or come down. This year a horse was seen cantering riderless with a huge wound to its belly, probably caused by scaping the wood wall. If the National is to be made more horse friendly then the wall should at least be sloping under the green and not upright. This I feel is the reason that there are so many fatal falls in the National.
If anything the fact you can brush through the top of Park Fences and as such horses aren’t encouraged to jump over them as such means they aren’t properly prepared for the National fences.
It’s all about the trainer and how he schools his horses – you won’t seldom see a Howard Johnson horse jump badly/run badly over the big fences, presumably because he schools his horses properly for them. Other trainers on the other hand just seem to run anything and everything in the race.
The underneath of the National Fences 90% of the year is about 3ft high at most – the vertical log timber you refer to.
To much said about the National fences for me. They have been modified and IMHO should be left alone, its the loose horses that cause more havoc than the fences
there is a school of thought that says the fences now are too easy to brush through – if that were not the case it might slow the horses down a bit as they would need to show the fences more respect.
If anything the fact you can brush through the top of Park Fences and as such horses aren’t encouraged to jump over them as such means they aren’t properly prepared for the National fences.
It’s all about the trainer and how he schools his horses – you won’t seldom see a Howard Johnson horse jump badly/run badly over the big fences, presumably because he schools his horses properly for them. Other trainers on the other hand just seem to run anything and everything in the race.
The underneath of the National Fences 90% of the year is about 3ft high at most – the vertical log timber you refer to.
The wood wall seemed slightly larger than 3 feet when I inspected it but this is not the point. The fact remains that it is absolutely unforgiving and can cause a serious injury just through hitting it. The type of fall it causes is more likely to result in a horse rotating onto its neck, hence the fatalities. I agree with you that horses need properly preparing for this race. I do not agree with changing the fences in anyway, but the log wall should not be the foundation of these fences.
Surely there must be a method of constructing a fence such that it is both stable and at the same time not rigid, resulting in a fence which can accomodate a horse jumping straight into it. Park fences or national fences or timber, there must be a way of building something that wont injure if the worst happens. As for landing, most deaths in the national seem to have occured at Beechers, because of the drop, so level take off and landing should be preferred. I don’t think Aintree has been dumbed down that much, the quality of horse is higher than before, hence increased numbers of finishers, and "Pulled up" is far more common than it was 50 years ago, so jockeys are being responsible. Looking back to the post war years, the course was too harsh, but brooks have been filled in etc, and the fences themselves are what makes the race what it is.
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