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The two and half mile theory possibly started when Gay Trip won in 1970. Don’t know exactly if that’s true, but its what I read in a booklet I bought back in 1992 on how to find the national winner. A book which identified Earth Summit, Red Marauder, Bindaree to name a few.
This booklet doesn’t subscribe to the two and half mile theory too. It says you should look for those who stay 3 miles or longer.
However I’m just saying that even amongst trainers its a popular mode of thought.
Yeah Rummy, there’s no doubt Gay Trip was a significant factor in this, coupled with Crips effort a few years later. You’re right about the trainers too, they trot it out religiously every year.
I’m going to miss it…………it was almost a tradition.
Dear departed Slim Pickings was a 2 1/2 miler that came close to winning [Eddie the Shoe’s pick one year] but it was pointed out to me that a lot of Irish races are over that distance [possibly to do with the heavy ground?]. Never understood the theory myself. Agree that it means there will be less horses to eliminate from the 40 runners.
- Total Posts 17716
The theory did have some credence, way back when the fences were much bigger and the majority of the field hunted round for at least a circuit.
Wouldn’t happen now, as the fields are overall much better class, and the fences jumped more quickly.What has been said on this board many times by many different people is that it is speed that kills. So what are the BHA doing about that? Making them go even faster by making fences smaller again, they will probably pack the gorse looser as well. In the old days ’60s & ’70s you never saw all the fence materials lying about like in today’s races there.
Of course no amount of regulations & conditions will prevent a fatality, as someone rightly said the new conditions would not have excluded the two horses that died in this years race.
I can see a scenario of so many fences excluded on the second circuit due to jockey & equine injuries to make it a farce & none racing viewers being subjected to tarps & screens & that’s the end of the race. Seems to me that the organisers have a Grand National death wish.
Ironically removing its coverage from terrestrial might save it, but of course it generates so much revenue that is not going to happens unless there is so much carnage in April that the BBC do a Crufts, but if that happens it will probably have be stopped for good any way.What has been said on this board many times by many different people is that it is speed that kills. So what are the BHA doing about that? Making them go even faster by making fences smaller again, they will probably pack the gorse looser as well. In the old days ’60s & ’70s you never saw all the fence materials lying about like in today’s races there.
Of course no amount of regulations & conditions will prevent a fatality, as someone rightly said the new conditions would not have excluded the two horses that died in this years race.
I can see a scenario of so many fences excluded on the second circuit due to jockey & equine injuries to make it a farce & none racing viewers being subjected to tarps & screens & that’s the end of the race. Seems to me that the organisers have a Grand National death wish.
Ironically removing its coverage from terrestrial might save it, but of course it generates so much revenue that is not going to happens unless there is so much carnage in April that the BBC do a Crufts, but if that happens it will probably have be stopped for good any way.No, you won’t see it.
Because they banning aerial shots from the beeb. Although it may still happen. They also going to fit individual monitoring devices to each horse’s number cloth to see individual split timing results to see what can be done about speed. Don’t know what they have planned after though.I was curious about what they referred to as "customised equipment".
Can anyone shed any light on this?So much has been talked about over the years regarding changes to the course . I wrote earlier about the type of horse in the race now . Is it because of this change that the course is having to be changed to accomodate them ? Just asking. I know what I think.
I have just come across a quote from Michael Scudamore who rode in the race 16 consecutive years so I think his opinions are worth a listen :
" Old Stagers, and Michael Scudamore will be 77 in July, all too often relapse into ‘when men were men and fences were fences’ curmudgeonliness. But Michael neither decries the present nor derides the past. "It was very different then," he says with quiet understatement. "The fences were much more upright and the horses were a very different type, much less of the Flat racer we get nowadays. "Cause or effect ? Does it matter ? There won’t be a reversion to the old type of National horse so the changes probably are necessary .
I blame other courses being easier to jump. Take Haydock for example. It because of this a lot of horses get caught out when coming across fences like Aintree. This is evident when they jump the first with over 20% going between 1990 to 2011 at this fence alone and just over half in the same period by Bechers.
Looking at the history of the national nine year olds are the best age winning 37 races in the past 100 runnings missing out the war years and the void race. Reason for this is because breeder and trainers had a bumper developed into novice hurdling, handicap hurdles, novice chase, handicap chase. Then and only then ready for the national.
Change has been in the history of the national. When lottery won in 1839 it was a level weight contest and for the first five years they jumped a wall where the water jump stands now.
1923 was ran in February, don’t know if the race was regularly ran in February back then.
2011 saw the first horses killed between fences 1 and 6 for 13 years so clearly there is a set pattern!
I assume should horses be killed at fences 8 to 15 this year we can expect major changes there too?
Not sure exchanging 2.5 milers who can at least go the pace for a circuit before dropping back for slowcoaches who cannot cope with the pace of the race is going to aid safety especially…
Hi Kilfill, the pace of the race is dictated by the horses that are in it, if there are no 2.5 milers in the race, then it is the "slowcoaches" who will be setting the pace.
To my mind they should exclude all horses that haven’t won a race over at least 3 miles. As has rightly been said, "Speed Kills" people have complained that this might rule out horses such as Gay Trip in future but again it has been correctly pointed out that if this restriction were in place owners and trainers who think there horse has a live National chance would ensure they got qualified for it.
Just a look at the horses who hadn’t won over 3 miles in this years race helps illustrate my point. The following horses hadn’t won over 3m+ by my reckoning
In Compliance
Santa’s Son
Tidal Bay
Becauseicouldntsee
Piraya
Royal Rosa
Or Noir De Somoza
QuolibetSanta’s Son tanked the field along for most of the first circuit setting a very fast pace before tiring and pulling up. After the race Jamie Moore’s recorded comment was "He’s a 2 miler." Basically he had no chance.
Of the rest, In Compliance did the best by being beaten a mere 98 lengths, the only other finishers from the list were Royal Rosa and Piraya the latter recorded as being 230 lengths behind the leader.
In my view we would be better served by admitting lower rated horses who had at least the chance of getting 4 miles (outside of a horse box,) than higher rated horses who have no chance and who potentially cause the race to be run at a speed which could cause more fatalities.On evidence of the last couple of years there is an argument to say that the only reason Royal Rosa hasn’t won a chase over three miles is that they don’t run chases of 5 miles plus! He’s looked to me to need farther as he’s got older and he did win over three miles as a hurdler early in his career.
All this illustrates the problem of trying to apply strict rules to ‘control’ the type of horse entering the race. There are always going to be odd horses that are suited by the race yet don’t qualify under strict rules. By the same token you could let a horse in that won a woeful three mile race, yet it might be totally unsuited to the National.
In my opinion, and you have accept that tongue is gravitating towards cheek a little here, if you want to reduce casualties you can do two things. Firstly reduce the number of runners significantly and secondly put in more turns to slow the runners down. Cheltenham’s Cross Country Course anyone?
This report is playing at the edges as far as controlling the race is concerned. It’s an attempt at appeasement of the Animal Welfare lobby and, in my opinion, not a particularly good one from any point of view. The timing of its release hints desperately at trying to deflect attention from the dog’s breakfast handling of the whip rule changes.
Rob
A sad day in any sport when tradition is lost through change. Unfortunately it’s the world we live in where deaths and risk force these kind of changes.
Any sports with death of humans are immediately changed with new regulations coming in….like the recent IndyCar crash with Dan Wheldon, I’m sure changes will be coming there.
Sad times, but it was only a matter of time.- Total Posts 17716
A sad day in any sport when tradition is lost through change. Unfortunately it’s the world we live in where deaths and risk force these kind of changes.
Any sports with death of humans are immediately changed with new regulations coming in….like the recent IndyCar crash with Dan Wheldon, I’m sure changes will be coming there.
Sad times, but it was only a matter of time.Stiller, your example of
Dan Wheldon
is not such a good one. He hadn’t been regularly driving in the Indy Series this year, and that last race of the season was a much-criticised attempt to add razzmatazz and spice, by adding drivers such as Wheldon to the grid and offering huge money to them if they managed to win.
Before the race, many drivers criticised the fact that so many more cars than usual would be hurtling round what’s one of the smaller ovals on the circuit. Sadly, this accident involving many cars did not wait to happen. That one-off race concept will almost certainly be dropped, but you’re not going to see wholesale changes to the rest of the Sport, which nowadays (like F1) has a good safety record.
On your broader lament,
"the World We Live In"
is one in which death and injury are officially abolished as natural events. If a human or animal is injured or worse in a sport, a traffic accident, a work incident, or anything else, the first cry to go up is
"who’s to blame?"
. Much of our energy (and cash) in the Western World is now spent on checks, balances, safety measures and insurance policies, public enquiries, and media witchhunts to find scapegoats.
The result is a world in which school trips are much reduced because teachers are (rightfully) scared of getting sued should "anything happen" to their charges, where there is moral outrage because the NHS can’t afford to pay for expensive drugs which prolong people’s lives by just a few weeks at best; where paper-bound social workers are too frightened to take any initiatives; and in which sports are progressively sanitised until they lose much of their appeal, which is all about speed, artistry – and that ever-present threat of danger which we all hope never spoils the spectacle, but occasionally of course must.
The only people who can change this rather fairy-tale, Disney-fied
"world we live in"
are the people who live in it – that means us. You and me. That’s why we mustn’t allow this fantasy of Immortal Life to completely take us over. If we do, we really are a doomed society: because rest assured that the more vital, thrusting and morally confident parts of the globe such as China, India and South America, will have nothing to do with what they see as so many signs of degeneracy in a culture long past its sell-by date.
Raising the age to seven. First only 1 six year and 1 5 year old have won in the past century, the last seven year old was in world war two (1940) so I’d don’t think this will make much difference.
six year olds don’t generally run often because of the typical training cycle of a British thoroughbred but why should a French bred horse be expelled that could have a vast amount more experience jumping fences at six than a seven year old British horse? It doesn’t make sense and is ill thought out.
I use Mon Parrain as an example because he is now excluded from the race and would be the first six year old in a while who genuinely could have stood a chance of winning it had they wanted to go that route. They they may have been considering it as he has already been over the national fences as a five year old and finished second but now can’t as a six year old one year on.
Though I agree in the long term it probably won’t make much difference.
This what Paul Nicholls reported to the Weekender about
Mon Parrain
Straight From The Stable article Volume 28 Issue Number 14 (Wednesday 5.10.11 to Sunday 9.10.11)
MON PARRAIN
"A cracking handicap chaser who won three times over hurdles and twice in chases in France before losing his way a bit. On his debut for us he destroyed handicap opposition off a mark of 133 and we felt he was well worth aiming at the Topham Chase in April. He jumped like an old hand and really enjoyed the National fences, but he didn’t find as much as we hoped and finished second. I am at a loss to know his optimum trip but we will go for the Paddy Power Gold Cup and then take a view. I wouldn’t know whether or not he is on a winning mark."It will be interesting to see how he goes in the Paddypower, I think 2 1/2 will prove too short, I feel he was outpaced after the last in the Topham and just kept on in the same gear he’d gone through the race in. I was hoping he’d run in the Bowl at the Aintree meeting last year to be honest as I think he is that good.
We’ll see soon enough I suppose but I tend not to listen to trainers to often other wise Twiston Davies would have 15+ grade 1 winners a year!
(having trouble with the quotes
)Mon Parrain’s rider Ruby Walsh said: "He lacked the tactical early pace. Timmy was doing a half-pace and I was flat to the boards. That’s the difference."
Nicholls has now said he will aim him at a National. Because of this new rule we’ll have to wait till 2013 to see that happen. Great.
Because they banning aerial shots from the beeb. Although it may still happen. They also going to fit individual monitoring devices to each horse’s number cloth to see individual split timing results to see what can be done about speed. Don’t know what they have planned after though.
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