The Grand National

Yesterday we saw the end of the Aintree meeting and once again the National has come under sharp focus following the death of Gold Cup winner Synchronized and According to Pete. With numerous arm chair punters and animal rights activists calling for the race to be abolished, I feel that the voice of a real horse racing enthusiast need to be heard.

Personally, I believe that to even suggest the abolition of the Grand National  is a ridiculous. The race is a corner stone in the sporting  history of this Country and brings the whole nation together for 10 incredibly exciting minutes. It is the pinnacle of any horse, trainer or owners career and winning the illustrious race will cement the horse's and jockey's name in history for years to come. However, in the last few years the race hasn't been about the winner, or the jockey but about the deaths of those unfortunate few who fell victim to the gruelling nature of the course, and yesterday was no different. The death of Synchronized and According to Pete following falls at Beachers have once again marred the race irrespective of the fact that both horses fell through no fault of their own, this factor seems to have been forgotten completely by the press!

It is common knowledge that the stewards of the track made significant improvements to the course after last years National in order to improve the safety of the horses and personally I think they did an amazing job. The combination of courses alterations (reduction of the fence heights, the levelling of the ground etc) together with the new entry requirements clearly made a massive difference, and there also appeared to be a conscious effort by the jockeys to pull horses up as soon as it became apparent that they weren't going to feature in the race. All these things were extremely positive, but further improvements still need to be made in order to ensure that next year we can be sat down after the race talking of nothing more that what an amazing horse the winner is and what a ride the jockey gave him.

I'm sure the powers that be will put their heads together over the next 6 months and see what else can be done to increase safety. Personally I think a reduction of runners would be a good place to start as both fatalities yesterday were caused by interference and in my opinion its just not logical to have 40 horses jumping 1 fence. Whatever happens over the next few months I strongly believe that the National will be back next year and lets just hope we wont be all be discussing the same topic in 12 months time.

R.I.P Synchronized and According to Pete.