I don’t often write opinion pieces, but after Rachael Blackmore made history on Minella Times at Aintree today, I feel inspired to share my thoughts on a Randox Grand National that has restored my love for the race, after many years of what to me seemed like a slowly fading affair.
My main gripe over the last ten years has been the sanitisation of the course. The Grand National is renowned as the greatest test of jumping and stamina the sport has to offer. Years of endless appeasement of anti-racing activists has undoubtedly led to some over the top reactions by the BHA and Aintree management. However, after being vehemently opposed to change – possibly because I grew up in the 70s and 80s – I have come to realise that things had to move with the times. The microscopic scrutiny by social media meant that the sport could no longer bury its head in the sand and ignore public opinion. The heartbreaking spectres of Alverton and Dark Ivy could no longer be allowed to threaten the race.
The course is probably now as safe as it can possibly be, but the fences still have to be jumped – almost a quarter of the field today either fell or unseated their riders. The holding pens reduce the danger of loose horses, and the introduction of fence bypasses is simple common sense. However, not all the changes I have noticed are purely cosmetic. The quality of horses entered is at an all time high. The cavalry charge to the first fence doesn’t seem as manic since the start was moved further from the stands, although I’m still at a loss as to how two furlongs have officially been taken off the race distance. Jockeys are less obsessed with the holy grail of completing the course at all costs. It is wonderful to see so many horses pulled up when they clearly have no chance. The days of thrashing an exhausted beast just to gain personal kudos are thankfully long gone.
Rachael Blackmore will rightly be news worldwide for being the first woman to ride the National winner, and that can only be good for the future of our greatest sporting spectacle. All we need now is for the British trainers to step up and avoid a repeat of the humiliation today that saw only three of the fifteen finishers being trained on our own shores.
Perhaps that could take as long as it has for me to rekindle my romance with the greatest race on earth.