it didn’t get in until half past three”
…making it’s post Grand National annual appearance again.
Though I didn’t actually back a 10/1 shot and yet again I didn’t back the winner, though the two I did eventually lumped my hard earned cash on did actually finish. 28/1 Planet of Sound coming 12th and 100/1 Midnight Haze coming in last of the 15 that main it all the way round the Aintree course twice.
Ah yes the big debate, forget the race the closest we’ve ever seen, won by a horse, Neptune Collonges, that lead for only that last couple of inches it got it’s nose in front of Sunnyhillboy. Forget a woman jockey looked like she was gonna win it, eventually placing higher than any other previous female rider at 3rd.
Two horse were so badly injured they had to be put down and the general furore that follows the race, seemingly ever year.
Only problem for some of the professional whingers that always come out of the woodwork is that the things they are shouting for don’t match up to what happened. Synchronised was running the course on it’s own, no jockey as AP McCoy had been jettisoned on the previous circuit, it could have fallen and hurt itself when it was frolicking around in it’s own back yard.
The other complaint is at 40 entrants there’s too many runners but both Synchronised and According To Pete went down when the field had been whittled down by 50%. The owner of According To Peter, who won’t enter another horse in the National, says the fences should be raised to slow the horses down, while campaigners call for the opposite. Though if you did that and raised the drop it wouldn’t be the National it would be just another horse race. They call for watering of the ground and yet when the horse trudge around in heavy going they whinge about that.
Some reality has to be brought in. Things were changed after last years race, two deaths in the follow year is not an indicator of how those changes went. Accidents happen, you could slip and fall down your own stairs right now and break all-sorts, should we ban stairs?
The thing is they just want to ban racing altogether. But then what happens to the horses? Are people going to keep a large number of thoroughbreds in the luxury they are now accustomed to or would we see a lot of horse binned off to places that would struggle to pay for their keep – it ain’t cheap keeping a horse properly – or would many of them be destroyed?
I noticed the BBC made big things about it and the calls to downgrade or ban the race after the event. Would this be something to do with the fact that after 52 years of making it must see viewing for a large part of the country they lost the rights to Channel 4?