Grand National ?
The Grand National Steeplechase, another of our so called great institutions takes place tomorrow. I was wondering how many of us will watch the 'spectacle' of forty magnificent animals being put to the regulation whip, each carrying up to nearly twelve stones of mankind, unfold.
The Grand National course has over time come in for a lot of criticism. It has always been deliberately dangerous, despite the changes made over the years, it remains so.
You cannot have so many large fences, most of them hard and unyielding, laid out over such a long distance with up to forty horses competing and not expect the fatalities that happen most years.
It seems to me that it is not so much the take off area of a fence but the landing side that causes grief to these poor creatures.
Take Becher's Brook for example, it looks like so many of the others from the approach but the landing side is far lower so the horse must land or try to compensate for the resulting far steeper angle of descent and perhaps worse than that, there is also a ditch to contend with.
The huge fences are bad enough when met head on but look at the change of angle at the Canal turn, however fit the horse is the ninety degree switch is a totally unnatural movement. On top of that the final run-in is over a quarter of a mile long and up to recently the tired out contenders were unmercifully flogged to the finish.
Anyone who saw last years winner in so much distress and still thinks that is the acceptable face of the sport should hang their heads in shame.
The BBC presenters and commentators should at least be made to carry the equivalent jockey weight on their backs and be flogged round the course for their collective apathy to the plight of these creatures.