​The finish of the 2023/24 season was a suitably celebratory event. The trophies to the champions were awarded before as fine a meeting as we have enjoyed all season brought the curtain down on National Hunt -for a short-time – to allow the flat season the full glow of appreciation.
It would be good for the sport if there was to be an actual official start to the new jumps season, something akin to the Sandown finale we enjoyed yesterday. Chepstow and the 4-year-old Free Handicap used to signify the change from the languid and slow-moving summer jumping programme to the start of the season ‘proper’, though latterly Cheltenham’s Paddy Power Gold Cup meeting has come to be acknowledged as the starting pistol to the National Hunt season. Cheltenham is the most suitable racecourse for the start of the season and I would suggest the meeting could be re-vamped to encourage trainers to have their star horses out a little earlier than is normal. 
Cheltenham has an excellent irrigation system and good drainage and usually provides good jumping ground for its opening meeting, so why not mimic Sandown and stage a 2-mile conditions chase, a similar race for Gold Cup and Ryanair horses, as well as a conditions hurdle, either over 2-miles or half-a-mile longer? I would also suggest transferring, even though it no longer has the same profile as in days gone by, the 4-year-old Free handicap Hurdle from Chepstow. Start with a Catherine Wheel, not a sparkler.
And this brings me to the flat. Can you believe the flat began 5-weeks ago. Karl Burke recently suggested in the Racing Post that the turf flat season should not begin until after the Grand National and he makes a perfectly rational point. The flat begins with a whimper and ends in the same manner. Given the prominence of the Grand National, the Scottish and Irish Nationals and the meeting most people continue to refer to as the Whitbread meeting, outside observers can be forgiven if they think the flat is poised to take over the spotlight, when in fact it has limped along, meeting after meeting being abandoned due to the long monsoon season Britain has experienced this winter/spring, for over 5-weeks already.
I have moaned long and hard about the diminished nature of the Lincoln Handicap and have put forward my idea of how to make the race stand-out to the public again as was once the case back in the heyday of the ‘Spring Double’. Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, no one has taken my idea of a 40-runner Lincoln started from a barrier seriously, so I will not put it forward again here. But the Lincoln should be restored as a race any jockey would be honoured to have on his or her c.v.
If the premierising – can we simply call it ‘premier racing’ – of meetings is to be a success, which I doubt it will be, it is the races of distinction that need to be singled out for special treatment, not the undercard, where most of the races are, in comparison to the main event, ordinary affairs in the minds of the public. The Lincoln Handicap is, in racing terms, an historic race. If it were a building it would have listed status. If it were a habitat, it would be a site of prime scientific importance. And yet British racing has allowed it to become just another handicap, as good a place to start the turf flat season as any other handicap. 
I would suggest, as with the opening Cheltenham fixture, that the Lincoln meeting be revamped, with a Guineas trial, perhaps both 2,000 and 1,000, with other valuable handicaps and perhaps condition races to encourage trainers to have top sprinters and stayers out earlier than has become the norm. Give the flat a bang-opening, a fanfare to herald the beginning of another flat season and not the ‘oh my god, here we go again’ feel that is presently the start to the glorious flat.

​I would like to introduce you to a book published in 1968, and when reading this remember that in 1968 Lester Piggott won the Epsom Derby on Sir Ivor and Brian Flecther the Aintree Grand National on Red Alligator, it was that long ago, titled ‘The Spoilsports. What’s wrong with British racing’. The author was Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker, a former trainer who on not renewing his training licence turned his hand to journalism. The foreword of the book was penned by Paddy Prendergast, champion trainer both in his native Ireland and as the conquering hero in Britain during the middle-sixties.
56-years ago, Fitzgeorge-Parker’s opening sentence of the opening chapter echoes down the ages. ‘Britain is no longer a first-class racing nation.’
As Paddy Prendergast said in his foreword to the book. ‘I have known Tim for many years. He has unequalled experience of racing and breeding in all its various aspects. He is never afraid to express his opinions and while I would not go along with all of them, I do know that he has the welfare of racing at heart.’
I was 14 back in 1968 and had no idea the rot had already set in. I must have thought it the golden era, what with Lester ruling the roost on the flat and National Hunt still competitive in that time between Arkle and Red Rum. Yet to quote from Fitzgeorge-Parker’s opening paragraph. ‘Since 1947, British racing, once both the mine and crucible of the thoroughbred horse, sport of the rich, recreation of the rest, long recognised as such by successive governments, has been slipping towards disaster. Throughout the rest of the world the racing and breeding industries have never been more prosperous, particularly in France and the United States, with Japan, perhaps rather surprisingly, challenging for the lead; yet in Britain, racing is struggling for survival.’
In the second paragraph, Fitzgeorge-Parker quotes Geoff Watson, then the private trainer to the Rothschilds in Chantilly. ‘I’d rather have swamp fever than the kinds you have in England – dope fever and old tradition fever.’ At the time French racing was hidebound by an outbreak of swamp fever. He continued. ‘There are just two things wrong with British racing. Bookmakers and peers.’
In 1968, Fitzgeorge-Parker recognised that a lack of funding for the sport was driving it down to the also-rans of world horse-racing. We may have solved the ‘peer’ problem, with most of the aristocracy of this country no longer involved in the sport in any major way due to financial restraints, yet the bookmaker problem remains, and it was bookmakers that Fitzgeorge-Parker considered the greatest ill of the sport.
Of course, times have changed. The Tote no longer exists; Fitzgeorge-Parker’s lifeline for the sport. And the facts he quotes to support his stance are perhaps no longer quite as relevant today as they were in 1968. In 1965, he said, the Pari-Mutuel in France ‘yielded sixty-two million pounds to the state and forty-two million pounds to French racing.’ Yet in Britain, where betting turnover was three-times greater, only three-million was received from the betting levy.’
Of course, when it comes to prize-money, France now lags behind other countries in the world to the same extent as British racing, with Asia, the Middle-East, Australia and the U.S. making European prize-money look puny and increasingly commercially unviable to the major owning and breeding operations. Britain’s funding stream is different to all those countries just listed and though it does not yield the extra-millions needed for our sport to keep in touching distance with these other countries, we stick with it because, as journalists continue to argue, ‘that boat has sailed’, meaning the successful-all-over-the-world method of funding prize-money and infrastructure through betting, with the preference, seemingly, to retain the atmosphere of the betting jungle on course. 
In 1968, the Jockey Club ruled the sport. It was much maligned, considered a dinosaur refusing to evolve into the modern age. Yet is the sport any healthier under the governance of the British Horseracing Authority? Has anything really changed in 56-years?
I would encourage any reader of this out-of-the-way blog to seek out a copy of ‘The Spoilsports’ as, though it makes sombre reading, it will bring into stark relief how the sport has been allowed to stagnate for so many decades.

​If, and it is a big if, so big it needs to be italicized, were to accept that the latest batch of tinkering with the Grand National was necessary, I would also have to accept that since watching my first Grand National, which I believe was 1964, won by Team Spirit at his fifth attempt, I am guilty of supporting and championing a race, that to use the emotive words of the ignorant opposition, is cruel and barbaric, with jumps made purposely difficult, and that would weigh very heavy on my heart. I admit that I fall into the category of ‘animal lover’, preferring the company of animals to humans and I abhor violence and neglect of all animals, even snakes, which I dislike intensely. Though we are presently down to five-cats that live at our expense, we have housed up to nine-cats at one time in the near-past. Though, of course, the extreme ignorant opposition believe that keeping any animal as a pet should be banned.
To take to the illogical conclusion, though it will be seen as logical to the ignorant opposition, that the rationale of the latest tinkering to a once magical race has foundation, then, at the very least, every steeplechase fence at every racecourse should be lowered and made softer, as an equine fatality at any racecourse can be construed as an ‘avoidable accident’. If, for example, a horse was to die falling at a fence at Ffos Las today, the ignorant opposition could argue that if Aintree has taken steps to reduce risk, then Ffos Las is guilty of not following Aintree’s lead. The tinkering of Suleka Varma has removed horse racing from level ground of debate to the slippery slopes of god-knows-where!
Of course, the argument of ‘avoidable accident’ has far-reaching consequences. The thoroughbred breeding season is in full-swing at the moment, with the unavoidable twist of fate of the occasional mare dying while giving birth or foals born dead or dying soon after. These cruel events happen, even to human mothers. Yet the ignorant opposition might argue that the death of a mare or foal is avoidable as the mare’s pregnancy was not natural as it was arranged and facilitated by human interference. To my mind, by responding to protestors by accepting part of their argument and instigating changes based on their opposition, we are both encouraging them to come harder at us, while at the same time giving them the armoury to eventually defeat us in the courts of both law and public opinion.
Aintree should have held the line. We hold the public licence, remember. Aintree should have run this year’s race in replica of the 2023 race, though without protestors, I would have hoped, even if it meant crossing all fingers that no repetition of Hill Sixteen’s fate would occur, a fatality that can legitimately be put at the ignorant opposition’s feet.
When a horse meets its end on any racecourse, even if I do not witness it and only read about it in the analysis of the race in the Racing Post, my heart skips beat and I wish it was not so. I also know that far worse things happen to horses, even in a world where, apparently, social licences are part of society, where there is real cruelty and direct neglect, just ask Brooke Hospital, than ever occur in racing where the horse is our friend. If only the ignorant opposition would turn their attention to erasing direct cruelty and neglect of horses around the world, the racing community would then stand hand-in-hand with them.
Not that the supporters of the ignorant opposition care 100% in the welfare of the horse as I am quite sure a good proportion of their opposition to horse racing is based on politics and the false view that it is a sport only for the upper-classes, when in fact it is a sport of the working-class, though it may be underpinned by the wealthy and the mega-wealthy.
I believe Suleka Varma and those who advise her have done horse racing a great disservice and placed the whole sport in what will become an increasingly difficult position. If Aintree can reduce and diminish, why cannot every racecourse. When Aintree publicly verbalises the danger of the sport, then it must prove that horse racing is a danger to the welfare of horses. We defend our sport now while standing at a precipice. 
I would hope I am a fair man. Suleka Varma and her ground-staff deserve huge praise for the condition of the racecourse and the quality and spectacle of the three-days of racing was, to my mind, better than the Cheltenham Festival. And not all her tinkering was detrimental. Having the first fence closer to the start was an intelligent decision, though why this was not done in 2012 is a question in need of an answer. Of course, the changes in 2012 ensured Grand Nationals would thereafter be run at a faster pace than before and to address the bunching on the inside of the course that was a direct result of those changes, the race needed to be slowed-down, with the number of runners allowed in the race also reduced.
Having no parade in front of the stands was also acceptable, though I do wonder if horses could leave the paddock in race-card order, perhaps in pairs, their names and jockeys announced to the public over the Tannoy.
But the neutering of the fences and the overall sanitising of the race I cannot and will not accept. I will not accept that for the past 170-years the Grand National has been the sporting equivalent of cock-fighting and bear-baiting. 

​‘Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me’. Will of Shakespeare wrote that. Quite why, I hath not the intellect to know? Shakespearean scholars will tell you which play it was penned for, the mouth of which character the line falls from, and of all the great actors who has played the character the actor who spoke the line to the greatest acclaim.
It might have been prophesy, written in homage of the coming of the mighty King of Carlow, King Mullins the 2nd. Certainly, the master of Closutton is now as unstoppable as any legendary character in the history plays of the near mythical William Shakespeare.
He came, he saw, he conquered. Once more he conquered. Conquering is what he does. He landed on Scottish shores with a mighty battalion of equine warriors, aided by a squadron of elite horseman. So strong in might, he could leave behind his trusted lieutenants to mind the next thunderous force to cross the waters to land blow after blow on opposition still whimpering and bloodied after the glorious triumph at the Battle of Aintree. Punchestown can wait; Punchestown is another day. The battles of today and tomorrow are the battles that must be won as those days might never come again. Some hope, the British fear!
Behind the twinkling smile and polite demeanour, lies a man of ferocious appetite for triumphal honours. Silver and crystal are his ribbons of victory, his rosettes of conquest. There is no limit to the number of trophies he can carry back to his homeland, though there may be no room large enough to house them. The champagne must flow at Closutton with sweet rapidity, the nibbles forever in need of replenishing; the dishwasher always full with flutes and crystal wine glass.
And he is not replete with his gains; he is not about to offer charity to his English rivals, if rivals, in truth, they are, so superior is he with his cavalry; he has the champion ribbons all but won, yet as long as the English princes have half a chance of knocking him from his perch of champion elect, he will send ever more troops into battle at such unlikely strongholds as Fflos Las, Ludlow and Perth, before the final countdown at Sandown Park. The oncoming battles will be no more than brief skirmishes, no more a battle than a slightly heated Womens Institute meeting, but they must be won, as defeat, after so many successes, is hard to swallow. The heir to the crown will take command of the troop through the next few days, Prince Patrick allowing his genial and sovereign father to relax and plot strategy for his upcoming anointing as King of English National Hunt, while he lengthens the monetary size of his championship victory. The size of a pound coin would be victory enough, yet to win by a hundred-thousand-pound coins would be better.
Of course, Ireland, was conquered many months ago, that anointing could have been done Christmas past. And King Mullins the 2nd is not a man to stand still when there are laurels to be achieved through the summer months. He is not a man to give an inch to his local rivals, in the same manner as he cannot allow foreign rivals a mist of a chance of landing blows on him or his army of elite thoroughbreds. Summer festivals are meat and drink to King Mullins the 2nd, revelries to be enjoyed while the mightiest of his string laze under a warm sun and pick at the best of Irish herbage. 
Between his succession as the wearer of the English crown and the many summer festivals at the likes of Bellowstown, Killarney, Listowel and Galway, there is the not inconsequential matter of slaying the home opposition at Punchestown, now perhaps the most popular theatre of horse racing in either of the kingdoms that are now owned by the mighty King Mullins the 2nd. 
We must concede that we walk in the shadow of the greatest of all-time. Neither of the O’Briens, Vincent or Aidan, can hold a candle to the supremacy the Closutton maestro now enjoys over his contemporaries. He writes his own legend and will be spoken about in awe by horseman for centuries to come. Upon his death, all Ireland might fall as is there anyone who can truly follow him? To think of him as a mere mortal is to do him an unholy injustice and just a bit boring, do you not agree?

​Despite all that I have said about this year’s Grand National, on the whole I have no real issue with any one trainer having six or more runners in the race. I would prefer it not to be the case but I would rather that the maximum number of runners not being reached. Obviously, I would give oceans for there to be more British-trained horses in the race, plus a few from trainers unused to the big occasions, as was once the situation.
As what has been done to the Grand National continues upset me, I shall move on.
We live in Willie’s world. He is now central to everything that matters in the sport and collectively we should praise his achievements and keep away from criticising his domination. As Gordon Elliott said during Cheltenham, British trainers only have to face-up to Willie for a few days a year, he has to take him on seven-days-a-week.
Although the number of horses he trains is far larger than his counterparts in past decades, his domination of the major races is similar to when Vincent O’Brien came, saw and conquered. People tend to forget that for a couple of decades the man to fear was Tom Dreaper; Arkle was not the only great horse he trained and his raids on Cheltenham were looked upon with the same fear and envy as Willie Mullins today. Michael Dickinson, too, ruled the roost for many seasons and to a less extent, given the phenomenal numbers of winners he trained during his career, Martin Pipe.
The world turns and we turn with it. Willie rules and we are but his subjects. One should be remember, when the O’Leary brothers fell-out with Mullins over training fees, it seemed to all of us that the bottom had fallen out of Willie’s career. I believe he lost up to sixty-horses in one fell swoop and yet his present position of king of all he surveys began the day those horses left Closutton. He rose from adversity to become a colossus. He deserves his reign as the man everyone of his rivals fear the most. O’Brien, Dreaper, Dickinson, Pipe, Mullins.
Vincent O’Brien transferred his genius to flat racing, Tom Dreaper’s owners died away, Michael Dickinson was seduced by Robert Sangster to the flat, perhaps a decision that haunts him to this day and Martin Pipe retired and his major owners, too, leaving this world before son David could be similarly advantaged by their buying power.
Closutton, too, will lose the owners that underpin Willie’s success, he, too, will weary and hand over the baton to his son and as when Tom Dreaper acceded to his son Jim, the major races will continue to be won by a Dreaper, only for the same scenario of major owners dying and new powerful owners planting their seeds in the stables of Closutton’s rivals.
Willie Mullins deserves his success. He comes across as a nice man, always willing to talk to the media and to be as helpful as his mercurial nature will allow. The thing with people associated with ‘genius’ is that they cannot explain to themselves let alone explain to others how it all works, what he does that gives him the edge. It happens. Doubtless it is an accumulation of experiences over a lifetime of being around horses, the mistakes made good, what went wrong over the years turned into nuggets of gold, his mind becoming ever more attuned to the thoughts, moods and emotions of the horses in his charge. There is only so much he can teach Patrick, the golden stuff he will have to pick up himself. I suspect Willie listens to the people he employs and sees what his horses are telling him. Horses can talk, yet only a few rare people can understand what is being conveyed.
And you have to remember, Willie Mullins trains as many losers as anyone else, it is just, I believe, that with Willie he learns more from those that do not win as he does from those that do win.
And another point worth bearing in mind, as when an athletics coach has many world-record holders under his supervision, Willie has so many Grade 1 horses that on the gallops the lesser horses have to work harder and gain a higher level of fitness than if those same horses were trained by someone with no Grade 1 horses, and of course some horses of Grade 1 ability are not always good work-horses themselves, yet they also benefit from having so many top-class horses around them.
Willie Mullins has peaked. He cannot get any better, even if he adds the British trainers’ crown to his many Irish titles, and at some point, given he runs multiple horses in Grade 1’s, some owners will get fed-up with being also-rans and transfer those horses to other trainers in hope of a transformation in their win ratio. But as of this age of the sport, Willie Mullins is the greatest we have ever seen, even if we must bear in mind that he trains far more horses year-in, year-out, than any of the ‘genius’ trainers that have come before him and that he exists at a period of the sport where there are fewer trainers, fewer big-spending owners and far fewer horses in training. For all that, though, we must fall-down at his feet and praise him for his supremacy. There is only one Willie Mullins. Let us hope that in ten or twenty-years time we are not saying there is only one Patrick Mullins!

​To say, ‘It is what it is’, when something cannot be changed, even when you think it wrong, is to take the road of least resistance. Occasionally, waving the white flag, turning the other cheek or simply accepting your opponents’ argument may, in the long-term, prove stronger than your own, is the easiest position to accede to.
In bowing allegiance to the protestors’ hymn-book, Aintree has accepted credence in the opinion that the Grand National is too severe and diverted the race and the sport down a path to possible extinction. National Hunt racing is barbaric, cruel and an affront to public decency, the unwritten headline now reads. A win for the protestors; disruptions can be triumphal.
It is comforting to know I am not alone in believing the real essence of the Aintree Grand National has been sacrificed in order to placate the minority of the public who would wish our sport to go the same way as bear-baiting and cock-fighting. Yet, apart from registering our disquiet at the latest batch of alterations to the race, there is little to be gained from fighting the inevitable. Suleka Varma will not back down, especially when so many people of influence voiced their approval on national t.v. of the neutering of the once great race.
What is at stake, though, in diverting the race and the sport so far away from its roots, is the very possibility that we are entering the beginning of the end. It must be remembered, even if the first recorded ‘steeple’ chase was in Ireland when two local dignitaries raced to win a bet between themselves, horse racing as a spectator sport began in 1839 with the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase, won, of course, by Lottery and Jem Mason. For historical clarity, in 1843 the race became known as the Liverpool and National Handicap Steeplechase, won by Vanguard and Tom Olliver, only becoming the Grand National Handicap in 1847 when Matthew and Denis Wynne were the winners.
We live in different times, of course. The values and beliefs of 1847 were different to today, the horse then was a beast of burden, where the horse now is known to be a sentient being and worthy of not only of our affection but a duty of care. In the early days of the Grand National there was plough to contend with, a stone wall and huge ditches at Bechers and Valentines; nothing we would contemplate today.
The popularity of National Hunt racing stems from the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase; that is where the roots of the sport can be traced to and I would argue the further the sport drifts from its birthplace, the closer it comes to its final years. That is what I find so repugnant about the latest round of alterations, that the race is now but a shadow of what it used to be.
I understand, and appreciate, the overall feeling that the Grand National of 2024 was a race apart; the relief that there were no equine fatalities, though when the ground is soft, the race is always run at a slower pace and this makes jumping errors less common. But when a Grand National has no fallers, no incidents for the experts to unpick, you can be sure the excitement of the supreme test of horse and rider is diluted to the point of ordinariness and the Grand National should never be ordinary. I do not want fatalities at Aintree, as I do not want to witness fatalities at any racecourse and my heart skips beats until I see a horse rise from the ground uninjured. But to accept that making the once fiercesome Aintree fences smaller than the ones to be found on the Mildmay course, is to admit to our accusers that they were right all along, with the logical conclusion that if Aintree can reduce and diminish their fences, then so the same principle should be applied at all racecourses. And here I must return to where I began: it is what it is.
My solution, without wishing or expecting Aintree to backtrack from their position, is to reinvent the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase, to modern-day standards of welfare, of course.
I suggest the Becher Chase should be shelved (again) and replaced by the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase and run over the same distance as the Grand National. I would restrict entry to horses rated below the minimum mark to run in the Grand National, giving greater opportunity for jockeys, trainers and owners outside of those at the top end of the sport, to allow the minnows a chance to dream and triumph, as once was the case with the Grand National. My proposal might also encourage owners and trainers from the U.S., France and afar to try their luck at Aintree, another grievance of mine, that we shall never see the likes of Tommy Smith or Charlie Fenwick at Aintree again.
What I want to see is the real essence of the Grand National returned to Aintree. It will never be experienced anymore in April but perhaps in November/December it might be revived. 
This is not an inconsequential issue. I believe the neutering of the Grand National is on a par with Mirabel Topham announcing she was to sell Aintree to developers. I understand the Grand National is a shop window for the sport and the need to attract a larger audience, with emphasis on not offending the sensibilities of the urban and inner-city viewer with no experience of horses and racing other than reading ‘National Velvet’ and ‘Black Beauty’ as a child.
But what about the racing enthusiast, the racing professional; is it okay to offend the people whose very heart lies within the sport?
My position is that we must allow Aintree to do as it pleases with the Grand National without challenge or argument but for Aintree to give in return a race run not in memory of what went before but a race to celebrate what went before and for the ‘Liverpool Grand Steeplechase’ the fences returned to the height they were in 2013-2023. Allow completing the National course to be an achievement once again.
Let me be clear; I am not championing two Grand Nationals in one season. I am advocating two different races as the Liverpool Grand Steeplechase will evoke memories of Red Rum, whereas the Grand National will look like a sanitised video game.

​To say ‘It is what it is’ is acceptance of a situation that cannot be changed. But what if Winston Churchill, on the invasion of Poland by the Nazis, had made the same comment to the British people? The whole of Europe might now be subject to the ideology of a fascist regime. If, on not at first securing a recording contract, Paul McCartney and John Lennon agreed ‘that it is what it is’ and sold their guitars and signed-on at the local labour exchange? The music songbook would be depleted of music that is the equal of the greatest music of the past.
I, now, must say, in regard of the race won by I Am Maximus on Saturday, it is what it is. It cannot be changed.
I have tried over the weekend to make sense of my instinctive, if out-on-a-limb, position on this issue. I have loved the Grand National since the day I first witnessed the race. I came upon the race only a few years before the first of ‘the last-ever Nationals’, when Mirabel Topham shocked the sporting world by announcing she was selling Aintree racecourse to developers. I believe that was the last time I cried. Something magical and inspiring was to be taken from me, so soon after it had entered my life and switched me on to something that would transform my life’s path.
I have defended the Grand National over the years with every strand of sense I possessed and I still have somewhere one of the sweat-shirts I bought with my pocket-money when the Jockey Club went cap-in-hand to the public in an effort to raise the funds to save Aintree racecourse from being developed into an housing estate. Now I find myself a critic of the race, not because it is in any way cruel but because it is a neutered version of what went before. I have tried to credit the alterations by dreaming of the scenario whereby if the same had occurred in the early sixties Arkle might have graced Aintree with his presence. Or Desert Orchid in later years. But, of course, if the Grand National had been neutered in the 1960’s we would never have had Red Rum as Crisp would have won in 1973 by a large margin.
If I am to accept the appeasement of ‘it is what it is’, I cannot accept I Am Maximus, as worthy a winner as he undoubtedly is, as the 170th winner of the Grand National but the first winner of the Aintree National, the new version of the grand old race, not so much a replica as a memory of what went before, I Am Maximus not so much the latest addition to the pantheon of great horses to win over the National fences but the first of the new pantheon.
In the same way I can no longer refer to our country as ‘Great Britain’ and must refer to it simply as Britain, as to my mind the politicians of this country no longer make the meaningful contributions to society and freedom that confers greatness on a country, I cannot use the word ‘Grand’ when talking or writing about the Aintree National. Though the race provided a spectacle in its new guise, it was in no way ‘grand’, with no achievement worthy of being recorded in dispatches for being one of the finishers, for surviving intact the greatest test of the steeplechaser and jockey.
I will not condemn the race I witnessed, and yes, enjoyed, but it was not the ‘Grand National’ but a new race, a race with provenance yet without the nicks and cracks that, if it were an antique clock, would satisfy experts that it is genuine and not either a reproduction or a fake.
My critics will suggest I would not be happy unless the plough of the original template was reinstated, along with the stone-wall and the huge gaping ditch at Bechers and Valentines. Many of the changes down the years were required and though at first against the changes in 2012, I came to accept them as positives. It is the recent alterations, the tinkering with an institution, that have enflamed my heart, the sanitising to appease the ignorant, the protection of the cash-cow rather than the race itself. It is the slippery slope effect that in five-years-time might see the Canal Turn replaced by a smoother transition from the Foinavon fence to Valentines, the number of fences reduced to 29, the test for horse and rider lessened once more. 
If you want to understand how I feel, recall the day you lost the love of your life.

​Many years ago, I had a dream where I witnessed my own gravestone. Inscribed on the weathered old stone were my name and my age on the day of my death. 70. Tomorrow, I will have reached that very same age. Whether the prophesy of the dream proves to be accurate only the passing days, weeks and months, will tell.
Dreams are unreliable, of course. A few weeks ago, I dreamt that Adamantly Chosen won the Grand National. I ignored the prophesy as in the dream he was ridden by Matt Chapman, who, frustrated that Willie Mullins refused to employ him as his race-planner, dragged, at the start of the race, the unnamed jockey off the horse, jumped, displaying an athleticism Olga Korbet would be pleased with, on the horse and proceeded to ride the perfect race to win by a short-head. The dream ended with Chapman deflecting praise onto Willie Mullins, demonstrating that dreams are dreams and nowhere close to being real. As with Elisabeth Taylor and National Velvet, I suspect Chapman was disqualified for not being a real jockey.
As predicted, and this was a prophesy that did materialise in the real world, half the field were still in with some sort of chance of winning at the third last fence, with a half-a-dozen or more looking possible winners at the last fence. Going to the elbow, Rachael Blackmore had a second Grand National within her sights, only for ‘all the air to be taken from her tyres’ by Paul Townend sailing by her on I Am Maximus, to scoot home an even more impressive winner than Corach Rambler in 2023. Delta Work confirmed what an honest old boy he is by also nabbing Minella Indo in the final furlong to finish second, with Galvin overhauling Kitty’s Light for fourth, proving Gordon Elliott correct for allowing the horse to take his chance.
The second, third and fourth, will be 12 ,12 and 11 next season and are unlikely to feature in the finish next season, while the winner will be handicapped out of the race next season, with the Cheltenham Gold Cup his major appointment in 2025. Given better ground, Kitty’s Light is the one to take out of the race for next season, even if he will carry a few pounds more than this year.
I ended-up backing four-horses yesterday, with all of them finishing the race, not that there is any achievement anymore in negotiating all the fences, as a brave pony would have no difficulty achieving a clear round these days, so neutered is the task. For more than a brief moment, I thought Rachael would give me another triumph at the local bookies, only for the flame to flicker and for Townend to snuff out the candle of hope with obvious glee and no little relish. From Valentines to the Melling Road, I thought Harry Skelton was wearing a smile as wide as the Leeds and Liverpool canal as Galia Des Liteaux was travelling and jumping with aplomb only for the stamina needle to waver entering the straight. She finished an honourable 8th, winning her trainer some much-needed prize-money. With the ground obviously far from attritional, I got cold feet about Nassalam and replaced him by Capodanno, my big fancy for the race last year, though seeing Nassalam had gone out to 50/1 and remembering the day I ditched Rule The World from my betting slip, I had a fiver each-way on him, Like Capodanno, who obviously doesn’t stay the distance, he never presented me with any hope of getting involved in the finish.
I must add that I was far from thrilled by I.T.V.’s coverage yesterday. The hour leading up to the big race should have been totally about this year’s race, not reiterations on the race year before. And Ruby’s analyse of the difference between the start this year and the year before infuriated me. At the start of the programme, yes, it would have been interesting and relevant but in the lead-up to the start of the race, I wanted to see horses, how they were behaving, seeing them stride down to the start, perhaps interviews with connections. And, of course, all the presenters read from the same upbeat script when it came to discussing the changes to the race. Ruby was particularly annoying. When he was a jockey back in 2012, he criticised the changes then, saying ‘if they want to slow the race down, the fences should be higher, not lower’. Now, as a presenter, he believes neutering the race is the best way forward. People are entitled to change their opinion, I accept, but to travel from one extreme to other end of the spectrum is evidence of ‘saying the right opinion to appease the bosses’. Ruby, as with the Grand National, is, sadly, also becoming a neutered voice.
The 2024 Grand National was a great spectacle, I accept. With the exception of Corach Rambler who fell at the third fence when riderless, though, having unshipped Derek Fox at the first fence, no horse fell in the Grand National. The non-finishers were either unseated riders or pulled-up. Yes, that was good and I gain no pleasure in seeing horses fall. But where now is the test of jumping, the exhibition of horsemanship? The Aintree Grand National is now closer as a horse race to the American version, which is basically a hurdle race, than the Velka Pardubicka, which the Czechoslovaks can now claim to be the greatest test of the steeplechaser. That rumbling in the distance you can hear, by the way, is Ginger McCain turning in his grave!
If 2024 is to be my final Grand National, at least it had a worthy winner, even if it will be proved to be the beginning of the end.
The poor, the lowly, the honest trier, must have their dreams taken from them. Only the elite, the financially-secure, those who already have all that is worth owning, are allowed to dream of wondrous achievement.

​To quote Richard Guest. ‘It was sheer hell out there – the going was absolutely desperate and Red Marauder must be the worst jumper ever to win the Grand National. Certainly second-time round he was climbing over most of the fences but he stays forever and being the mudlark he is, I suppose he found everything to his liking today.’
I only quote Richard Guest as I had to look up the year Red Marauder won the Grand National as I never have had the capability for remembering dates. I was surprised it was so long ago. I remember having a couple of quid each-way on him, so you would think I would remember?
Fearing the worst, I thought the 2024 Grand National would be as attritional as 2001 but after watching the Foxhunters yesterday, I doubt that will be the case. Also, and I am saddened to say this, the Grand National fences look smaller than those on the Mildmay course. And that cannot be right, can it? It is just encouragement for connections to run dodgy jumpers and removing the advantage the bold jumping horse once had.
It is what it is, though, and will be as it is for five-years, apparently. In six-years, I fear only 30 will be allowed to take part. But it is what it is. A facsimile of a facsimile or a facsimile. The days of Red Rum are gone forever more.
The Chair fence took its toll yesterday, with one amateur rider requiring medical treatment on the course before, I believe, being taken to hospital. Human casualties will receive no media attention and it is with relief that no harm came to any of the 22-horses that took part in the race.
Of course, the Foxhunters, as with today’s Topham, is only over one lap of the Grand National fences but there were enough horses entering the home straight to suggest the ground is riding more soft than heavy, though it will be interesting to find out how the jockeys viewed the going. Because it is not as attritional as I feared (or hoped) I am less inclined to tip-up Nassalam for the big race. I have ‘gone off’ horses I intended to back in the past, Rule the World comes to mind, only for them to win or be placed at long-odds, so I might be forced to have a fiver on Nassalam, just in case. Also, I would dearly love Gary Moore to train a Grand National winner. If any trainer deserves to win the biggest race of all, the most famous race in the world, it is the hard-working, call a spade a spade, Gary Moore. After all, his son cannot always be hogging the limelight and I am sure Ryan will be watching the race, wherever he might be on Saturday, with his fingers crossed and his eyes on one horse.
As of this moment, I remain wedded to the class of Minella Indo and the stamina of Galia Des Liteaux.

I make no apologies for wanting to write about the Red Rum Handicap Chase, a race that honours, but not to the extent he deserves, the greatest horse ever to honour Aintree with his presence. San Bruit will never rise to the glories achieved by the great horse but yesterday, off a lightweight and a typical bold steer by the wonderful Bryony Frost, he gave a foot-perfect exhibition of jumping. Alongside Harry Cobden and Rachael Blackmore, John Francome believes Bryony is the best of the current band of jockeys at presenting a horse at a fence and yesterday she demonstrated the art of getting a horse into a rhythm. They were as one, jockey and horse in perfect harmony. It was good to see her smiling again as for obvious reasons, the emphasis at Ditcheat this season is for Harry Cobden to become champion jockey, she has been given so few opportunities to display her stupidly underused skills. San Bruit pulls too hard and attempting to settle him at the back of the field was not working and as with Il Ridoto at Cheltenham, Bryony took the position of less resistance and allowed him to bowl along at the front. As is usually the case, the other jockeys eased back when it was obvious San Bruit was going to outjump them and put their faith in San Bruit tiring in the ground. He did not tire and after the last bounced away from a Willie Mullins trained, J.P.McManus owned runner-up.
Good on ya, Devon maid. More today, please.

​One of my favourite sayings is ‘ratings are bollards’, and when the phrase comes into contact with a professional, especially a Racing Post journalist, eyes are rolled and any vestige of credibility they might have for my opinions is consigned to the waste bin. Criticise God to a form expert, if you must, but never make light of the numbers that are the very essence of life to them! 
I defend my unorthodox stance by making the point that ratings are based on yesterday and in some cases a whole lot of yesterdays, the number assigned after one, perhaps out-of-character, performance. And, of course, the top-rated, even in weight-for-age and conditions races, does not always win. Ratings are a number assigned to a horse; merely opinion based on pseudo-science. The horse is not a machine, it cannot possibly run to the same level twice in a row, let alone multiple times. To repeat myself, the rating given to Cyrname after he beat Altior in a two-horse race on desperate ground was farcical.
Come Aintree and the Grand National, anyone directing their money to the bookmakers’ satchel based on ratings or indeed form, have fallen overboard and are clinging on to the leaky life-raft in complete desperation. Oh, and there are far too many examples of complete no-hopers and 33/1 and beyond winners to prove my point.
The only two factors to take into consideration when selecting bets for the Grand National are ground conditions and whether the horse stays the 4-mile 2-furlong + distance. Nothing else matters. Horses have run in the Grand National a stone or more good at the weights and with a clear ratings advantage and fallen at the first fence, not acted on the quicker or softer ground or just plain failed to see out the trip. When the ground is heavy, as it seems likely this Saturday, ground preference and the required stamina is the be-all and end-all of finding the winner. I do not even believe weight should be factored into the equation as a horse with ten-stone is not going to win if it does not stay the distance or perform to his or her best on the heavy ground.
The experts, all of whom know more about everything to do with horse racing than I do, are seemingly of the joint opinion that Nassalam has too much weight for his actual ability. I disagree. I do not necessarily believe he will win, though I may change my mind after the Foxhunters and Topham if there are few finishers, but his ability to handle ground close to abandonment should make him a certainty for everyone’s list of possible winners. Will he handle the fences, that is the only question to be asked about Nassalam?
Again, disregard ratings and recent form. The best horse in the race is Minella Indo, a Gold Cup winner, a Gold Cup runner-up. He may be light of other years and he is now eleven-years-old, with the Grand National now a race for younger legs but they will not be travelling at lightning speed this year, this year the race will resemble the old-fashioned Grand Nationals when they hunted around the first circuit and only got really serious from Bechers’ second-time round. I sincerely doubt if there will be twenty in with some sort of chance crossing the Melling Road for the last time. There might not be twenty going out on the second circuit.
My modus operandi for finding the winner of the Grand National relies on instinct, the inner voice that at some point during the season quietly informs me ‘that horse looks a likely Grand National horse’. It is not a reliable system for finding the winner but when it comes to the Grand National, tell me a system that is reliable?
Galia Des Liteaux was the recipient of this spectral tip after she ran at Warwick in the Classic Chase. For form-buffs, the race has worked out well with My Silver Lining (?) keeping the form looking respectable when second at Haydock behind Yeah Man, the tip of many for the Irish National at Fairyhouse last week. Yes, I was tipping-up, if only to myself, a Dan Skelton Grand National winner back in February and four-days out she remains my number one for Saturday. Of course, all might change. But at the moment, my three for the great race, which it remains even if I have constantly bemoaned the latest sheaf of pointless alterations, are Galia Des Liteaux, Minella Indo, Nassalam, and if forced to make a fourth choice it would be between Gordon Elliott’s Delta Work and Coko Beach.
The Grand National this year will not be for the faint-hearted - equine or human!