i disagree with young porteous.

​The Racing Post’s Lewis Porteous is a racing journalist of great potential. He is a young, no doubt ambitious, man who is privileged to work amongst journalists of great renown and talent. And just because he is young does not, of course, preclude him from being right when he expresses honest opinions on racing matters of the day. Today, February 21st, as author of the Tuesday Column in the Racing Post, he offers the readers the opinion that ‘The Grand National is a wonderful success story – so let’s lose the hysteria’.
Of course, the Grand National is a success story. The race in differing forms has lasted since 1839, the year Lottery became a name of legend. Once the race became established it was a magnet for the connections of all the best chasers of Great Britain and Ireland. It remains the most famous horse race in the world and is the only race in those two countries to attract the attention of the non-racing public, the media and the once-a-year punter. For a hundred-years (give or take) it was the most prodigious race in the calendar, with only the Epsom Derby to rival its popularity. 
Though it cannot be argued against the principle and ambition, the changes made to the fences prior to the 2012 race up-ended the complexion of the race to a greater degree than any of the debacles in its history. The Grand National of today is not the Grand National of Red Rum’s time. Would the greatest Grand National horse win three times if he had the ‘upturned-dandy brushes’ to leap over rather than the green upright monoliths he conquered? The neutering of the fences, sadly, neutered the race.
Lewis Porteous is wrong – it is doubtless his youth that is to blame – to say it is a better class race now than in the recent past. The quality of the race did dip post Red Rum. The Cheltenham Festival had become all-consuming and the prize fund for both the Irish and Scottish Nationals slowly increased to a point where, as it remains, both races became attractive alternatives to Aintree; whereas the Aintree prize-fund remained static. When Maori Venture won in 1987 his owner Jim Joel picked up a cheque for £64,710. Red Rum only won Noel La Mare £25,486 when he became the most prolific Grand National winner in 1977.
The fairy-tale story last year was Sam Waley-Cohen, the most successful rider over the Aintree fences of his era, winning on his last ever ride on a racecourse. People overlooked the fiercesome race had been won by a novice, Noble Yeats, having only his sixth (?) run in a steeplechase.
Young Porteous is correct when he suggests that in the past many of the runners had no realistic chance of winning, with many a long way out of the handicap. Yet, I ask, do any of the once-a-year punters notice the quality or lack of quality of the horses they see listed in the morning paper? The puzzle trying to find a juicy winner remains the same today as it did in 1973 or 1953.
What the great race no longer possesses is romance. Rachel Blackmore was a great story; in winning she changed her sport to a degree; she made sporting history. Yet the horse was owned by one of sport’s wealthiest owners (a great man whom the sport will always be indebted) and trained by one of Ireland’s major trainers. And Rachel Blackmore is one of her country’s top jockeys.
Red Rum was romance. Grittar was romance. Aldaniti was romance. It will be a long wait till we get a Grand National winner trained behind a car-showroom or a horse trained by a permit-trainer.
Granted, overall the quality, if you go by their official ratings, will be higher this year than twenty-years ago, yet in 1973 the lightly weighted Red Rum beat Crisp, L’Escargot and Spanish Steps. When was the last time four-horses of their star appeal lined-up at Aintree? All four beat the existing course record, did you know that? That’s quality for you!
The Grand National will always be a great spectacle. 40-runners thundering down the line of six-fences, culminating in Bechers, the most neutered fence on the course, the Canal Turn, Valentine’s, the Chair, will always catch the breath and fill the eye with wonder. And the winner will always be worthy. But the race has lost its soul. The Duque de Alburquerque trying year after year to achieve his ambition of simply finishing the race and not finishing his day in one of Liverpool’s hospitals. Rosemary Henderson finishing fifth on her grand horse Fiddler’s Pike. Noel Fehily finishing sixth on the basically 2-mile chaser Celibate. We will never have such minor yet heroic achievements again.
And we still have fatalities. Look at last year’s race. And we still do not have the Gold-Cup class horses entered, let alone run in the race. What we have now is the mediocrity of the middle-band, horses high on seconds, thirds and fourths but lacking number ones against their name, with as many no-hopers as we had when it was a free-for-all to enter.
I love the Grand National. It was my introduction to the sport. Close to me I have five-books on the subject and I wish there were more. The race, though, has lost its soul for no substantial gain. I am old, young Porteous, I see the world and our sport through eyes of greater experience, perhaps, for now, even greater knowledge. You may be right in theory. But what you miss is that the Grand National is not simply a horse race. It is the root upon which the whole sport has grown. It is not a race like any other and should not be assessed in a similar manner to a handicap at Cheltenham, Sandown or Newbury. It is the Grand National. It is a race long on history and ingrained with romance. It has a soul; a stifled soul but a soul still. The race must be altered again so that soul can breathe its magic once more. The Grand National is a race of myth and legend, young Porteous. To survive it must have Mon Mome’s, Tipperary Tim’s and Jay Trump’s.