let's talk about the grand national.

​I love the Grand National. Love it! Love it! Love it!
Remember the days of steam trains. The mighty machine that was the Flying Scotsman or any of its mates, thundering along at what for the time was something like warp-speed. Observing on the embankment or as it pulled steaming and sweaty like a Grand National winner applauded into the winners’ enclosure, we didn’t notice the tender that carried the coal that fuelled the mighty beast. That is my metaphor to describe what the Grand National is to horse racing in this country. It is the tender that fuels the sport. It needs constant care and the occasional sympathetic overhaul.
From a marketing and spectator-driven prospective, the Grand National is doing swell. People continue to have an annual bet on the race and offices organise sweepstakes and the race will receive prior to the day a certain amount of media coverage, though not in the same stratosphere as in days gone by. The Grand National fits uneasily into the woke narrative of how live should be lived the non-racing press and multinational t.v. stations are required to project. And, of course, it will receive a pitifully small amount of coverage in the aftermath of the race unless there is an equine fatality to highlight or if a female jockey were to be victorious.
You may say I should not evoke the madness of woke in association with a horse race of such history and sporting magnitude. I would argue that the changes in the fences, the race distance and the conditions of entry were based on a kind of knee-jerk sporting wokeism. The B.H.A. wanted to make safe a race where jeopardy is its main component. They set-out to attract a better-class of runner. And yet!
There are 57-horse still in this season’s Grand National. April 15th. 5-15 off-time. Best birthday present ever! If I back the winner, anyway. Has been known, you know. One of those horses is Captain Kangaroo with form figures of UFPFP. If this horse was trained by anyone other than Willie Mullins would it be allowed to still be in the race? It might be he is still engaged as the owners hope to sell the horse on the days leading up to the race in hope of getting a six-figure sales price from someone in want of just having a runner in the race. Yet Iwilldoit, the winner of a Welsh National, was denied entry as he had not run six-times in a steeplechase.
Captain Cattistock, a dour stayer and safe jumper, will doubtless not get a run, though Battleoverdoyen, a horse light of former years and an unlikely finisher and only in the race as a social runner, is certain of a run. Our Power, a horse with good, solid form around Grade 1 racecourses and a possible winner if he should take part, is also unlikely to get in the race, whereas Irish-trained Roi Mage and Diol Ker, both, in my eyes, inferior to Our Power, are certain to get a run.
What the Grand National needs more than better-quality horses is the right horses competing – solid jumpers, proven stayers, even the classy 2-mile 4-furlong horse. Remember Gay Trip. On the latter subject. Envoi Allen would be the classiest horse still in the race, yet though he has won over 3-miles, a condition of the race, he is in reality a 2-mile 4 horse, that’s where most of his good form lies. I doubt he’ll line-up, though he could. Yet I would argue is he a more imaginable winner than either Our Power of Iwilldoit? I don’t think so.
The conditions of the Grand National should be sympathetically tweaked. Not by the B.H.A. but by individuals with life-long involvement with the sport and in particular the Grand National. I qualify to offer my thoughts on the basis of the former and the latter as I have watched over fifty Grand Nationals. Perhaps over sixty and more if you include all the historical Grand Nationals I have watched on YouTube.
There should be ‘win and you are in’ races during the previous 12-months, no matter the rating of the horse, though I would restrict on age. No six-year-olds, for instance. In this category I would include the Irish, Welsh and Scottish Nationals, the Midlands National, the Eider, the Becher and, perhaps, the Warwick Classic.
Any horse that has achieved a first four-place in any of the previous two-years should be assured of a run. The Grand National is a race for stayers and this is the type of horse that should be running in the race, not the classy sort of horse like Envoi Allen.
The Aintree Foxhunter winner, if achieving the qualifying rating. The Grand National is run over a unique course; a horse proven over the fences should be encouraged to take part and this latest qualification suggestion would allow the possible participation of connections from the ‘amateur’ ranks. Remember Frank Gilman, Dick Saunders and Grittar? The Grand National these days lacks what could be termed the ‘Grittar element’ and is not improved by its omission. 
Also, the idea of penalties for horses weighted below 10st 4Ib should be considered or allowed to run if their rating at the 5-day declaration stage is above the rating of any of the declared 40-runners above them. It would be unfair, as entries stand, on the connections of Eva’s Oskar, the present number 40, though better for the race if this rule allowed Our Power to get in, for example.
There is a Racing Post published book by Chris Pitt, perhaps my favourite author of racing books, called ‘Down to the Beaten’, tales of the Grand National. It does not document the victors but the gallant unbowed, those whose glory was to take part. The stories in its many chapters include characters like Keith Barnfield who rode in the race in 1976. Brod Munro-Wilson who rode in the race in 1980. Val Jackson who rode Bush Guide in 1984. Tom Dascombe who rode a Martin Pipe outsider in 1998.
I mention the above as it is a wonderful book, one of my all-time favourite racing books, but also because it couldn’t be written nowadays as horses like the multiple winner Bush Guide would not get in the race and capable amateurs like Val Jackson would be barred from competing. Yet that sort of combination is exactly what the modern Grand National lacks. The romance of plucky endeavour. Where lies the plucky endeavour of the race on April 15th?