​At the entrance to Laurel Park racecourse there is a statue of Billy Barton, the American-bred, American-owned, horse that finished a distant second to Tipperary Tim, after being remounted, in the 1928 Grand National. 42 set out, only two finished. I should, and perhaps will later on in the day, conduct research into whether Laurel Park remains a racecourse; my scant knowledge of American racing and my poor memory could easily count against me; or is now a business park or housing estate. I hope not. A little bit of me dies whenever I am informed of a racecourse having to make way for the bricks and cement of a multi-national money-making corporation. Even U.S. dirt tracks.
The point I am slowly getting round to making is this: Billy Barton was not a superstar of the pantheon of U.S. racing. He was not a forerunner of Seabiscuit or Secretariat. In a country where steeplechasing could not even be described as the equivalent of point-to-points in Britain and Ireland, someone financed a statue of him for no other reason than he was a gallant second in a steeplechase in a far-away land. Yes, Billy Barton won all the top timber races in his homeland and as a reformed rogue, as was Jay Trump, who had been banned from the oval dirt tracks for refusing to race and was better-loved because of it, and he was an unlucky loser in the Grand National, yet Battleship won the Grand National for his homeland and though his owner had a statue commissioned of him at her ranch, I don’t believe he is immortalised at a U.S. racecourse. Horses are, and remain, a source of pride to people.
Those who believe racing people only want the thoroughbred for financial gain, who will go to any measure to break their will so they spring to human commands, to jump and race ‘until death’, their carcass then sold in order to extract every last penny out of them, should be made aware that humans have immortalised hundreds of horses down the decades in bronze, either displayed in public places or privately on lawns in country homes. Thousands upon thousands of horses hang on walls, immortalised in oil, many painted by artists of international renown. Photographs, too, of much-loved horses hang by the million, I suggest, on walls of modest bungalows and mansions alike.
Humans do not skimp on affection for the horse. Tears of joy; tears of deep sorrow. Horses take humans to the very heights of emotion and to the very depths of despair. The sight of an ex-racehorse still enjoying life never fails to bring me joy. It is as it should be. Even though he is now 31, J.P. McManus has Istabraq treated as if he were a living God. Respect from birth to the grave. As it should be.
I love the sport of horse racing, especially National Hunt, and though I cannot hand on heart state that ‘we’ are without fault, I know deep within my heart that ‘we’ endeavour always to do right by the horse. I understand that people who observe the sport from outside of it are appalled at the sight of horses falling during a horse race and, when they rise and gallop after the field, I, too, sigh in relief. No one who lives and breathes the sport wants to see a horse injured or killed. But it is a dangerous sport that must play out in a woke world where people believe they have the right to demand that anything they disapprove of should be banned. Horse racing is not alone to this threat: motor racing has its critics, boxing, too, greyhound racing, any sport that involves weaponry, and so it goes on.
I have made my suggestion for how the Grand National might be tweaked to improve safety in a previous blog. I would reject, though, any changes to the course or its design. I would also oppose further limiting the number of horses that part, knowing that any horse race of any number of runners can provide tragedy. Sixty horses could run one year with nothing of controversy occurring. Ten might run the following year and there might be two equine fatalities. We live in the lap of the gods. I am still a naïve optimistic, after all these years. Aintree could, though, provide a few baby steps towards appeasing our critics. A cemetery on the course or close by for the fallen. If a percentage of all prize-money throughout the Grand National meeting was set aside for equine charities; if a similar small percentage of all winning bets went to an equine charity. If a small percentage of bookmaker profits on the Grand National went to an equine charity. If a small percentage of jockey fees went to an equine charity.
Allow the Grand National to be a force for good for horses all around the world.

​We are living at a time when certain sections of society believe they have the right to demand that anything they disapprove of should be banned and further believe they have the right to disrupt and make difficult the lives of law-abiding people in aid of their ‘cause’.
What we witnessed at Aintree on Saturday we will doubtless witness again and again through Spring and Summer. I do not know the grudge of the people who disrupted the World Snooker yesterday as I was not watching on t.v., though it is easy to conclude that an animal rights group was behind it. My first reaction to events on Saturday were ‘no punishment would be too severe for these ignorant morons’, and part of me remains of the same persuasion. Would that mindset, though, change minds? Would that bring peace?
As much as I loathe the actions of animal rights activists, especially when the people they are attacking most likely contribute more money to animal charities than any other sector of the population. This is the rub, isn’t it. People involved in horse racing are animal lovers. You never see a trainer at home without at least one dog, usually with many running around their feet seeking attention. I wouldn’t think there are many trainers without retired racehorses around the place, living at his or her expense. It would be the same with grooms, jockeys and owners. In many aspects of animal welfare, the racing industry would legitimately stand shoulder-to-shoulder with animal activists. Though, perhaps, not the professional protesters, the ones that roam from ‘Stop Oil’ protests to ‘Migrants Rights’ protests, to whatever protest in next on the list of days-out.
Engaging with the middle ground, illustrating all the love and good connected to the racing industry, is 100% the right initiative and I commend those journalists prepared to stand above the parapet at times like these as the death of any horse, especially a high-profile death as with Hill Sixteen, makes for an easy bat to beat us with. But, as with any battle, any skirmish, we might be better served to engage with the enemy, perhaps even separate the weaker elements to educate them to the truth of the situation: horses are not forced to jump and gallop; though people earn a living from the sport, to the greater portion it is not all about betting and winning fortunes from the sweat and blood of horses; that horses actually enjoy the lives given to them; that though one must be mentally strong to work with horses, there is love-a-plenty for the horse, with any death keenly felt, small tragedies that cut at the heart on the occasion of any fatality. 
I would like to sit down with a couple of protesters and have them watch videos of Frodon and ask them what they see that makes them think he is being forced to race, forced to jump, what aspect of his demeanour suggests to them he is not enjoying what he is asked to do. I would also show them the race at Aintree, was it 4-years ago, when low sun forced the removal of six-fences (or was it eight?) from the Old Roan Chase and for the only time in his long and honourable career Frodon couldn’t see the point of it all, bemused by why he was being steered around fences, denied the opportunity of jumping them. Constitution Hill is another example of a horse completely at ease when racing. There will many, many, other examples to prove the point.
Our sport is dangerous to man and horse. To deny the fact is to encourage derision. We cannot defend the death of Hill Sixteen no matter how loved he was or how well-cared-for he was. And we shouldn’t make the mistake of laying all the blame on protesters. They obviously contributed to the circumstances of his demise, though there is a voice within me that suggests if he became ‘hyper’ due to the delay, it would have been wise to have withdrawn him. That, though, is with the wisdom of hindsight.
Horse racing and the Grand National are the pivot of my life. For the best part of my 69-years horse racing has seasoned my life and protected my mental health. Even now, entering my 70th year, I hanker to be around racehorses once more and am actively looking to earn some spending money as help to anyone in need of my limited use. 
Horse racing is a life to so many, not merely a job. It is a vocation that involves sacrifice. It is seven-days-a-week, twelve-months of the year. An ever-turning cycle of hard work, heartbreak and joy. At the hub of it all is the horse. Our worship of the horse.
We forget the dead equine too easily, perhaps. There was a time we paid no heed to the ex-racehorse, though the short-sightedness of convenience is now vanishing as trainers and owners must now live-up to their responsibilities. But we forget the equine dead too easily. Perhaps racecourses, especially National Hunt, should provide equine cemeteries for the fallen and deceased. Respect for the horse from birth to death should apply to the tragedies that occur when racing, I suggest.
Red Rum is buried at Aintree. One For Arthur’s ashes were scattered there, too. That is true respect for the horse. From birth to death, as it should be for all racehorses. Without them, we are nothing.

​After a long period of agonisingly fraught debate with myself and after many thousands of words, mainly comprising utter tripe, as things turned out, this year’s Grand National returned a large deficit in my bank balance. My only saving grace, and to provide proof I would have to research my recent writings, which I have neither the will nor the time to conduct, I did, either on this site or to a correspondence, make the statement that Corach Rambler should win, though I thought it unlikely that the otherwise magical combination of Derek Fox and Lucinda Russell could achieve two Grand National successes during their careers. The form book gave me good advice and I rejected it in favour of instinctive reaction. Sod it!
Far for it for me to criticise people more skilled at their craft than I am in anything, yet even during the early stages of the race, which brought more fallers than in either of the other two races over the Grand National fences at the meeting, I didn’t understand why all 39 jockeys took the middle to inner route, with no one keeping to the right over the first three or four fences.
After the race, and this might seem a bit of a mad idea, but with safety in mind, the idea came me that perhaps a muddled sort of draw should be made on the day of the race stipulating that jockeys ‘drawn’ one to twenty (in any order, not necessarily one-to-twenty) line-up left to middle and stay on that divide of the course until after the third fence, with the other jockeys lining up middle to right and staying on that course in similar fashion, rather like a 400-metres athletics race on an indoor track. This rather off-centre idea would allow horses a clearer view of fences that are out of either their recent or life experience. As with everyone, especially anyone watching the race for the first time, I hate seeing horses falling and being brought down. It is an ugly scene, even to the experienced enthusiast. I will forward this suggestion to the clerk of the course at Aintree and report back.
I haven’t yet read my on-line Sunday copy of the Racing Post, so I cannot report with any accuracy if all horses survived their part in racing history yesterday. I hope all 39-horses returned safely to their home stables, with more than one receiving the praise of returning heroes. I thought Vanillier, Noble Yeats and Mr. Coffey deserve special recognition for their gallant efforts. I am sure the head lads of the trainers involved in yesterday’s race will be busy this morning tending to cuts, bruises and other, hopefully, minor injuries to the stable’s Grand National runners. We should never lose sight of the fact that the Grand National is as much a battle with cruel fate as it is a sporting institution. It is also a battle with the sport’s enemies as witnessed by the idiot protestors who unsuccessfully tried to force their will on the sixty or more thousand people at Aintree, the millions watching at home and the many millions watching world-wide.
On this topic, I have another suggestion. Give the animal rights lobby a platform every year to express, in moderation, their beliefs. I am 100% an animal lover and it hurts me on so many levels when made aware of animal cruelty and if I thought for one-moment any form of cruelty was involved in horse racing or the care of horses in general, I would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the protestors. All I have ever seen within horse racing is love of the horse and concern for their well-being.
But rather than have annual repeats of what happened yesterday, why not allow them, for free, an advertising board where they can express their objections to our sport. I also wouldn’t be opposed to I.T.V. inviting a spokesperson for their views to Aintree for a discussion with people like A.P., Ruby or Alice Plunkett. If we engage with these people perhaps a form of conciliation might emerge. After all, it would be animal lovers engaging with animal lovers. The two opposing factions have so much in common, if only the protestors could understand that.
Although we did not get a controversy-free Grand National that would appear on national news for all the wrong reasons, we did get a worthy winner in Corach Rambler, the easiest winner in many years. A British, if Scottish, trained winner. Praise be! The Irish advance has finally been halted.

​Last night I dreamt that Diol Ker won the Grand National. That part of the dream may come true, only the jockey was called Connor, Miss Connor, the wonder-jockey. No other details, I am afraid. Dreams are mad, aren’t they?
In the past, I have had premonitions or instinctive thoughts that have come true but I have never found dreams to be a reliable source of finding winners. I admit that I do rely on instinct over studied form for inspiration. Not that I would trust instinct to provide me with a fortune. I am long way short on confidence in my own ability to live the life of a gambler.
I do, though, believe you can throw the form-book out of an open window when it comes to finding the winner. Corach Rambler is, according to the experts, 10Ibs ‘well-in’ and should by rights win ten-lengths. Yet should be clout the third, get pushed wide at the Canal Turn, not get a smooth passage thereafter and that 10Ibs becomes a worthless benefit.
Ben Nevis won in 1980 despite having coughed a few days before the race and only ran as so many people were crossing the Atlantic to see him run. When Last Suspect won, again trained by Tim Forster, Hywel Davies’s instructions were ‘keep remounting’. The form was not in the book for either to have a hope of winning. Nor was the intelligence that one was coughing and that the other held neither the confidence of the trainer nor the owner.
If you listen to the ex-champion jockeys who parade their expert opinion as part of the excellent I.T.V. team there would be no point in looking beyond the first half-dozen in the betting for your choice. None of them selected Noble Yeats last year, though he will be in many of their top three this time around when he must win with the burden of 18Ibs extra on his back. He may well win and I wouldn’t put anyone off him. Red Rum won with a similar weight in 1973 and backed-up the following year with 12-st. It can be done and Noble Yeats does have the cut of Red Rum about him as the longer the race the better he seems to travel.
Perhaps not so much these days but in the past old soldiers did eventually get their day in the Aintree glow, though in former times past winners tend only to run with distinction in subsequent efforts. Team Spirit won in 1964 at his fifth attempt. In normal circumstances, though, the winner usually goes to the Grand National completely ignorant of all the equine trauma associated with becoming a legend of the sport.
An aspect of the Grand National that curls my lip is when a ‘form expert’ spunkily exerts his authority on the subject by declaring a horse a ‘no-hoper’, as if he has not bothered to go beyond the previous three or four years of the history of the race. Mon Mome was a ‘no-hoper’, remember and turned out to be a memorable winner of the race. It is why we must not rule out Diol Ker on the basis that he is, in places, priced at 100/1 and that in my dreams he won with Connor the wonder-jockey riding him. And nobody say in response ‘Aint That A Shame’ that dream isn’t coming true, as you will have to go all in on Rachel Blackmore hogging the headlines again.
When the weights were announced back in February, my instincts stopped my eye at Lifetime Ambition. He has been trained all season with the Grand National in mind, a plan set in motion as far back as last season. Robbie Power declared him a ‘Grand National type’, he is trained by Jesse Harrington, a great trainer who has won everything else and provides the obligatory ‘story’ as she is currently battling breast cancer. He had good form as a novice, he has jumped the Aintree fences in the past and though I am hoping the ground will dry out from the soft of yesterday, I refuse to be dissuaded of his chances just because no expert has so far not even mentioned his name. Perhaps they know something I do not.
The only fly in the ointment of my premise is that for the past couple of weeks, after a trawl through the form, the name Capodanno has emerged from the depths of what is left of my brain cells to confuse the situation. As with Lifetime Ambition, he too has good novice chase form, perhaps superior form to most of the runners. He won at Punchestown last May, though has only run once since. The Mullins’ team rate him a potential Gold Cup horse and though Townend has gone for Gaillard Du Mesnil, would the genius Willie be running a horse they hold in high regard in the Grand National just to get him right for Punchestown? And surely, Danny Mullins would be on Carefully Selected if they thought he had a better chance than Capodanno? And Willie Mullins is a genuine genius, remember. Lack of a previous run has never stopped a horse of his in the past and that’s the thinking denting my confidence in Lifetime Ambition.
The one British-trained horse I have a fancy for is The Big Breakaway, even though he pulled-up at Cheltenham and was a hard ride when Brendon Powell excelled on him earlier in the season at Haydock. Aintree might enthuse him into running into some place money.
Let’s hope and prayer for a worthy winner, with a good, even, first-time start, with no controversy, no protestors, with every horse and jockey taking part without need of veterinary or N.H.S. care in the aftermath. Crossed-fingers and good luck to everyone involved.

​It was a bizarre sight, wasn’t it? Nico sitting still, more interested, seemingly, in watching himself on the big screen than what was unfolding behind him, his rivals rowing away more in hope than expectation, their horses going as fast as their legs would allow and yet not gaining an inch on Constitution Hill. And when they did gain an inch, as if to break their hearts, Nico let out half-an-inch of rein and the distance between Pegasus reborn and the ordinary equine mortals in pursuit immediately grew. The phrase ‘poetry in motion’ must have been coined by a soothsayer with Nico and Constitution Hill in mind.
I hope when describing the programme for Constitution Hill next season Nicky Henderson was teasing the press and the public and that the Fighting Fifth, Christmas, International and Champion Hurdles are not at the forefront of his mind. To me, Constitution is a chaser. For one, he jumps like a future chaser, and for two he can stand-off outside the wings but if the stride isn’t there for a display of flamboyance he can shuffle his feet like a tap-dancer and still not touch a twig.
There is another reason why he should go chasing next season – the hurdling division, which is already poor, will become even less competitive as trainers with possible contenders for Constitution Hill’s crown take the decision to avoid ‘the unbeatable’ by going novice chasing and the sport will be poorer. As it is, Constitution Hill will be winning four and five-runner races next season and that will doubtless include the big one at Cheltenham. For the good of the sport Constitution Hill should go novice chasing.
Trueshan is on the decline, apparently. That is, seemingly Alan King’s opinion, and he should know better than any of us. He should have gone past Rajinsky at Nottingham and seemingly couldn’t. My thoughts are thus: if Rajinsky goes and wins, for example, the Chester Cup or a Group race like the Sagaro, then the form of the Nottingham race will look a lot sweeter than it does at first glance. Also, and Alan King would know this better than you or I, as horses get older, they invariably need more work to get them cherry-ripe, even needing a race or two. A dry summer and all plans for Trueshan will be scuppered. And what is the future for Trueshan if Alan King’s fears prove correct? Retirement aged only 7? The answer is hurdling. At some point in a National Hunt season the ground will be soft. It certainly will not be firm. Sea Pigeon won Champion Hurdles aged 10 & 11 in an age when there were plenty of high-class and ex-Champion hurdlers around. He also won Ebor and Chester Cups at an age in an excess of Trueshan’s age now. The future could still be bright for Trueshan if Alan King adopts the spirit of the golden age of hurdling. And, even if he stays on the level this season, with Kyprios out of the picture and a wet summer as likely as not, the Ascot Gold Cup might yet find its way to Barbary Castle.
The future is not as bright, I fear, for British racing if the incompetent B.H.A. go ahead with their plan for a premiership-style programme for weekend racing next season. Let’s make one aspect of this debate plain, the cluttered summer weekend programme is a direct result of the B.H.A. allowing so many racecourses, usually the top-end racecourses, to have meetings going head-to-head as if feasting on custard donuts and steak and kidney was unlikely to cause congestion.
There is merit in overhauling the flat programme; I have advised this course of action many times over the years but not at the expense of those smaller racecourses that work their butts off trying to attract regular and newer people to the sport by throwing dollops of money at the problem. Returning the Epsom Derby, for instance, to the first Wednesday in June, would free up the following Saturday and Sunday to allow the likes of Musselburgh and Salisbury to have a day in the sun.
And that’s the thing, for me. De-cluttering the weekend programme to allow greater focus to fall on the classic races and major Group 1’s is, on its own, a good idea and should be trialled. But to throw out the baby with the bathwater would be scandalous and detrimental to the future of the sport. What the B.H.A. are claiming is that the sport can only attract new people to the sport through the monitor of televisions, laptops and I-phones. For two-thirds of the year there is no terrestrial coverage of horse racing and fewer people follow the sport on designated racing channels than the number I.T.V. attracts. 
I would suggest that the ‘premiershipping’ of racing only takes place on 3 out of every 4 weekends, with the sport once a month highlighting the smaller courses that leave no stone unturned, as with Musselburgh, to stage good-quality racing and with a high-level of prize-money, especially when they are catering for the owner and trainer that represent the bedrock of the sport. It is about being fair to all and not leaving the impression that the minor racecourses can go to wall as a sacrifice for the greater good of those who dine at the top table.
This ‘go ahead with any half-baked scheme somebody proposes’ is exactly why the B.H.A. is failing the sport. It is not their idea; they are never the originator of workable ideas; the premiership proposal came from Peter Savill. It has merit, I admit, but if its implementation means a death-knell to country racecourses then it must be rigorously opposed. 

​In yesterday’s Racing Post, 12/04/23, Lee Mottershead wrote, as always, a wonderfully well-documented account of the ‘Grand National that never was’, a term that Lee Mackenzie takes credit for first using as he tried to commentate for B.B.C. radio on a race that to this day is a source of embarrassment for any one who holds the race dear to their heart.
On Saturday afternoon, as my Grand National rituals decree, long before the approach of sunset, I will draw the heavy living-room curtains closed so my attention will not stray to the annoying normality of the street outside. (Don’t those people walking about and driving their cars realise the significance of the hour?) And I will unplug the landline. My mobile is, by the way, ancient technology, nowhere close to being ‘smart’ and doubtless, evidence of my preference for aloneness at all times and dislike of being contacted at any moment convenient to others, uncharged or even out-of-credit, and will go unheeded if it should shatter the reverence of what is to come. Nothing in life matters more to me than the history to unfold at Aintree.
It is easily imaginable the fury that raged inside me as the farce progressed that inglorious day with both savage mockery and vile intent. Even now, important jump races are seemingly difficult to start, with officials allowing jockeys to line-up so far from the tape, making it so much easier for horses to break into a canter, pushing the starter to wave his little flag, creating a wave of disappointment to stretch from the jockeys to the grandstands. At 5.15 on Saturday late afternoon my heart will be in my throat in fear of another debacle, another humiliation for the sport.
What if one of the horses that ‘took part’ in ‘the Grand National that never was’ had suffered a fatal injury or if a jockey had suffered a career-ending fall? Would the subsequent inquiry have come to the same conclusion; that basically the recall flag man was to blame? The Jockey Club were to blame; they own Aintree, they are custodians of the Grand National; Keith Brown was their employee; the starting procedure was put in place by them. Every aspect of that race was conducted on their terms, from the starting procedure to the confusion after the race as to ‘what to do next’. Voiding the race was the easy way out. Not rescheduling was a crime against the sport. Still, though, even though Lee Mottershead’s article was excellent in every other respect, the flag man remains the guilty party.
The anger that banged on my heart that day and for the weeks of the aftermath has lessened but if an autopsy is performed on my lifeless body, I swear the pathologist will find a grave-marker for the ‘Grand National that never was’. The race should have been rescheduled. Perhaps that was the lesson that was learned when the I.R.A. bomb threat resulted in the evacuation of the racecourse? Postpone not abandon? Perhaps, and this idea comes too late for this year, why not have a computerised re-run of the race as I.T.V. have organised and televised for the past few years? Nonsense, of course, and in no way will it be compensation for those connected to Esha Ness, nor will it be closure for what I believe to be the greatest humiliation the sport has ever imposed on itself.
I fail to understand why a horse is entered for the race, left in through all the forfeit stages and then, as Grand National fever begins to build, is declared a non-runner and directed toward another race. Yes, Venetia, I think of Royal Pagaille and the decision to go to Fairyhouse that went tits up. I also fail to understand the owner that says ‘I wouldn’t run a horse in the Grand National as it is dangerous and I would hate to see him/her hurt’. Sadly, horses can suffer injury and death on every racecourse in the country. Sadly, fate can intervene on a quiet lane, in a stable, on the gallops, in a paddock. Reintroduce wolves into the wild and soon enough a horse will be predated. To my mind, if a horse is suited to the course and the race, no horse is too precious to run at Aintree.
What is precious is the race itself and Aintree. Those of religious faith, please pray for a good race, a worthy winner, a race without injury for jockey and horse, for the sport to suffer no embarrassment or humiliation that features on mainstream news or requires a subsequent inquiry. 
My heart has no more room for grave-markers that tell a tale of self-inflicted cock-ups.

​I’m old. Or, at least, older than a man should be if he wants to remain useful for any purpose other than using up resources better suited to the ‘know-everything-woke-youth that represents the greying future’. Anyway, advancing age is my only viable excuse for looking to the past to understand the failings of the present and the horror I might observe from my grave of a world without horses and racing. 
I live this week, the week of the Grand National, in similar vein to way the truly religious, and there’s not too many of them around these days, treat religious festivals. There are rituals to be observed, form to be read, silent prayers to be said for every horse and jockey to return unscathed and more personal/selfish prayers than for mankind to suddenly overnight become humane and peace-loving, and re-runs of past Grand Nationals on YouTube to refresh the memory of the black and tan days when Aintree could seem at times like a war-zone, with jockeys the soldiers, the horses shell-fire and on-lookers ghosts of a long-gone age. To intelligently look forward, past events must be observed with a kind eye, lessens learned, not condemned with a misunderstanding appraisal of the lives of our forebears.
Perhaps it is the rituals I uphold that prevents me from letting go of the past? The older a man gets, it seems, the more vital past memories become. To me, the Epsom Derby should revert to being run on the first Wednesday of June, with Parliament in recess in the afternoon to allow M.P.’s to attend the races; for all the benefit all-weather racing brings to the sport, I cannot help but believe in time it will be seen as the nail that sealed the coffin; and the modern-day Grand National, though I love it still, has become a silver-plated replica of its glory years.
The glory years of the Grand National, I contend, culminated with Red Rum, its greatest hero, equine or human. 1977 was the last of the glory years. Twelve-years before Red Rum create racing and sporting history with his unprecedented and unlikely ever to be repeated third victory, an American horse came to Aintree to achieve an ambition that began in 1912, the year Jerry M succeeded at Aintree under Ernie Piggott. 
Of course, it is merely a quirk of history that the grandfather of the immortal Lester achieved his fame in the same year as Harry Worcester Smith arrived at Liverpool Docks in his quest to achieve his sporting ambition to win the Grand National. He was a very wealthy man, not that Aintree has any respect for money or title, treating all its apparent conquerors with lofty disdain. Worcester Smith failed to conquer Aintree, as did his son who followed soon after.
Between Harry Worcester Smith and his grandson’s attempt at sporting immortality, American-owned horses did succeed at Aintree, with the small but mighty Battleship and Kellsboro Jack winning the race. But no American jockey had ever won the race.
Jay Trump was never destined to be a Grand National winner. He was a cast-off from the (then?) brutal dirt tracks, a survivor of a racetrack accident, graphically described in her wonderful book ‘The Will To Win’ by Jane McIlvane, and bought for a comparative song by Tommy Smith for Mary Stephenson because he was the only horse he half-liked for the money he had to spend.
Of course, to achieve the dream the American horse defeated ‘our’ favourite steeplechaser, Freddie, second in two successive Grand Nationals, himself a fairy-tale horse as he was an ex-hunter, owned and trained by a Scottish farmer, Reg Tweedie. I don’t think I truly forgave the American invader until I read Jane McIlvane’s book and became aware of the epic scale of the unlikely victory, of how the horse repaid in spades the kindness and love of the people who rescued him from the ‘hell’ of his previous life.
Not only had Jay Trump won the Maryland Hunt Cup over timber on two occasions but as if that and a Grand National victory were not enough to cement his name in U.S. racing history, the year after winning at Aintree he returned and won a third Maryland Hunt Cup, as if to remind his former rivals that, despite having to learn to jump in a different style in Britain, he was still king of the timber rails. As with his jockey, he retired that day, watched by Fred Winter who trained both the horse and jockey, and who had just won his second Grand National with Anglo, the first horse Tommy Smith had sat at Fred’s stables in Lambourn, and promptly fell off.
Yes, sadly, the Grand National on Saturday will be exciting as always, a wonder to behold, and it will provide a ‘story’, and doubtless an ambition will be achieved, but it will be a replica of the glory days when spirited amateurs could dream of fulfilling their grandfather’s dream with a cast-off horse bred for the backwaters of U.S. dirt tracks and fast-track the training career of one of Britain’s greatest jockeys.

​Can someone please tell me if Capodanno is running on Saturday. In the Grand National, I mean, not running around a paddock at Closutton. Or on Willie Mullins’ famous deep Wexford sand gallop. If he is going to run, would Willie have informed J.P. or Mark Walsh by now? Or is this another of Willie’s inspired last-second decisions? Is he keeping Mark Walsh guessing, as well as you and me, so that he'll go with Any Second Now, just to get a ride confirmed, allowing Willie to put Paul Townend on Capodanno, as Paul sure isn’t going to choose the mercurial, some would say, quirky and devilish, Mr. Incredible, named no doubt after Willie himself, who the bookies and punters seem to think is Closutton’s best chance of victory. If Capodanno is an option, can you see Townend choosing Gaillard Du Mesnil or Carefully Selected?
Imagine if you are the one who looks after Capodanno. You have never been to Aintree and day in day out for months you have seen Willie slowly working his magic on your pride and joy, taking him from nearly crocked to the shiny magnificent beast you lay your hands on every evening. You might even have backed him ante-post, ten euros here, ten euros there, building your stake until you are now sitting on enough potential winnings to buy a car in the same vein as Willie’s or Paul’s. Willie must tip the wink to someone in the stable, surely.
And how about me? How can I dream of wiping out the local bookmaker if I’ll not know until the final seconds before declaration time that Capodanno is in Liverpool, primed for 5-15 in the late afternoon? One thing we can be sure of, if Capodanno is at the start he’s not there for the fun of it. He’ll be there because Willie believes he is fit enough to do himself justice; fit enough to win.
Yes, I’m wavering in my support for Lifetime Ambition. I am believing Capodanno is the best horse in the race. Better than Any Second Now. Better than Noble Yeats. Good enough to give the weight to Corach Rambler. I’m not even concerned that he has had only one run since Punchestown last year. I’m not even concerned that it seems improbable that the same trainer, jockey and owner can win both the Irish and Aintree Grand Nationals in the same week. I would be bullish if only Willie would tip me the wink. I would be overflowing with bull if I knew Townend was riding Capodanno as the man is riding out of his skin at the moment. He was a magician on I Am Maximus at Fairyhouse. No, he was more than a magician – he was superman. I didn’t think he would win at any point in the race. He lifted the horse home; practically carried him on his back.
Ordinarily I am sick of Mullins winning everything. On Saturday, though, I am 100% a Closutton disciple. 

The good news for the coming flat season is that the King has a very good 3-year-old colt. A classic possible, no less. But not, it seems, the Derby prospect bookies and punters have led us to believe all winter. I hoped fate was going to allow the King to win the one classic that eluded his mother, though now I hope Slipofthepen will emulate Pall Mall who gave the late Queen her first classic by winning the 2,000 Guineas, run on the same day as the King’s Coronation, which would be publicity for the sport that no amount of money could buy.
Not that the Gosdens are making any definite plans to aim Slipofthepen at the Newmarket classic. He has other fish to fry before he firms up plans for any of his likely 2,000 Guineas candidates. And if Slipofthepen does head to Newmarket it is going to give Frankie an almighty headache, given he has signed on the imaginary dotted line to ride Chaldean in the 2,000 Guineas.
To return to the Grand National. It seems pretty likely we will have a field of 40 on Saturday, though whether it will be the top forty as of now is uncertain. Imagine how Martin Keithley is feeling and Harry Redknapp, trainer and part-owner of Back on the Lash, a horse now with the guarantee of getting a run, yet, with the ground likely to be soft and him being in want of good ground, the risk might outweigh any benefit? This is, though, is the magic of the Grand National, and neither can be sure if they will ever get the opportunity to take part again. 

​Apropos of nothing at all, I make the following statement: If Crisp had run in any good-ground Grand National of the past 20-years, with or without Richard Pitman’s supposed error of judgement at the Elbow, he would have won, especially since the reduction in race distance, and I include the years Tiger Roll won the race.
Some would categorise the 1973 Grand National, the greatest horse race ever run according to me, and without doubt, according to me, the greatest individual performance by any horse during my lifetime, as a tragedy, given the hero didn’t win. Others would claim the 1973 Grand National epitomises the great historical romance of the race, given the winner was owned by an octogenarian and trained by a used-car salesman.
We have had tragedies in the Grand National before and since, in fact any time a horse loses its life taking part in the race I classify it as a tragic event. We had the Grand National that never was: human incompetence of a level never before seen at a sporting event. We had the mayhem of the evacuation after a bomb threat. We had the pointlessness of losing the race due to covid-insanity.
Occasionally, the Grand National provides farce or comedy as with the pile-up at the fence after Bechers in 1967 that allowed Foinavon to go from the obscure to a horse of legend whose name will live-on in perpetuity. In sanitising the race, even if done with the best of intentions, the race has diminished, even in the eyes of this naïve fool who loves the race beyond every other aspect of life.
Where will we find the romance this year. There might be tragedy; it is beyond the wisdom of any human to be able to control the fates. And there might be a ‘story’, the type journalists can plan for and have partially written even now, six-days before horses and jockeys line-up for the race. You can bet your bottom dollar that Ed Chamberlain has already e-mailed his I.T.V. colleagues to flag-up the likely ‘stories’ of the race. Would Any Second Now be a true story if he should win? Unlucky two-years ago and trained by Ted Walsh, father of Ruby, part of the I.T.V. team. Noble Yeats winning two-years in succession? Lifetime Ambition, his trainer Jesse Harrington being treated for breast cancer? Minella Trump, another winner for the McCains?
In my ignorance, I may have missed a potential journalistic story. And, of course, a last-minute drama might occur that thrusts a lesser-known jockey into the limelight. And, of course, a syndicate-owned-horse might prevail, with the possibility of a road-sweeper, poultry-keeper or retired pensioner providing the ‘human element’. But to all extent and purpose the romance of the Grand National is, if not yet dead, comatose. 
The Grand National is no longer the setting for small-time owner/breeders, the workaday trainer or the journeyman jockey, to become heroes or heroines, even if for one day. We no longer have runners from the U.S., France, Japan or Russia, as in the past. And that is sad. Sad for them, sad for the race and sad for the sport. It is yet another example of elitism inflicting unheralded harm on the sport.
The information now provided is pickpocketed from a book every Grand National enthusiast should have on their bookshelves ‘Go Down To The Beaten’ by the excellent Chris Pitt.
Elsich was described by Chris Pitt, not without good cause, as the worst horse ever to run in the race. The sort of horse that in those days, and we are now in 1946, the first Grand National after the 2nd World War, could be classified as a member of the Society of Lost Causes. He was ridden by an unfashionable, jockey by the name of Bill Balfe, who, though desperate to ride in the race, might have refused the ride if he had known that in a race the previous day the jockey riding Elsich had jumped off him on the flat after jumping only two-fences. Not the type of horse anyone would want running in a Grand National these days, I accept.
Yet journey forward to 1976 and an equally obscure jockey by the name of Keith Barnfield got his opportunity on Ormonde Tudor, a horse that had eleven different trainers in eleven-years of racing. He fell at the first fence. But Barnfield had received his opportunity for a shot at fame.
In 1973 Peter Cullis got his shot at fame on Mill Door, finishing last in the greatest horse race ever run, though he would have finished closer if not brought to a stop by loose horses running amok at the fourth-last.
John Foster, Sam McComb, John Hudson, Buck Jones, Val Jackson, Dai Tegg, Billy Worthington, Simon Burrough and other journeyman jockeys got their once-in-a-lifetime chance at a shot at fame. As did amateurs and adventurers like the grand old Duke of Alburquerque. 
I accept the Grand National must be protected from the ignorance of the baying anti-everything brigade, and lessening the severity of the iconic fences has produced less ‘carnage’ and, more importantly, fewer riderless horses and unlucky stories. But when the conditions of entry, to a great extent, deny all but the top-end of the pyramid from competing, the race is stripped of part of its appeal as a race that ‘stops a nation’. 
I do not yearn for ‘pile-ups’ as in Foinavon’s year or, as in the deep past, when only one or two-horses finished the race. It is sensible that jockeys are no longer allowed to remount. And it is sensible to limit the number of runners to 40 rather than 66 as in 1929. What I do yearn for, though, is for romance to have the same opportunity as tragedy to provide the headline for the race; for the small-time owner, workaday trainer or journeyman jockey to dream. As I dream myself that before I die, I might inherit in one way or another enough money to own a Grand National runner myself.

​To begin, a topic only very loosely connected to the world’s greatest horse race. 
‘When I was young, before I needed any one’, the racing week consisted, in the main and outside of Easter, Christmas and Whitsun – what has happened to Whitsun? – two meetings per week-days and perhaps four on a Saturday. There was no all-weather racing, Sunday racing, summer jumping and far fewer evening meetings. At least, that is how I remember the days of my youth.
The base reason for the overall non-competitiveness of British racing and the poor level of prize-money can be attributed to those four factors, though at this present-time you can add to the mix the cost-of-living crisis that accounts for fewer horses in training. Bemoaning the downslide in racecourse attendance, for which an added contributor might be our excellent dedicated racing channels, which the Racing Post is over-willing to highlight, yet failing to mention the reasons above, when the cost-of-living crisis is the main contributing factor for race-goers limiting their race-days, is a hindrance to finding a solution. At least, to my way of thinking.
While no one should criticise any attempt to boost prize-money, and Arc are to be congratulated for the money on offer at Bath, Lingfield and Newcastle, yesterday, it really should only be seen in context of one sunny summers’ day in a week of downpours. In the present crisis, all-weather racing, especially all-weather racing in the summer, is more the problem than the solution.
Aintree.
The current weather forecast suggests a soft-ground Grand National. Without being hot, the weather for the Liverpool area does seem conducive to grass growth, so the clerk of the course should not have the same issue to counter as her colleagues at Cheltenham and Doncaster recently. Soft-ground, though, will doubtless provide fewer finishers, an emphasis on stamina and perhaps a long-shot winner. Not good news for my big hope, Lifetime Ambition who ‘the experts’ disregard as being devoid of the stamina required.
For sweepstake purposes, I suppose, 40-runners lining-up can be considered essential. But less than that number should not be seen as the race losing popularity and esteem. The Grand National has not always attracted a full-field of 40 and in the days before health and safety was invented the number of runners could swell into the sixties. What a sight that would have been as the horses thundered to the first?
In 1875 only 19 horses faced the starter. In 1882 only12. In 1894 only 14. I have taken those dates at random from Reg Green’s fantastic book ‘A Race Apart’ and I am aware there might be occasions when even fewer horses ran in the race. Into the first decade of the 20th century field sizes grew into the lower and middle 20’s, with 35 being achieved in 1921. 37 ran in 1927, won by Sprig, with the unlucky Bovril second. In 1928 42-horses ran, with only 2 completing, Tipperary Tim and the American horse Billy Barton remounted to finish second.
Incidentally, until 1929, the Canal Turn was a ditch, not the plain fence it is now. In 1929, 66-horses (I wasn’t joking or messing with you) went to post, with 10 finishing the race. In this period, for a number of years, 40 became the norm for the race, though in 1936 only 36 ran and only 34 the following year. Nobody, though, were throwing themselves into Bechers Brook bewailing the demise of the great race. Though that may have been the case in 1935 when only 27 took part with Reynoldstown winning the first of his two Grand Nationals.
The theory, evidenced in 1928 when 42 ran and only two finished, was messed with in 1947 when 57 took part and 16 finished, won by the 100/1 shot Caughoo. Incidentally, at the request of the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, the race was run for the first time on a Saturday. Although the idea did not catch on with immediate effect, it was determined later that Clement Attlee was on to something and Saturday did indeed become the adopted and now traditional day of the week to hold the race.
In 1952, 47 ran, won by Teal, but in the years following runners dropped to 31, 29, 30, the 3-years of Vincent O’Brien domination, 29, 35, 31, 34, and only 26 when the race was first televised by the B.B.C. in 1960, with only 8 completing the race.
During the Red Rum years, the field sizes were 38, of which 17 completed, 42, of which 17 completed, 31, of which 10 completed, 32, of which 16 completed and in the most historic renewal of the race in its history 42 faced the starter in 1977, of which 11 completed.
Between 1972 and 1983 field sizes flexed between 28 and 47, with runners limited from 1984 at 40 and in that year 23 completed the course.
There is a chance this year that we might have less than 40-runners, especially if the ground is soft-to-heavy. But that will be okay. No one should lose sleep over it. Conditions of entry are the cause, with so many obvious Grand National type of horse unable to get into the race, whilst too many ‘has beens’ enabled into the race. And don’t think fewer runners equates to fewer fallers and more finishers. It doesn’t work like that at Aintree. 
Aintree is a law unto its self.