STARTS: AND THE WEIGHTS FOR THE GRAND NATIONAL.

​How difficult is it to start a horse race? Very. It seems, especially when it is an important race, a race that because of its importance draws an above average audience. Now, it has to be admitted that back in olden times, before starting stalls, though after the times of Fred Archer, false starts were commonplace, with races delayed sometimes as long as fifteen or twenty-minutes. We are talking, of course, of races on the flat, where a quick break is a great advantage. In those not-so far-off days horses would veer off at acute angles when the barrier was raised, barging into those closest to them and on occasion, especially when ridden by an apprentice, scattering horses to many of the cardinal points. Thank the Lord, or a change of heart by the Jockey Club, for starting stalls.
In National Hunt races it should be so much simpler, shouldn’t it? Why the starter did not let the Betfair field go first time of asking baffled me. Some, admittedly, were not exactly walking toward the tape, though no one was gaining an advantage or being troublesome. They were all facing forward, yet because a few of the runners were jogging the start was aborted and the farrago that is the standing start, with all the unfairness that comes with it, was ordered by the starter. Of course, the obvious front-runner, Not So Sleepy, was dealt the worst blow as instead of pinging the start he was trapped in behind a wall of horses, his chances ruined, the tactics given to the other jockeys by their trainers thrown to the wind, and  punters with ante-post bets and those who backed him on the day left with the same amount of hope as if they had backed a 100/1 outsider.
If the same scenario occurred in the last race at Warwick, or anywhere other than a big race on a Saturday or at Cheltenham or Aintree, the starter would have let them go. But this was Newbury on a Saturday, in front of the I.T.V. cameras and the starter followed the letter of the law as laid down by his employers. Every false start brings with it references to the nightmare of the Grand National that never was. Shambles then, shambles still.
All that is required to start a horse race over jumps is a designated box of some description laid out ten or fifteen yards in front of the starting tape, marked by broken white lines, piles of sawdust or even beams of red light, in which all the horses should be inside, heads facing in the direction of the tape, walking or jogging, the race started irrespective of whether the jockeys have succeeded in getting the noses of their mounts close to the starting tape. When the starter calls ‘under starters orders’ or whatever the signal is for the jockeys to prepare to race, it would be the jockeys responsibility to be inside the ‘box’, his horse facing in the right direction and under control. It is not rocket science.
Jockeys get blamed for mess-ups at the start, when really it is the procedure that is at fault.
 
The Grand National weights.
In my opinion Colin Tizzard should scratch Native River from the Gold Cup and aim him at the Grand National. How a Gold Cup winner, the winner of both his races this season, can receive weight from the likes of Bristol de Mai and Delta Work, two horses with a high level of form, though neither have won, or looked like going close to winning, a Gold Cup. Native River is now 10, to go to Aintree next year will be a year too late as common-sense dictates that at 11 he will not be the potent force he is now.
Not that Native River is the Tizzards only chance of winning this year’s race. My fancy all season for the Grand National has been Elegant Escape, though I would have liked a couple of pounds less. But he remains at the top of my list.
Three others who took my eye are Talkischeap on 10-11, Yala Enki on the same mark, though I wouldn’t want him to run in bottomless ground at Haydock on Saturday, and Burrows Saint on 10-10.
On my 10-to-follow list I took a chance with Traffic Fluide of Gary Moore’s, a horse I had marked down for last year’s race. Injury robbed him of even being entered last season and he is yet to run this time around, though he is entered at Ascot on Saturday. He might be thrown in on 10-3 and it is a tip in itself that Gary Moore is training him with only the Grand National in mind.
I always pick six on the day the weights are published and I complete my sextuplet of possible winners with Alpha Des Obeaux, set to carry 10-13. Two seasons ago, when ridden by Rachel Blackmore, he was jumping like a bunny until the Chair fence caught him out, and after Tiger Roll, if he runs, of course, which he might or might not, the scandal caused if he doesn’t run seemingly not affecting the O’Leary brothers one small jot,  he seems to be Gordon Elliott’s main hope.
So, in summary: if he runs, though not if he has a hard race in the Gold Cup, Native River will win. I do not expect him to run, though. So, if he doesn’t run, or has a hard race in the Gold Cup, Elegant Escape will win. To be followed home, if he takes to Aintree, by Yala Enki, Burrows Saint, Talkischeap, Traffic Fluide and Alpha Des Obeaux. On the day I hope to back at least three of them. The winner, no doubt, will come from one of the three I reject.