still no child-like aintree excitement.

​I think for the first eight or nine-years of my life, might be ten, though I doubt it as the names of all the runners in the 1964 renewal are as fresh in my mind as if it were ‘only yesterday’, not that I can recall everything I did yesterday. I digress. 
Anyway, in my early years I lived happily in ignorance of the Grand National, yet since my awakening to the great race, it has dominated my life and focused my attention from publication of entries to every dearly-loved second of the build-up and the race itself. That steadfast engagement has withered this time around, as if I am suffering from a rare illness. Perhaps it is the first stages of ‘getting old syndrome’. But it just does not feel like we are ten-days away from the next instalment of the Grand National.
As an aside, back in the days of young life, aged ten and onwards, for some reason I collected all the cards that in those days came in cigarette packets and, was it, cereal packets, and when I ran short of actual cards – they had fish and birds on them, if I recall – I cut cereal packets into the same size as the cards, writing the names of horses on them. That is why Purple Silk, Peacetown, Eternal, Pontin-Go, April Rose, Pappageno’s Cottage, Supersweet and others that ran in 1964 remain in my memory, whereas the names of more recent runners elude me. Could not remember Latenightpass a few days ago, for instance.
I dare say my lack of child-like excitement is caused by my belief that the Grand National is in the throes of being ‘run-down’, the policy of death by a thousand-cuts a signal that the end is nigh. I am not suggesting that a race bearing the name Grand National will not exist twenty or thirty-years down the line but it will be a facsimile of the real thing, as it already has become in many ways. Watch a recording of the 1964 race, won by Team Spirit at his fifth attempt, followed by a recording of last year’s race. Chalk and cheese. Yes, a race in the guise of the Grand National will exist as long as National Hunt continues as it is a cash-cow for Aintree and bookmakers.
But ask yourself this: does winning the Grand National change lives these days. It elevated Rachael Blackmore from a star of horse racing and into world-wide recognition and boosted her financial income, no doubt. But she is an outlier, for all she was already at the top bough of our sport.
When Tim Norman won on Anglo in 1966, he was practically an unknown and though he never went on to hit the heights Rachael Blackmore has achieved, winning the world’s greatest horse race boosted his career and until injuries stalled his progress, he was making money at the game. The same with John Buckingham the following year, his fifteen-minutes of fame extenuated by the pile-up at the fence now named after Foinavon.
Brian Fletcher made his name winning two Grand Nationals on the immortal Red Rum but when he won the race in 1968 on Red Alligator he was hardly known outside of the north of England.
In 1979, who had heard of Maurice Barnes or John Leadbetter, jockey and trainer of Rubstic? And when you go through the list of winning owners, you understand that winning the race was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. The little man could achieve glory; lives were changed because of winning the Grand National. It was a dream, back then, for every jockey, to win the Grand National and a privilege just to get a ride in the race. The odds were, of course, 100/1 that a journeyman jockey would win the race back then, sadly, those odds are a whole lot longer these days.
It is not so much that an Irish-trained horse is most likely to win the race, with very few English-based jockeys getting a ride this year, it is because the horses that the journeyman jockey rides through the season, even if they are reliable jumpers with an excess of stamina, will not have a high enough rating even to be entered in the race.
The Grand National has become a race for the elite of the sport and it should not be an exclusive club, and for the public that will become a turn-off. The romance of the race has all but been beaten out of it by the incessant tweaking and tinkering, the madcap desire to sanitise the race for woke public consumption. Becher’s Brook is just a landmark nowadays, nothing to be feared, no change in riding style required. The first ditch is lowered this year, removing its notoriety, the relief removed of your horse clearing the first of the ‘danger’ fences and showing hope that it has taken to the fences.
The odds are short that Gordon Elliott or Willie Mullins will win the race again as they could easily turn-out half the field by themselves, after all. Even if Lucinda Russell won the race with Corach Rambler it would be a case of winning the race again ….
Perhaps I am old; perhaps child-like enthusiasm is beyond me now; perhaps, God forbid! I have wearied of the race. Perhaps, and again, God forbid! the policy of death by a thousand cuts is not a work of fiction conjured from my mind but a real possibility, the real line of travel? If they keep cutting and lessening, people will not notice, will not remember the history, the immortal days of Red Rum, and, as with the lobster not knowing it is being boiled alive, the race is being purposefully guided towards a ‘natural death’?