THE DAY OF THE YEAR DAWNS.

​The day has come to us at last. It seems a life-time ago that One For Arthur thrilled us with his, seemingly, last to first run for glory and immortality. Today, though, is the day when the history of the sport may be rewritten. This might, just might, if fate unfolds in our favour, when a female first experiences the head-in-the-clouds and life-affirming sensation of winning the greatest horse race in the world. Maybe, just maybe. As long as one of those thirty-seven male jockeys doesn’t spoil the day, which, of course, they will do their damnedest to achieve.
Of course, if those virtual reality geeks have it right then the ladies Blackmore, Frost and Walsh will not get so much as a sniff of Aintree glory as their quirky animated prediction suggests Tiger Roll will win from Chase The Spud. But then in their idea of a race of champions over the Grand National fences they concluded that Red Rum was not the greatest of the greatest around Aintree as we were all quite certain he was and is but L’Escargot, a wonderful horse with two Gold Cups to his name, though in winning his Grand National he was receiving eleven pounds from Red Rum. And for some bizarre reason the algorithms and computer wizards concluded that against all the evidence Richard Pitman would be capable of holding on to Crisp for the whole length of the race when in reality Crisp was twenty lengths clear at Bechers and until Red Rum hauled him in at the shadow of the winning post the race was very much a one-horse affair. That day Crisp put up the greatest performance over those mighty fences and that was not reflected in virtual reality.
Today, though, is real life. Computers and wizards play only a very insignificant part in the lives of racehorses. If horses are fed, watered and generally loved and cared-for a horse tends to be happy with life. They are even happy when displaying grumpiness and displeasure at the oddness of the ways people think horses should look, as with clipping and mane-pulling, because they know that when pull-comes-to-shove the horse usually has the upper hand or hoof. If Milansbar or Tiger Roll decide that Aintree is really not their thing neither Bryony Frost nor Davy Russell will be able to muster any magic to right the situation. In reality Aintree is a purveyor of dreams and nightmares in equal measure.
The media will have you believe that the Grand National is all about backing the winner but it is as far from a spectacle mounted on financial aspiration as joy of creation is from an air strike on a capital city. Aintree is many aspects of life that in general have disappeared from both urban and rural life. It is a step back in time to the day when danger stalked the shadow of all men, women and children. In and around the Grand National real danger lies. The danger cannot be eliminated. For the horse and jockey the danger may in truth be no greater than a Monday at Plumpton or a Tuesday at Southwell but in the perception of a public that has no knowledge equine or racing the danger is as magnified as the sending of an astronaut to Mars. They do not fully understand the danger but they know it lurks at every fence, with Bechers, the Canal Turn, Valentines and the mighty Chair as dangerous as a minefield. They cannot see the joy at the heart of combatants who perhaps in simply being there are achieving a life’s ambition. Winning is not everything when it comes to the Grand National. It should be a lesson to us all.
Guy Disney said after finishing nearly last in the Foxhunters. ‘If there is one thing you could do every day of your life that would be it.’ Not finishing last, of course, but riding around the Grand National course. To fully and adequately explain Aintree you have to have experienced its dangers and its ever-lasting beauty, though I doubt even Ruby Walsh could do they place justice. I have never experienced Aintree and never will. I do not possess the backbone to appreciate the danger, the thrill even of riding into and over those big green fences. I do though possess the heart and imagination to appreciate raw beauty, the beauty, almost of wild and unexplored nature, the primordial thrill of just being there, a small insignificant part, perhaps, but knowing for that day, those brief nine or ten minutes when so much is unfolding it is impossible for the brain to compute all the invariables, I am at one with the people I most admire in the world. I am part of horse racing. I am part of the Grand National.
Finding the winner or getting my stake back is okay but it is a puff of wind compared to the hurricane of relief when the news come through that ever horse will return to their stables that night. I would rather the wait goes on for a female jockey to win the Grand National than have tears shed for the loss of a brave horse.
That, in essence, is what the Grand National is about, or should be. Caring deeply and passionately about the glory and personal ambition but caring more for the welfare of the animal that makes the fruition of all the dreams come true.