The Aintree National as is.

A paltry entry number for the Aintree National this year is further proof that far from evolving into something better, the race is actually, year by year, going in a direction that will lead to the small numbers that lined-up for the race in the very earliest renewals of the race. The people do not, as the present clerk of the course might suggest, want a race fit for the elite but not the common man, but a race that resembles Grand Nationals of legend.
What annoys me most is that the Aintree executive, the Jockey Club, the racecourse management, the clerk of the course, did not have the guts to admit that the last true Grand National was run in 2012 or 2015 or whichever year it was decided that the opposition were right all along, that those who invaded the racecourse had a justifiable point – the Grand National was cruel, it was unacceptable to modern tastes. 
Why it could not be announced that the Grand National was no more and instead they would stage a race over a shorter distance, with fewer runners, with a higher qualifying mark, with Bechers Brook stripped of its reputation and with all the obstacles mere representations of those great and courageous horses and jockeys negotiated (or not) in its recorded history without quibble by participants.
Though questionable, honesty in the matter would have been forgivable. Instead, Aintree used the slowly boiled frog approach, methods now perfected by dishonourable politicians and the unelected elites of such murky institutions as the U.N., the W.H.O. and the W.E.F.. Freedom, liberty and human rights taken away a little bit here, a little there. Perfectly orchestrated misdirections so that the common man hardly notices the freedoms of former times being slow-boiled out of existence. It is all about saving the planet, they say, while those who impose such restrictions fly around the world in their private jets.
With Aintree, it was all about saving the money-cow.
It is said in the Racing Post today that if either Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott were to win the race again this year, they would take the prestige of being the winning-most trainer in the history of the race. I would take issue with this statement. The race this year is not the same race as when Red Rum ran in the race, as it was different from when Golden Miller honoured Aintree with his presence, and different in oh so many ways from when Cloister won the race.
You may argue, and you, I admit, will have a point, that over its long history the Grand National has evolved. They no longer jump stone walls, gallop through plough and fences are now jumped when in the past the final two obstacles were hurdles. The fences are no longer upright, though I will contend that until the fences were reduced to little green jumps, as many horses fell in the years between Golden Miller and 1960 as fell in the years up to and past year 2,000. Yet how far must evolution have to travel before it becomes a different species from the species of its forebears? 
I would not wish to have Aintree as it was in Cloister’s day or Golden Miller, and as in every race on every racecourse, I hate to see a horse lose its life in pursuit of my entertainment. All I really want is for Aintree to admit to the year they took the decision that the Grand National must die, to be replaced by what we have now, an Aintree National, a race more similar to a Scottish, Irish or Welsh National than the race Red Rum adorned with his brilliance.
Red Rum and Ginger McCain must roll in their graves at every running of the present race that in name only is the race they both loved with the passion of courageous adventurers.