The grand shame of the Grand National protestors

When jockey Derek Fox came over from Ireland to join the Scottish stable run by Lucinda Russell and her partner, Peter Scudamore, the long-time champion rider, he was teaching himself to read via texts on his phone. Now he discusses books with Scu. Cleverness comes in different shapes and it was a supremely intelligent ride Fox gave Corach Rambler to win this year’s Grand National, just as he did winning two Ultima Chases at Cheltenham on the same horse.

The same close-knit team won the National six years before with One For Arthur but this time Fox’s participation was in doubt until just hours before the race when, after completing a series of press-ups, he finally declared himself recovered from a shoulder injury. He had given up a cherished ride on the other stable favourite Ahoy Senor to Brian Hughes earlier in the week to make sure he made it for the big race. You couldn’t have a better example of mutual trust between trainer and jockey. When the injury occurred, Lucinda revealed that: ‘Scu and I went to Corach’s box and said to him “Derek’s had a fall”. Can you believe that, we’re supposed to be professionals! He looked really worried! He said, “I know Brian Hughes is a champion jockey but I just want Derek!” That’s how mad we are anyways!’ That’s a kind of madness I relish.

This column should have been a joyful celebration of such madness. I would like to have dwelt on Gordon Elliott’s shrewdness in realising they were pushing things too fast with novice hurdler Irish Point and backing off a Cheltenham preparation so that he came to Aintree cherry ripe to give Davy Russell his last winner before his second retirement. I wanted to note how his National day double with West Balboa and 15-2 Midnight River (one of this column’s Twelve to Follow) underlined the relentless advance of the Dan Skelton team which will soon be rapping on the castle gates of Messrs Nicholls and Henderson. Resisting the temptation of the strong mares’ races at Cheltenham with West Balboa was the epitome of patient race planning.

I wanted too to record Warren Greatrex’s emotional reaction to the victory of Bill Baxter in the Topham. After early success with the likes of Cole Harden and La Bague Au Roi, he’s had a lean couple of years and the deaths of two staff members to cope with. This was a triumph by a put-you-back-on-the-map horse whom he rides out himself: the night before he’d told the owner he would withdraw him if it didn’t rain, but it did.

Sadly, although Aintree’s Grand National fixture is the best organised race meeting in the western world and the authorities coped effectively with the ‘animal rights’ protestors who delayed the National start, I cannot, after the headlines caused, avoid giving them the attention they do not deserve. I understand the emotions which stir some: I too give to animal charities and take injured birds to the pet hospital. Part of me wants to sit the protestors down in a stableyard of cosseted racehorses and have Scudamore stand in front of them to voice the passion and the privilege (a word he regularly and significantly uses) he and Lucinda feel in looking after these magnificent animals and explaining what a fine life they lead.

After the National, Lucinda declared of Corach Rambler: ‘He loves the sport. He loves everything he does and he is kept in the best conditions.’ But alas I don’t think the protestors would be open to argument. I suspect that for many of them the objective is not so much to avoid what they perceive as the suffering of animals involved in sport (and horses do compete naturally) as to deny pleasure to the millions who enjoy watching them race, millions whom they wrongly perceive as belonging to a particular class.

Racing folk as ever passionately hoped it would be an injury-free National. Even over obstacles that have been eased, a single horse death is still one too many. But ironically the protestors may well have been at least a contributory factor to the death of Hill Sixteen in this year’s race. Jockey nerves are always tense before the National start and those nerves transmit themselves to their mounts. Delaying the start, with the horses taken back to the pre-parade ring and out again, only intensified the tension.

Hill Sixteen was an experienced horse. He had twice jumped round the National course without mishap but with the delay he got in a right lather. According to his angry trainer, Sandy Thomson: ‘He got absolutely hyper and we washed him off. He just hasn’t taken off at the first fence: he’s got so bloody hyper after all the carry-on.’

I am with him. Looking back at the previous year’s Grand National with no protest-occasioned delays, a total of two horses fell at the first two fences. This year five went at the first obstacle and three more at the second. That it then became a rough race with many unseats was partly down to riderless early fallers causing havoc.