After the 2011 Grand National, I sided with the reformers who wanted changes to the use of the whip by jockeys. If racing is to survive we need bums on seats and have to be responsive to public opinion. In the continuing furore after this year’s National, I find myself in a different camp because most of the noise is coming from those who know nothing and would never go racing anyway.
The one thing we racing lovers were praying for in this year’s contest was an incident-free race with every horse coming home safe. That we were denied. Not only did According to Pete have to be put down when brought down by another horse when running loose after a fall, so did Synchronised, the most high-profile horse in the race since he had won this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, was ridden by the champion jockey Tony McCoy, was owned by the multimillionaire punter J.P. McManus and trained by the National Hunt hero Jonjo O’Neill.
Phone-ins hummed for days with the opinions of the emotional, the ignorant and, every now and then, with that rarity, the informed. Animal rights activists, ranging from those genuinely concerned with horse welfare to the crudest of class warriors, had their say, and once again racing played on the back foot.
Let me start with a question: has anybody suggested that because Piermario Morosini collapsed and died during an Italian Serie B football game or Fabrice Muamba suffered a cardiac arrest while playing for Bolton Wanderers that first-class football should be abandoned?
I accept it has limitations as a parallel. Footballers, those with brain cells anyway, make their own decisions, horses do not. But the key point is that we cannot eliminate risk from sport, or from life.
As regards the Grand National: first a few facts. Synchronised was not injured because he was driven beyond his limits: he was put down because he broke his leg not in the fall where he lost his jockey A.P. McCoy or even jumping another fence when running loose. The accident happened, to the enormous regret of his owner, trainer and jockey, on the Flat. He took a false step and shattered his leg. According to Pete was brought down by another horse, also when running loose. No regulation change could have prevented either death.
Scrap the National, scrap horse-racing, let horses run free in fields, say the ‘animal rights’ campaigners. But last week Great Endeavour, a quality chaser, was in a field owned by jockey Timmy Murphy, starting his summer holiday. No race was involved, there was no fence to jump, but he, too, broke a leg and died. Should we ban keeping horses in fields? Accidents happen and horses, because a broken leg in their case almost always means that life is unbearable or unsustainable, are especially vulnerable.
Fences are the problem, say the campaigners, for now. End jump racing. Keep it to the Flat. But at this year’s Dubai World Cup, where no horse has ever been asked to jump a single fence, three horses died.
To listen to the campaigners, you would think there was constant carnage. Every death is sad, as those of us who spend time with jockeys, trainers or stable staff are especially aware. But last year horses participated in jumping races on 94,776 occasions. From that number 181 horses received injuries that led to their deaths, a rate of 0.19 per cent. How does that compare with crossing the road?
Serious, organised, well-informed animal campaigners have won some improvements. Racing in the old days was too careless of the risks. But Aintree and the horse-racing authorities have responded to informed criticism with many changes designed to improve safety. Fences have been made less menacing, entry qualifications raised. Those changes need to bed in before more knee-jerkery. But we may even have gone too far: making the fences easier, some jockeys are warning, is making horses go faster and increasing, not diminishing, the injury risks.
What we seem to be forgetting, in an age when firemen are forbidden to wade into five-feet-deep ponds on health and safety grounds, is that the Grand National is not supposed to be like every other race: it is a unique sporting spectacle that engages the nation like no other and wins a TV audience far beyond any other race. It holds that position precisely because its fences are special, because at four miles-plus it is longer than other races and because more horses take part than in other races.
We are now at a turning point. Yes, let us have careful statistical surveys and annual reviews. If practical steps can be taken to reduce falls and injuries by, for example, eliminating drop fences where the landing point is lower than the take-off, let us implement them. But muck about much more with the Grand National and it won’t any longer be grand or national, it will be just another lengthy steeplechase that there is no point in anybody tuning in to watch. And then how many of the horses who race over jumps today will even exist, because there will be little point in breeding them in the first place. We have reached the point where racing needs to stand and fight.
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