National hysteria has gone too far

By Alan Conway

In the heat of the moment things are said which shouldn’t be. Last weekend was a case in point. The Aintree Grand National which was won by Ballabriggs was marred by the deaths of Dooneys Gate and Ornais. It was a sad day for the sport but the overreaction by some sections of the media was completely over the top.

It is true that the sight of an injured horse lying prostrate on the ground while the field circle their body is not one that racing wants to project. But sadly for the sport this will happen from time to time. It is an occupational hazard for people in racing and one that everyone understands and accepts.

The ill fortune for racing was that the deaths of the two horses took place on the day when racing is fully exposed to the viewing world. I very much doubt that if the deaths took place on a rainy day at Fontwell in December that they would garner the same kind of sensationalistic headlines.

Some of the blame has to lie with the media and the way in which the stories are written. They chose, in their own minds correctly, to go the shock and awe route to reporting the day’s events. They conveniently left out how Davy Russell helped Ballabriggs get rehydrated after the race. How he stayed with the horse to make sure he was ok even though he had no personal involvement with the horse.

As trainer Charlie Longsdon put it on his website “It just shows how jockeys are not just amazingly brave and tough professionals, but are also caring horsemen, who view the welfare for their horses as paramount to the welfare of the sport.”

There is no one involved in racing that wanted to see what happened at Aintree last weekend. Everyone involved with the two horses would have been heartbroken when they found out. Think of the owner. The horse would have been the apple of their eye and they were taken away from them. Think of the groom who put countless hours indeed years looking after their horse. That horse became part of their life and on Saturday they went home with an empty bridle. The other sections of the media seemed to have forgotten that.

On reflection the Aintree executive seem to be in a quandary as to how to go about altering the Grand National to appease the wider community. One school of thought is that the fences should be made less demanding. It has been well established that the Aintree fences bear little resemblance to what they were like years ago. If they alter the fences anymore then the race will be diluted and be robbed of what makes the race unique.

One suggestion that stands up somewhat is that the ground could be watered more to soften it up thus slowing the horses down and decreasing the chances of major accidents. While it is a good idea on paper we are still dealing with horses and if they fall awkwardly good ground or soft ground will not help them.

The events of Saturday won’t be forgotten but as Henrietta Knight said after Best Mate died. “He died doing what he enjoyed doing – and that was racing”. Those outside racing would do well to remember this.

By Alan Conway