So it’s been a bit of a hectic few days with emotions tumble-turning all over the place. First off: PANIC. The formatting of Keeping the Peace went haywire 48 hours before it was due to be published. Thankfully I have a friend who designed his own formatting programme and was able to quickly put KTP through the works and in the end it went live on amazon almost a day before I’d planned. Hurrah! Now cue the excitement and nerves. Yay – my favourite book so far (that I’ve written that is, my ego ain’t that big yet) is about to be shared with the world*. Nerves: will this book be a success? It’s had some great pre-release reviews but will people feel so kindly towards it when they’ve had to buy it?*
So with that lot swirling inside me, Saturday rolls around. Saturday was important for me for three reasons: firstly, weekends are sacred and should be treated as such. Secondly, I’m a horseracing fan and had to watch the Grand National. Thirdly, I’m a writer who’s just released a romance novel centred around the Grand National. I took a risk that the Grand National would go smoothly and no bad press could affect my sales...
Well, we all know how that panned out.
I was very upset after the National to think of the tragedies surrounding two great warriors like Synchronised and According To Pete. With the latter, I keep remembering his owners, an everyday family who bred him and raised him, and how she was on the verge of tears with pride beforehand. So it is easy to imagine the devastation his death would have had on them.
On top of that, the beating racing fans took afterwards from anti-Grand Nationalists just added to the hole of despondency I was in. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, I know, but I don’t like people telling me how I’m feeling and that I don’t love horses. I do, more than anything or anyone and there is nothing that makes me more proud than watching a grand servant like Neptune Collonges win the greatest challenge in horseracing and be recognised for the hero he is.
But when everyone’s upset, it’s easy for sensitive debates to get nasty, right? Racing gets defensive and lashes out and the label they are already branded with - the one that reads “cruel, greedy, selfish, unfeeling” sometimes looks fitting. But you tell me, when you’re upset, having thousands of fingers pointing blame at you and upsetting you even more, are you likely to say the right thing and should you be judged by that one scenario?
To be honest, I’m already a bit tired of this whole fiasco and like many have pointed out, we should let the dust settle before discussions should begin about improving the safety for everyone involved in the big race (just to clear one thing up: those screens which you saw when the runners bypassed one of the fences were protecting Noel Fehily, an injured jockey. It wasn’t Synchronised). So many opinions are being thrown around from one extreme to the other – from 'ban horseracing all together' to 'make the fences bigger and they’ll jump them slower and pay them more respect'... I thought I would add what I would like to see implemented. It is not necessarily what I think will happen.
First, is there a problem to be solved?
Well, since only one Grand National has been run since the modifications to the fences, we’re left with very few (and possibly fluke-like) statistics on which to judge their effectiveness. But two horses were fatally injured, and that is very much a problem.
Second, identify the problem.
It’s all well and good saying lower the fences, but is the height really what caused those horses’ deaths? No. It’s unclear whether Synchronised injured himself whilst running loose or jumping loose so he is unreliable evidence (apologies if that sounds rather coarse, I obviously think of him as more than just a piece of evidence) on the safety of the jumps. According To Pete jumped the fences perfectly, but was brought down by another horse. Again, the jump was only indirectly involved since it obviously played a part in bringing down the horse who brought Pete down.
Size is not the problem then. Speed then? Certainly, the faster you go the more at risk you are, but at the same time jockeys go that fast because they all want to get the safest position near the front on the inside. A bit of a double-edged sword really. And it’s many people’s belief, including jockeys that if you lower the fences, they are inclined to tackle them even faster than before. So we don’t want to do that!
Jumping prowess then? It’s been suggested that entrants should have completed a course of the National fences in order to become eligible. To show they’re up to the job. A reasonable suggestion until you try find statistics to back this up and here sadly, the complete opposite comes up.
Firstly, not just any horse can run in the Grand National – only the highest rated of those entered (of which the original field is hundreds) make the line-up and all of them have to have won over three and a half miles or more (either three and a half or three, I can’t remember for certain).
Then take a look at the results this year. The winner: Neptune Collonges, who didn’t put a foot wrong the whole way round, had never jumped those fences before in his life. The horse he beat by a whisker, Sunnyhillboy, hadn’t either. The third horse, Seabass hadn’t even been to Aintree before and the fourth horse, Cappa Bleu? You guessed it, he’s run at Aintree before but not over the National fences. So the horses who filled the first four places had never set eyes on those jumps but were still good and lucky enough to come out top.
On the other hand, we have the seasoned warriors like Black Apalachi, who was lining up over the National fences for the FIFTH time and who had come second to Don’t Push It in 2010, State Of Play taking part in his fourth Grand National, Westend Rocker competing in just his second Grand National but nonetheless had won the Becher Chase last year over the same fences – what happened to them? They either fell or blundered so badly that their riders were unseated.
So as reasonable as that suggestion is, there is nothing to suggest that National fence-jumping experience has anything to do with the result.
I have one last piece of ‘evidence’ that I think backs up why modifying the jumps is a waste of time and possibly more dangerous. There have been a few races already run over the course since the last modifications and before the Grand National: the Becher Chase in December (on heavy going), the Foxhunter’s Chase and the Topham Chase – there are possibly more but I can’t think of any right now. Three races over the same jumps, no fatalities.
What was the big difference? The size of the fields in my opinion.
Thirdly, how can the problem be solved?
Lessen the amount of runners and a) there’ll be less speed and scrimaging for position, b) runners will have a clearer view of their fences and c) less runners generally means less ratio of fatalities**.
The Grand National is not the same race it was 100 years ago, it’s not the same as it was 10 years ago, not even one year ago. It’s famous for more than just it’s age – it’s famous for the challenge it presents and that is why it is the most watched and recognised horserace in the world. If we continue to tinker with the jumps, that challenge is going to be so reduced that it is just going to be another horse race and nothing more. I don’t want the National to lose its historicism but at the same time I do want safety to be paramount. With fewer runners – say 25 or 30 – we would have a race that still presented a challenge but with fewer risks involved.
I don’t ignore the fact that horseracing carries deadly risks, but to be honest, living carries deadly risks too. In Keeping the Peace, which is a romance set against a National Hunt racing background, the heroine's main motivation is to run her horse in the Grand National.
Like in reality, I haven’t ignored the risks involved (it’s so tempting when you’re a fan of something with a less than perfect reputation to write about it in the most glowing terms), I’ve included them, and more I’ve tried to portray as best as I can how the people involved in the sport of horseracing react and respond in such circumstances.
I’ve also tried to bring across how horseracing does do good, how it can bring people together, change people’s and horses’ lives for the better and by the time you read those words ‘THE END’ I hope you’ll agree that I’ve portrayed racing in a balanced and truthful light.
That is the intention!
And just because I love the cover which was designed by Pro Book Covers so much, here it is again!
Keeping the Peace*excluding Asia of course. Come on, Asia! Get Kindling!
** sometimes freak accidents happen and a horse might very well get fatally-injured in a three-horse field, while as we’ve seen in the past, some 40-runner National fields have resulted in no fatalities at all.
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