The first races over the modified Aintree course take place on Saturday and as a test of the changes it can only be failed
Racing returns to Aintree this weekend, when National Hunt's most famous fences will be jumped for the first time since April's Grand National, a race that caused delight and distress to the sport in roughly equal measure. Ginger McCain, who died two months ago, was able to welcome one more National winner to the family home as Donald, his son, saddled Ballabriggs to success but it could be argued that racing is still paying the price for Jason Maguire's stick-happy ride on the winner, which surely added impetus to the British Horseracing Authority's inept attempt to rewrite the whip rules.
There were bypassed fences, too, for the first time in a National and overhead shots of vets treating stricken horses conveyed some of the harsher realities of the race for the first time to a huge television audience. Horses were seen being drenched with water after crossing the line and, though both the buckets and the bypassing were introduced for sound welfare reasons, the sense that reached many living rooms was one of scarcely managed chaos.
Subsequent reviews of the day by the BHA and Aintree resulted in some fairly minor changes to a few of the National fences and the banning of six-year-olds from future Grand Nationals while closer attention will be paid to the experience of the jockeys taking part. No horse will attempt to complete two circuits of the National course until April but this weekend's action will inevitably be seen as the "first test" for the amended course.
The concern, though, is that this is a test that can only be failed. No deaths or serious injuries, indeed no major incidents at all, is the best one can hope for, in which case no one will notice. The worst-case scenario is a death or a pile-up, which might set loose the idea that "something more must be done" before the National itself in the spring.
Should the BHA find itself in that particular bind this time next week, it will have only itself to blame. As was the case with its ill-conceived whip rules ? which now seem likely to strangle racing's competitiveness at least until the arrival of Paul Bittar, the authority's new chief executive, next year ? the changes at Aintree were entirely reactive. The BHA felt a desperate need to be seen to do something, for the PR value as much as anything else, and so it tinkered with a few fences and tweaked a couple of rules.
On the face of it that is hardly a disaster but the worry is that the sport's ruling body is getting addicted to reaction. Why? Because at a time when its authority is slipping away, it makes the BHA feel important. It did it with the whip, it did it with the National, so what will it fiddle with next?
Connoisseurs of fine comedy may recall an episode of Father Ted in which the hero tries to knock out a tiny dent in a shiny new car being offered as a raffle prize. He then tries to tap back the bump that results. Before too long, the car is scrap.
The National is one of racing's most important assets and, though few would now deny that it was in urgent need of modernisation a couple of decades ago, in recent seasons the process of change has borne more resemblance to Ted's tapping.
At some point the BHA needs to stop reacting and defend the National on the basis that it is as safe as it can ever be without destroying the essence of the challenge. Perhaps, after the latest review, that stage has now been reached but, with the whip fiasco still damaging racing on a daily basis, would anyone be brave enough to bet on it?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/nov/28/grand-national-course-needs-defending
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