With a few fences to go in the Grand National the runners and riders unexpectedly swerved and ran round the side of a fence instead of jumping over it. For a second or two I couldn’t work out why on earth they had taken this unlikely detour … And then I saw the black screens that had been erected on the racetrack just in front of the by-passed fence and realized that they concealed an injured, or more likely dead horse.
Suddenly, I wasn’t half so interested in the race.
Nor will anyone be interested in the Grand National, or any other steeplechase, come to that, if things keep going the way they are. Five horses killed at Cheltenham last month, now three more at the Aintree meeting. As a friend of mine observed today: we call bullfighting a barbaric sport – why is racing any better?
Fatal fall: AP McCoy and Synchronised fall after the sixth fence. The horse had to be put down on the courseWell, I’m no fan of bullfighting. But actually, there’s an argument that horse racing’s even worse. At least in a bullfight the death is deliberate. The entire spectacle is built around the confrontation of man and beast. Someone’s blood will stain the sand: either the bull’s or that of the toreador who stands in front of him. As offensive as many people find it, this is a ritual with an enormous cultural and historical significance. Anyone who ever eats a beefburger should acknowledge that the cow they are chewing on died with a lot less dignity than a bull in the ring.
In steeplechasing, however, horses die as an accidental by-product of the race. No one wants them to perish, but they do. Magnificent thoroughbred creatures lie writhing in agony until a vet comes to put them out of their misery. The humans who have loved, cared for and ridden then are devastated. The loss is entirely pointless. And, by the way, it’s absolutely rotten television.
So I can't see how much longer the National can keep going if it's essentially an equine game of Russian Roulette. That is not to say that we should ban steeplechasing or bring an end to the gloriously British traditions of the Grand National. Where would we be if underdressed Liver Lasses in wildly inappropriate high heels couldn’t parade in front of one lot of cameras, while minuscule Irishmen on mighty steeds raced in front of another lot and the good people of Britain bet millions of pounds on no better basis than choosing the horses’ names they liked best? And where would racehorses be if they were not allowed to race?
More from David Thomas... On the 20th anniversary of the first mobile phone text message... How texting made history but ruined our language- and plenty of marriages! 02/12/12 Why can't we all just stop texting and have an actual face-to-face conversation for once? 18/07/12 Why I’m going into battle with Google to find out if it stole my family’s secrets 13/06/12 Why I hate the snobbery and elitism of the 'anti-elitist' BBC 07/06/12 Say what you like about the French, but they have the world's finest political crumpet 24/05/12 A memo to the sweaty, Lycra-clad bike brigade: The rules of the road apply to you, too 15/05/12 The anti-fat campaign is just fat-headed 10/05/12 Dwain Chambers is no dope: Why reformed drug cheats have the right to be Olympians 30/04/12 With apologies to St George - patron saint of a country that seems to be dying of shame 23/04/12 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEOne of the paradoxes of the interaction between man and nature is that many species thrive precisely because we like to do things with them and to them that some consider cruel. There are, for example, no mammalian species on earth as numerically successful as the cows, sheep and pigs we like to eat and skin. Likewise, game birds flourish while songbirds decline because people spend large amounts of money to rear pheasants, grouse and the like, purely so that they can then shoot them.
Racehorses only exist because people want to race them. And, by the way, they love racing. Synchronised, after all, died at the Grand National while running loose, without his jockey A P McCoy. Faced with the choice of careering round the course by himself, or staying where he was and nibbling the grass, Synchronised set off as fast as he could towards the nearest fence. Running and jumping is what a horse does best and all the soft-hearted, bunny-hugging sentimentality in the world won’t alter that.
So what we need here is another gloriously British tradition: a compromise. It’s not as if steeplechasing is the first sport to have faced the unfortunate problem of too many dead bodies. Becoming a Grand Prix motor-racing driver used to be about as safe as signing up for the nearest kamikaze squadron. Some of the greatest champions in the sport died behind the wheel and even as they perished there were arguments between petrolheads who said that only namby-pamby wimps needed helmets, safety-belts and fireproof suits on the one hand, and puritans who wanted motor-racing banned on the other. As it happens, we now have cars that go just as fast as anyone could want, while giving their drivers incredible protection from even the most horrendous smashes.
So surely the solution for Aintree, Cheltenham and all the other great jumps meetings is to reform the sport so it remains a fitting challenge to the speed, skill and courage of both man and beast. Just so long as it keeps all the contestants alive until they pass the finishing line.