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The National being the National, I have ante-post wagers on two others. Welsh trainer Evan Williams has shown that he knows exactly what is needed to get a horse into the frame at Aintree. From 2009 to 2011 he had State of Play in the first four and then last year Cappa Bleu finished third. At Ascot in February Cappa Bleu ran what was for me the perfect trial behind Vino Griego, and when I approached Evan afterwards for his verdict on the performance he looked at the heavens and with biting emphasis simply enunciated two words: ‘One day. One day.’ I got 20–1 against Cappa Bleu’s prospects that day and he is still available at 14–1 to provide his much-underrated pilot Paul Moloney with a National winner. My third hope is David Bridgwater’s Wyck Hill, who disappointed in the King George after being purchased by J.P. McManus but who turned out to have suffered a bad cut in the race. He is a big fellow who should take to the National fences but, thanks to that Kempton performance, my 20–1 on him now looks miserly as you can back him anywhere at 33–1. Interestingly Bridgy rates him better than his The Giant Bolster who ran fourth in the Gold Cup but as I write they are still assessing if Wyck Hill has recovered sufficiently to run.
We will all be praying this year that we can concentrate before and after on the racing rather than the politics. The animal rights activists were in full cry after last year’s triumph for the grey Neptune Collonges because tragically that year’s Gold Cup winner Synchronised and According to Pete both had to be put down afterwards. Once again racing in general and Aintree in particular were under the wrong kind of spotlight. The penalty of a race that uniquely has 12 million viewers is its appeal also to propagandists, and the RSPCA, which has often in the past worked sensibly with racing’s authorities to maximise safety, came out all guns blazing labelling Becher’s Brook a ‘killer fence’ and demanding its scrapping. In fact, Synchronised broke a leg while running riderless half a mile after Becher’s. True, According to Pete broke his off-fore when falling at Becher’s but in fact he jumped it well and simply had nowhere to go because On His Own had fallen ahead of him. The irony is that ‘improvements’ to Becher’s following past protests probably did for him. What the professionals tell you is that easing Becher’s has made jockeys less fearful of the fence. Instead of fanning out across the course to tackle it they now go faster and crowd in. That, it seems, is what unsighted On His Own.
Since last year’s race, three more drop fences have had their landing areas levelled out and to calm the cavalry charge of 40 horses to the first fence the start has been moved 90 yards closer to it, taking jockeys and horses away from the adrenalin-inducing hubbub in the stands. Much more sensibly, the Aintree fences are now being built around plastic cores rather than timber posts, which can prove a fearsome obstacle on the second circuit when first-round fencers have kicked the spruce off them.
All that is fine, but unless some genuine practical concern is revealed by this year’s contest we must surely stop there. The whole point of the National is that it is different — longer, more demanding and, yes, a little riskier. Implement too many more ‘reforms’ and there simply won’t be any point, it won’t any longer be the National and there will be no reason for those 12 million to tune in.
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